Foursquare last night unveiled a new video that appears on their logged out homepage. It gives users a sense of what foursquare is really about, but perhaps most telling are the things that aren’t mentioned.
As you’d expect, the new video focuses heavily on the recommendations aspect of foursquare. It also speaks to keeping up with your friends with photos and comments and redeeming deals offered by local businesses. In the 59 second video, “check in” is used exactly once (and then only in reference to unlocking specials).
Compare that to their previous video, created in April of 2010:
Checking in is mentioned at least five times by name, and referred to in other ways a few more times than that. Badges, points and mayorships take up a hefty portion of the old video, but you won’t find a single mention of them in the new one.
With this video, foursquare has distanced themselves as far as they can from many of the things they originally became known for, when they were often referred to as a “check-in service” or a “location-based game.” It now reflects more closely what foursquare’s founders wanted to build all along — a social city guide — and lays out exactly where the service is headed.
When you look at those two videos side by side, it almost appears that the company has executed one of the most artful startup pivots ever, but that’s not the case at all. Those check-ins, points, badges and mayorships were never anything more than a ploy to get people to keep pulling out their phones and sending their location to foursquare, all while the company was building up the huge data set they needed to power recommendations and other features.
Listen closely to the old video and you’ll hear a lot of the same ideas presented in the new one, like recommendations and “making your city easier to use.” There’s no mistaking that foursquare was on exactly the same path then as they are now.
Sure, the badges and mayorships are a fun diversion, but the real meat of foursquare has been, and always will be, the tips and recommendations they’re able to provide. Foursquare won’t kill the gaming aspects anytime soon (if ever), but they’ll continue to take a back seat.
So, is the check-in dead? No, not at all. It’s evolving. Foursquare has transitioned to a service where you can get value, in the form of recommendations, without ever checking in. Check-ins, though, will remain an important part of the service. They keep the huge data monster fed and happy, after all. Foursquare must (and no doubt will) find ways to make checking in a more natural act to keep them coming.
In many ways, this video is the culmination of everything we’ve seen from foursquare over the last few weeks. They’re finally coming out of the closet, so to speak, and telling the world what they’re really about. It’s been a long time coming.
PS I think I’m in love with the dancing burrito.
#1 by Shannon on January 26, 2012 - 10:29 am
Wow! Those videos are like night & day.
#2 by Zach on January 26, 2012 - 7:46 pm
I guess it’s fitting then that the latest update for Android completely botched the check-in process. First it wouldn’t let anyone check in even if they were only a few feet from a venue, now it lets me check in anywhere even if I’m miles and miles away. Which is just as well, since it can’t actually find ANYTHING without searching anymore.
Until it’s fixed, it’s really not worth checking in anywhere because the search is such a hassle.
#3 by Evan S on January 27, 2012 - 1:45 pm
Say what? It works just the same as it always had for me (G2).
#4 by Zach on January 27, 2012 - 2:58 pm
Uh oh, if others aren’t experiencing my problem then it’ll never get fixed.
When I hit the Check In button, I get a list of venues but depending on where I am most of them are 0.5-2.0 miles away. It used to put frequently checked in nearby venues first but now some of them don’t even show up in the list at all.
For example, if I go to my local Target store it used to say I was ~30 feet from it when I would Check In from the parking lot. Now it’s 0.8 miles away every time, even if I’m across the entire shopping center. Update/refresh doesn’t change the distances like it did before. Same thing with my “Home” venue. When I check in at home it used to be the closest (naturally) but now it’s 0.2 miles away and it says I’m 900 feet from a post office in another town!
It’s like it’s using the cell tower’s location and not my GPS, even though the GPS does flash and lock on like it did before. GPS works fine in other apps it’s just 4sq that broke since the last update.
It’s not denying me the ability to check in anywhere but it’s a hassle when commonly visited places don’t show up, or are listed as being miles away.
#5 by kartikel.com on January 26, 2012 - 8:33 pm
recommendations ..
#6 by Gillis on January 27, 2012 - 7:27 am
I think your points about Foursquare being a recommendation engine are valid, and I think it’s a good thing. However, the fact that checking-in, badges, points and stats are not mentions doesn’t mean they reduced their emphasis on it. As I see it, the new video is a better promotional tool. It is meant for people who have not yet used Foursquare, and the video displays the obvious benefits: See where your friends are, find good spots, and get deals. These benefits are more likely to resonate with people than the prospect of checking in to get virtual but otherwise meaningless points and badges. However, once someone is convinced, he(she) might find that the points and gaming aspects are more compelling than initially assumed and get addicted to the game.
Thus, I think emphasising different aspects in a video does not necessarily reflect changes in strategy, it’s simply a video better suited to its specific purpose of signing up new people by displaying Foursquare’s major benefits, rather than its features.
#7 by Rob Beland on January 27, 2012 - 8:39 am
Too much talk out there about the check-in going away. This just can’t be true…think about the video… It was all about the check-in but doesn’t have to focus on the term “check-in” How do you know where the great burrito is if somebody didn’t check in and leave a tip? How do you find out where your friends are to have lunch with them if they aren’t checked in nearby? How do you get the free hour of yoga if you don’t check in for the first time. From there they get into the specials, promos, etc…
The check-in is what foursquare is all about and while it may be less of a manual process in the future (something I don’t agree with), it’s not going away. NFC may make it easier to check-in, and I personally think QR codes will be big for check-ins (starting to happen now) but checking in is the key to most of the entire Foursquare “GAME”…