The Magazine

Foursquare set to complete their local search evolution with new homepage

6

on October 15th, 2012

Google may offer a wide variety of services, but to this day their homepage at google.com is still little more than a single search box. That’s what they’re known for, after all.

Today foursquare is expected to launch a new version of their desktop homepage (for logged out users, at least) that hopes to emulate Google’s successful philosophy. Search Engine Land reports that the new homepage will feature a single search box in the center of the screen, completing their evolution to a local search provider.

It’s clear with this change (which builds on the recently enlarged search box and improved Explore results page) that foursquare is aiming for the likes of Yelp and Google Local with hopes of providing a superior search experience to either site. For the past two years, they’ve been building what is essentially an un-gameable version of Google’s PageRank for real world places, creating rankings from real-world check-in data and other signals. Putting the search box front and center reveals that information to non-users for the first time.

Users without a foursquare account will, of course, be served generic results, but there’s no doubt there will be encouragements along the way for them to create their own accounts and start benefiting from the personalized results foursquare can provide based on their preferences and those of their friends.

I would be surprised if the the next generation of foursquare mobile apps didn’t follow this same pattern, offering users a generic search option before they register. Foursquare does, after all, see much more traffic from mobile platforms than they do the desktop site.

Foursquare’s biggest challenge going forward is shedding the image they fostered in their first two years of existence as a check-ins service where you told people where you were in exchange for badges and mayorships. While those features are still present, they’re very little of what foursquare focuses on these days. Foursquare must work to convince the people who’ve only heard of their past to give it a try now that they’re almost wholly focused on local search and recommendations. The new Google-like homepage goes a long way to making that happen, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

  • ValleySwagger

    I tested Foursquare against Yelp in a few cities. Foursquare is ok in NYC and SF, but terrible in smaller cities like Stamford CT or White Plains, NY.

  • http://www.almediapage.info/ Tom Servo

    Ever since they rolled out the ‘new search’ a while back, I haven’t been able to find *anything* I want on the first go-round, if I’m looking for something specific. You know, to edit it, or whatever. Generalities work decently: ‘tacos’ or ‘discounts’ or what have you. But if I need to quickly access Bob’s U-Store It, Gas and Taxidermy, a direct exact name search NEVER EVER works. Arrrgh.

    • http://aboutfoursquare.com Chris Thompson

      There’s a trick that will take you to the old search interface: type in what you want to search for, scroll down to “search for people…” and hit enter. Then click on “Places” and you’ll see the original search interface again. Works much better for that sort of thing.

      Explore is meant to weed out the crap venues, which it does well, but often hides the very stuff we need to edit.

      • http://www.almediapage.info/ Tom Servo

        That’s a great tip — thanks! Unfortunately it seems like the old search has gotten worse, too. As a test I searched for “Hampton Inn”, hoping the closest ones would come up first. Hampton Inn hotels did make the top of the search but the closest one was way down the list. When I sorted by distance, everything with the word “inn” was listed and the closest Hampton was #25 in the list. So it seems even getting back to the old interface doesn’t improve things any.

  • http://www.tengoldenrules.com/ Erika Barbosa

    I’m going to be testing this out against Yelp. The UI looks great at first glance.

  • https://www.foursquare.com/user/1587127 Jeremy Haggard

    From my own experience, I think Foursquare’s newer focus on Explore and transition away from a social checkin service may play better in the big cities. In those with lower skylines, however, I’ve seen that most people still use it for its original intention – to keep tabs on friends and earn points and badges.

    For what it’s worth, Yelp and Google Local aren’t big players in many small cities either — most residents in smaller cities already know what’s around and don’t need too much in the way of recommendations for new places.

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