Are You Still Around, Foursquare?

We recently came across a couple of new articles about Foursquare. And that got us thinking. Does anyone really use that anymore? With Facebook’s “Check In” feature, it seems like Foursquare has become outdated. So, we thought we would do a little research. And that is our blog topic for today.

For those who don’t know, Foursquare was introduced in 2009. Its purpose was to allow people to “check in” at locations. You could check in at a restaurant or a store and you might even get a little perk for doing so. This was all geared for those using mobile devices and was introduced in a time when the idea of mobile marketing was really getting going.

Surprisingly Foursquare is still around and they have actually integrated themselves with a lot of other social media. Available as an app, Foursquare can be tied to Facebook and Twitter. They boast over 30 million users and over 1 million businesses. Nowadays Foursquare seems to be more focused on creating a personalized experience for its members. So, based on where you have checked in and where your friends have been checking in, Foursquare will actually start recommend places for you to check out. (It kind of reminds us of some of the same features on Google+ and Google Places.)

For businesses, Foursquare aims to try to get “customers to come to you”. Of course this is going to be geared to those businesses with a storefront. (Interesting fact is that Starbucks is the most “checked in” place in Foursquare’s history.) So, this social media app isn’t really for everyone.

While things may seem like they are going ok for Foursquare – they are integrating, evolving, etc., we came across quite a few articles that would state otherwise. It seems that Foursquare’s membership is not growing and the company isn’t making very much profit either. There are also new competitors entering the scene as well. (We came across an article about a new start-up called Evsdrop out of Chicago.) So, it seems we will just have to wait and see what happens.