Why You Should Care About Foursquare

by Avi Savar , May 2, 2011

I had the good fortune to hear PayPal co-founder Peter Theil speak a few weeks ago. He shared a lot of wisdom from behind the podium -- one memorable moment for me was his answer to the question, "Why did Facebook succeed where other social networks (i.e., MySpace) stalled out?"

His answer was simple and elegant. "MySpace was started in L.A. as a place where people went to become somebody else. Facebook was started in Boston as a place where people went to be themselves."

I have always said that social media is a channel of "people stories," but Peter's insight into what made Facebook successful adds further context. The people stories are real; they represent a collective human experience and every individual user is part of it.

Essentially, social networking is about real people and the connections between them. However, social media is also a highly individual experience -- I experience social media through my "social graph" and my experience is different than your experience. Social media is about me -- it's the place I go to be myself.

Mobile Is My Gateway

Like many folks today, I am constantly on the go -- and my mobile phone has become an appendage. My mobile phone is what connects me to my digital world no matter where I am. Mobile is the gateway I use to access information, make connections and "plug in" to my social graph.

The use and adoption of mobile is critical to the thesis of this post ("geo-location is the heart of social). If the stats are true and by 2014 a person's first online experience will be via a mobile phone rather than via a computer, then mobile and social will converge -- social media becomes more than just being "about me," it becomes being about me and ... where I am and what I am doing. Everything that I do is tagged by "where I did it," and the mobile device becomes the conduit to sending and receiving that information -- mobile provides context to everything about me.

I Check In, Therefore I Am

Content is the fuel that makes social media run. Whether it's a 140-character tweet, a video clip or a photo, content is at the center of the social universe. Moreover, content with context is the holy grail. Geolocation provides instant context to the content we create and share because -- remember -- social is all about me, what I'm doing, where I'm doing it, etc.

Now let's think about this a little differently. Let's think about this ecosystem from the perspective of someone who needs to find information rather than share information. Here is a scenario:

I was recently in Amsterdam for three days of client meetings. I landed a day early to adjust to the time change and get settled in, which gave me a free afternoon to explore and wander. As I headed out of the hotel I had a few choices:

Ask the concierge what I should do or where I should go.

Open Google maps and search for some points of interest.

Or ... you guessed it: "Check In" to my hotel on Foursquare and access real-time information about my current surroundings.

Here is the hypothesis. As adoption rates continue to increase across mobile and location-based platforms like Facebook Places and Foursquare, it is to be hoped that the quality of real-time information improves also. This means that in the future, Foursquare could become the front door to the mobile Web just like Google became the front door to the desktop Web. When I'm at my desk, I search to find information in the digital world. When I'm on the go, I check in to access information about the physical world. Social lives right in between the two.

Social is what connects my physical world to my digital world. Checking in is the digital representation of showing up -- it's how your digital self knows where you are.

Think about it. We have all seen movies like "Terminator," where a creature or robot from the future (good or evil) has a built-in computer embedded with some augmented reality view of the world. What does that computer do? It provides relevant (and real-time) information based on where the creature is and what it is doing.

If Foursquare can deliver users relevant information, connecting them to their social graph and providing context to the content they create, then it could indeed become the future front door to mobile -- and then we will all care about Foursquare.

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4 comments about "Why You Should Care About Foursquare ".

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Ismael Seguban, May 2, 2011 at 11:47 a.m.
Hi Avi -
Great post. I definitely think that we should care about Foursquare and all the LBS apps out there. It makes sense for businesses to use these apps to attract new customers and explorers like ourselves but for me the problem is how they are using it. The "specials" that are typically offered are, in what I've seen, not compelling enough to try them out. For me, Foursquare then becomes a mobile, real-time directory of what is around.
@IsmaelAlterian
Community Manager | Alterian
http://www.alterian.com
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Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, May 2, 2011 at 12:35 p.m.

Plan before you go. You can find an incredible amount of info on line including buying a map, books and learning about the history. I would think you would know this by now. When traveling, there is nothing like a paper map to see where you are in relation to your location and where you want to go. If there are tickets to a special art show or concert, do it BEFORE you go or you can easily miss out. Make decisions in advance based upon your tastes not a bunch of strangers. Ask a person in a store or a local person in a restaurant where you get the opportunity for conversation with more information about them and their recommendations according to what you like. In many European cities, you don't even need a phone unless for business or contacting a particular person. Lazy, last minute Susies get more easily lost and miss the best parts. I've seen it.

Marla Lepore from Marla Ink Productions, May 2, 2011 at 5:02 p.m.

Hi Avi -
Great post. I had a similar experience last summer when I was in New York. I checked in (to the "heatpocalypse") and found out not only what restaurants and bars were in the neighborhood but, through user-contributed tips, where there were happy hours and specials, where the best service and deals were, and even what to do in NYC to stay cool in a heat wave. I think Foursquare is like all social media in that it can be a diversion, a waste of time, a bore, a really useful tool, a source of information and a source of information overload - it all depends on how you use it.

Doug Robinson from FreshDigitalGroup, May 3, 2011 at 2:30 a.m.

Avi, great post, and you may be right. The problem is that nobody in the middle of the country is using Foursquare, its been mostly coastal--west coast & east coast. The deals have attracted some in the middle, but if I can only do two social things a day, Foursquare to the average person will lose to Facebook and twitter. And the 8M active user number is closer to 2.5M. However, at conferences its better than SMS. At SXSW, we'd follow our friends to see where they checked in as opposed to engaging in back and fourth texts, much more efficient. Nonetheless, by the end of this year, will have our answer.