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Foursquare 8.0 — Learns what you like and leads you to places you love
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@rrhoover I agree that Yelp is best used when you are looking for somewhere you already know about. My primary Yelp use cases are (1) looking up an address of a known place and (2) bookmarking a bunch of places I found on Eater.com Heatmaps in a city I'm visiting for easy reference getting there later.
@rrhoover Hey thx! We've been hearing this from people ("Foursquare search is so much better than Yelp!") for 2+ years... the problem has been that in the old app, many people didn't even know you could use 4SQ for search since checkin was so front and center. Glad we finally fixed that.
@dens there might still be more you can do with affordance in the labels/around search, yelp uses a lot of real estate to almost suggest what to kind of search near where. I might do something like change the label to "Search for food, drinks, etc" and change it based on the context of the day / location. As well as potentially micro text underneath. Something to explore!
@dens Are you working on user-business relationship features? For e.g. entice merchants/businesses to promote specials / offers that are targeted, and you take a cut of it.
@wmougayar we have over 1.9m businesses who've already claimed their locations, and offer them a set of tools ranging from posting specials, updates about what's happening at their store, stats, and promoting themselves in search results.
We haven't done more extensive targeting work yet, but I'd expect that to come as our audience grows bigger and reaching a specific segment of it becomes important.
@noah_weiss I think it's an unexploited revenue opportunity you might want to consider. 1.9 million biz's have millions of offers and specials they want to reach customers and prospects with. You're in the middle of that. Email me off line if you'd like wmougayar AT gmail .
I used it at the very beginning then stop using it, and eventually became a TRUE fan when I moved in New York. Foursquare unlocks the best of what New York has to offer. Splitting the app in two makes perfect sense to me. I use Swarm to check-in as an old habit and also for the social aspect (where are your friends?). They did a great job with he last update of Swarm. I use Foursquare when I'm looking for recommendations, and fill my ToDo list :) I don't mind having 2 apps as the triggers to open the apps are different. Links between apps are well designed and we should get used to it - it's a common pattern as a mobile-first service growths. Congrats to the Foursquare team!
I'd love someone to explain why you couldn't combine the privacy models in a single app. Background location could be not publicly shared, and sharing reviews could act as a checkin. I wrote up my thoughts here: http://blog.kirigin.com/new-new-...
@ikirigin Two different privacy models is maybe the #1 reason to split the app -- it's impossible for a normal user (aka: not super early tech adopter) to grok both a Friend and Follower model in the same app. My making Swarm = checkins + private + friends only and Foursquare = tips + public + followers, we cleaned up one of our biggest headaches.
@dens Yep, something that I glossed over in my post is comments / messaging. The former fits a public view (like comments on amazon reviews) and the latter fits friends coordinating. I would imagine a checkin==post world would be the start of a group conversation, but that is more complex than I represented. This distinction is interesting, but it isn't actually the same issue as always-tracking vs friend-checkins that those investor posts mentioned.
[obligatory "great to see founders on product hunt!" comment]
One of my main use cases for Foursqaure is lists and lists are BURIED in 8.0. (So many clicks!) I use lists for places I want to go to in my city, a city I'm visiting, and just my favorites. I have a list of my favorite lunch options, for instance. I was happy to see that using the lunch filter in Foursquare 8.0 was about 80% identical to that lunch list I built, though. My hope is that their algorithms replace the need for me to build manual lists, but this remains to be seen.
EDIT: Feature request - long press on a "taste" to add it to your personal taste profile.
@eric3000 Yeah, lists are a bit buried for now (Profile -> Saved -> Lists). In hustling to get the app out, we had to make tough decisions about what would make it in for launch and what we'd work on immediately after launch. Lists will get some love in the near future. (FWIW - Everyone here at 4SQ loves their list and we want to make them as awesome as possible)
I'm a Foursquare superuser. I'm having hard time liking the split. The original pitch made more sense to me. To get personalised recommendations, the app needs to know where are you going and where are you friends are going. The Old Foursquare had a constant flow of that data. The New Foursquare has the same promise of personalised recommendations, but has moved checkins to another app. So where would the "Personalised" part come from?
(Looks like the checkin button is not that hidden in the new Foursquare. And I've just checked in via Swarm reasonably quickly)
@nikitakorotaev Personalizations come from your checkin history and the tastes you select in the new Foursquare app. For me, so few of my friends every used Foursquare to make that part of it useful. Everything in Foursquare 8.0 is public, which means your friends don't have to use it to make it useful.
@nikitakorotaev Hey Nikita, HeyLets (iOS) solves the problem you raise about personalization. We're on Product Hunt today. I'd love for you to check it out and get your feedback: http://www.producthunt.com/posts...
@dens what was the thinking behind moving checkins into a new app and not discovery? Since Foursquare was perceived as a check-in app, felt easier to keep checkins under Foursquare brand and introduce a new brand for discovery?
@nikitakorotaev We know that "personalized local search" is a 100M+ user plus opportunity, and is certainly a bigger opportunity than "just checkins". Therefore, why not take our flagship product / all our awesomeness and put it in the best place for 50M+ people to consume it immediately... the existing. Foursquare app.
The big bet was that people who love checking in would migrate over to a faster / easier checkin experience if we made one for them. And so that's what we did. And that's what happened -- 90% of the people who were checking in on May 14th (the day before we launched Swarm) are now checking in using Swarm.
(in all fairness, this was one of the toughest -- if not *the* toughest - decision we had to make and we spent a long long long time thinking about it and debating it)
@philtoronto Looks like someone did that. But while it's certainly the version number, I felt like "8.0" meant a whole lot less than "The New" since that's how they've been branding it. Similar to when Apple launched "The New iPad" instead of calling it the iPad 3. @rrhoover Thoughts?
I've been a Foursquare fanboy for years and the experience, especially in new places, just kept getting better. I wasn't a fan of Swarm, it felt redundant in isolation so it got deleted, but I've re-downloaded it again tonight after updating Foursquare - it seems to make sense now, although the jury's still out on whether I'll pursue checkins as hard - I tended to use it more to see which friends were nearby. The new Forusquare app is blazing fast and looks gorgeous - genuinely can't wait to get travelling again (Estonia later this month) to see how it treats me.
@paul_a_smith Thx! Remember, this is the beginning of both apps -- Swarm is still on 1.0.8! Just wait how great it'll be once we hit 2.0 :)
My circle of close friends and I are Foursquare power users. We literally use it as a way to stay in touch regarding everyone's whereabouts on any given night in Portland. The separate apps has tripped people up a little bit, but I think it makes sense from a business standpoint.
The total market size for the discovery use case is far greater than those of us in the check-in-crazy category. With checking-in being at the center of the original Foursquare app, I can see how the users they are competing with Yelp for would have been turned off.
Now those of us who check-in everywhere can continue to have that experience, and Foursquare can focus on creating a better discovery solution, which happens to be integrated with my check-ins. I like the idea. I hope this new app makes me stop missing Oink. I really miss Oink.
My biggest pet peeve with the new app is the notion of Expertise. I hope there's a little bit more to the algorithm than just "you post a lot about x so you're an expert" (which is what the reviews I've read so far imply). It reminds me of the biggest issue I always had with Klout, and why I would caution customers from using it as a good gauge of influence. Sure, Kim Kardashian has a Klout score of 9,645,456 and she might be influential about fashion and branding, but that doesn't mean she's influential about auto racing or retina displays. It's all about context. Similarly, just because someone is reviewing various Olive Gardens constantly (apologies to anyone who loves Olive Garden) doesn't mean I'm going to consider them an expert on Italian Food the next time I'm looking for a good recommendation.
@kenromano You'll see your expertise stats on your profile pages. It's not just how many tips, but also likes and saves of your tips. So if they're crap, you won't be an expert.
As for Olive Garden vs. Italian Food, all about how Foursquare classifies Olive Gardens. I'd lump them together :)
@kenromano It's a mix of leaving Tips AND getting feedback on them... so it's a two way street. You can *imagine* expertise extending to taste ("expertise in lobster rolls" --- hot, right???) or even leveling at some point. But not yet :)
I'm a Foursquare power user in NYC & have a sizable contingent of close friends who also check in regularly. I pay for international data when I travel in large part so that I can check in & use tips to navigate. I've loved Foursquare for years & really want them to succeed.
I think Foursquare 8.0 is a HUGE step forward in finally delivering on the promise of personalizing based on the several years & 4000+ check-ins worth of data I've shared with the app. I understand the reasoning for making discovery a focus in itself & my initial impression of the new experience is great.
However, I do have one major concern which is that the Swarm + Foursquare 8.0 split seems to have optimized entirely for consumption of tips & not for creation of them. I was never a huge tip writer but every time I've left a tip it's been spur of the moment & inspired by the act of checking-in. Never have I set out to leave a series of helpful tips for my friends at various locations - and I think the sort of user who does that is very niche, very opinionated & probably closer to the Yelp-style reviewer than the breezily authentic tip writers that I love about Foursquare. By taking the ability to leave tips out of Swarm, it seems the new system has drastically reduced the opportunity for casually given advice.
@ecetweets Really? I think the new Foursquare is 1000x better at teasing tips out of people -- the "add tip" button is on the top right of every page! :) Also, the "Here" tab tasks for tips and the "Add Tip" screen gives you a list of all the places you've been to AND lets you know which ones you already left tips at. (ssshh, but in the 4 hours since we launched the app (!) we already got 5x as many tips (!!) as we normally get in a 24 hour period)
@dens Great to hear re: early performance of tips - hopefully keeps going in that direction! And awesome to have you answering questions here!
If you have time to answer more, here's another one: haven't been out in the wide world with new Foursquare yet, but if reading tips, leaving tips & checking-in to Swarm are all built into "Here" tab, seems like I will mostly be firing up Foursquare > Here when I get places rather than Swarm. Feels like a regression on the new behavior I've "learned" in the past few weeks of transition e.g. open Swarm to check in, open Foursquare to learn about places. Is the assumption/goal that most people will be checking in to Swarm via Foursquare (where they can also read & leave tips)? If so, was the split largely driven by privacy distinctions + wanting to really optimize for the more broadly appealing discovery use case.... or do you really think there's a sizable group of users out there who just want the check-in side & don't care for tips at all?
@ecetweets There are two separate questions here, so let me address each.
1) If you use both apps, what should your flow be when you get to the place? The answer, for me, is it depends on the place. If it's somewhere I've never been, the fastest way to find out what to order or see is Foursquare > Here. It takes seconds. Then I might check-in later, and the Swarm button is convenient.
If it's a place I go a lot and don't care about tips, the fastest thing is to just open up Swarm, it'll snap to my location quickly, and check-in. That's for social and personal history reasons.
2) Do we think there are people who would use just one app? The answer is absolutely. We think there's a *huge* potential audience who just wants great personalized recommendations but has no interest in social sharing. The check-in, we know, can be off putting to those people.
While some are not a fan that the check-in experience is now in a separate app (Swarm), I'm a fan of the new experience. I've used Foursquare for years now to discover places to go and have never been let down. Foursquare is indispensable for place discovery if you live in a city or travel at all.
@mg Some people swear by Foursquare as a local search app, especially in some international markets. That said, Dennis has made clear he wants it to be an everyday app for people in their home cities.
@mg Foursquare really shines internationally. I still way prefer Yelp domestically. Sad that both have neglected their desktop web experience, though.
@sachinag I'm just sad they removed your total check-in count from the web experience. :(
big kudos @dens and team -> new foursquare is simply much better. To me, there is zero question that the UX is significantly more intuitive and has been built on Foursquare's core (recommendations). UI is also way friendlier. As an early FS adopter I dropped the 'check-in' / mayorship game 3 years ago. I'd check in only as a reminder to self but certainly not to play the game. In comparison Yelp feels bloated and stuck in the 90s.
>> Yelp feels bloated and stuck in the 90s.
@sal_matteis Foursquare 8.0 highlights this very well IMHO :) Thx for the feedback!
As one of the first foursquare users, I've always enjoyed the app. I like that I have an enormous amount of checkin data, and it has been helpful to find local things. But, this feels a bit wide in focus. While I totally get it, the conflux of functionality and ad revenue is going to be interesting to see.
i am personally not a big fan of the unbundling here. I feel it should be a tab rather than an app. we already have too many apps and i don't think there is a strong case of a check-in only app. it's also compelling to read the reviews left by angry users like me on both foursquare and swarm.
This transition has definitely been a bit scary for a Foursquare power-user like myself, but I think it's for the best. I'm just the kind of user Dennis described in a recent interview -- whenever I opened Foursquare in the past it was for ONE use-case, the check-in or recommendations, but not both. If splitting the apps apart makes both experiences better, then so be it.
The only thing I'm sad about is that my total check-in count has been ripped from the web experience. It makes sense, but I'm still sad.
@tommaxwelll Eh, maybe one of these days we'll build out a Swarm web profile experience but it's nowhere near the top of the priority list. We got a lot of other stuff to make first... this is just the beginning :)
@dens Like I said, it makes sense. The tradeoffs are totally worth it for the new experience which is 100x better, I just miss being able to see my check-ins from the web. NBD, though.
I've been using foursquare for a while and while I do feel nostalgic about the old, simple app I look forward to seeing the new version. I just opened it up and it does feel a bit overwhelming but I'm sure that's just the novelty.
@dangoldin Give it some time and report back. Always always always want to hear feedback. I'm @dens on Twitter. (and cc @4sqSupport in case I miss it)
@dens Will do. I understand why foursquare is evolving and glad you're sticking with your convictions. I think I just found the earlier versions simpler and more playful - now it does seem there's a lot more going on. Won't stop me from using it though.
@dens I’ve been using it for quite a few years — superuser and contributed a lot to the database.
The main issue for me* is that checkin and browsing aren’t mutually exclusive or performed at different times.
* and a reasonable amount of people from what I hear
Perhaps separating both apps and even brand isn’t the only way to solve this without pissing off perhaps 20M users (50% 2013 reported users).
I’m obviously not aware of all feedback and data so I cannot tell for sure, but it feels like the old app had a lot of UI issues that lead to incorrect brand perception — checkin is mandatory and a barrier, no other perceived value.
I think that could be solved by iterating the app, just a quick thought form a long-time user, someone who thought about applying to 4sq in the past and designed a similar, broader service in 2005.
(also: Should existing users be pushed onto a new brand (Swarm), and new to a refreshed (Foursquare)? Or the other way around?)
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