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Why Foursquare Isn’t the Next Twitter
Foursquare and how people are using it intrigues me to no end. From a personal standpoint, it’s creepy as hell.
Here’s some of the things that make me scratch my head:
- People will “friend” anyone, including brands. Why? It’s amazing that people are okay with friending random people, but don’t want targeted ads. The idea of privacy has certainly come a long way.
- Taking privacy a step further, most accounts are tied to a cell phone, email address or both. Really? You’re going to open up your personal cell to random people?
- With twitter, you often hear, “Why should I join? I don’t care what you’re eating for lunch or the rest of your mindless dribble.” Yet, Foursquare is EXACTLY that. People (including myself) update when they’re at the grocery store, gym, Starbucks, work, etc. Maybe I don’t follow enough people, but rarely does someone give a “shout-out”, let alone a shout-out that includes a link to an interesting article or something funny. What do the shout-outs usually include? The mindless dribble people give as the reason for not liking twitter
- Sure, many argue that with a tighter circle of friends (assuming you only friend people you know), your message is more impactful. But, when will the messages matter enough to be important?
From a business standpoint, I LOVE Foursquare. There are certainly some great opportunities, especially as more people join and the Foursquare team continues to make updates and open up their API. However, I don’t think we’ll see people abandon Twitter to solely use Foursquare any time soon. But, I do see both of them playing very nicely together.
Posted in Advertising, Interactive Media, Marketing, Social Media
I agree completely.. location based services that will win in this LBS war, are ones that will learn how to integrate how much users tweet about their happenings and movements!
I’ve noticed that Rummble – http://www.rummble.com has recently been able to datamine in the twittersphere to show users what is happening nearby based on any tweet that refers to a geo-tag or location. It’s pretty groundbreaking stuff, and is very user friendly!
@Kaitie – my thoughts exactly
Haven’t heard of Rummble – will have to check it out. Thanks for the link!