Facebook and Foursquare at war?
Well, not really but Facebook has launched their new Facebook Places… trying to create a product that could become a leader in geolocal-applications. Foursquare stands on its own as the most popular or most heard of geolocation based application…however their biggest problem is Facebook’s size… over 500 million users. Foursquare must do something big and fast to compete with Facebook. So what’s next for the original pioneer in geolocation based application? What are you going to do Foursquare?
Do you really have to do anything?
Facebook has the tendency to copy sites that have early success in different ventures including Foursquare and Twitter. I remember back in the day of the Lacy household… my mother would always tell me that people loved you if they copied you. Truthfully, I haven’t figured out whether or not she was right… but Foursquare must be doing something right in the world of social media.
Imitation is flattery… technically.
Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare, recently shared with Mashable his opinion of the two services:
“Facebook is about sharing experiences that you’ve had. Foursquare is more about the present tense and the future tense.”
I appreciate his opinion but it is truly how the user interacts with the application… not what the CEO’s opinion is of the competition.
What do you think? Where are you loyal? Do you even care?
I have yet to really care. The only benefit I have ever seen from any location based social site is someone connecting with me on Twitter after they see I am the mayor of somewhere they frequent locally. I'm ultimately not interested in the game, unless the benefits of the competition and/or the winning actually get me something useful.
I think I will remain loyal to foursquare. Biggest difference – I'm hardly ever on Facebook on my phone, and I k now most of my Facebook friends don't care where I am or what I'm doing 24/7, most of them live far away and would find those constant updates annoying. My Foursquare friends (most of them) live right here in Indy with me, and we're connected on a daily basis w/ our updates and check-in's. It's completely different, and can't see myself ever wanting to push out the type of info I push on Foursqure to my Facebook friends. Another issue – I think there are a few privacy issues with Foursquare, and I'm super careful who I choose to friend and connect w/ on the application, there are too many people of Facebook for it to be safe to tell everyone where you are all the time… Just some thoughts!
Facebook may have a bigger user-base than Foursquare – but the demo (I think) is different. A lot of those users have no interest in geolocation games.
Also, this is another example of Facebook failing businesses. Now, maybe the option is there and I'm just not aware of it. But when you 'claim your place' as a business and a user checks in and the update posts to the newsfeed, do you have an option to force that link to your Fan page? If it's just going to a Place page, that's nearly entirely worthless for businesses.
Last – Places is a term already used by Google in their mobile maps app – perhaps more integration is on the way?
Great point. I rarely send a 'check in' status to Facebook or Twitter unless it's a notable location, and I want people to know. I too will keep a select group of people as friends on Foursquare and know I can trust them with the knowledge of where I am and when. The privacy aspect is something to consider when selecting friends on these networks.
Games aside, this is about delivering relevant mobile advertising. Facebook is being polite to Foursquare now, to see if they can innovate something nice to copy, or to see if the cost of acquisition goes down. I'm not sure what Foursquare's next move is (I'd sell to Facebook at any decent price in their now-terrible strategic position), but if you have any doubt who will win the location-based game, think about it from the standpoint of where the money comes from: advertising. If you had to advertise a product in only one place, where would it be? The massive mall where 42% of America visits daily, spends significant time, and has 200-300 friends each? Or the cute little gaming app with the mayors and badges with 1% of America occasionally checking in?
[...] Foursquare versus Facebook Places (kylelacy.com) [...]
I'm sure they will be developing some application for Fan Page integration (if they haven't already). Facebook would be missing some huge communication potential if they ignored that system.
I tend to be a little over the top when checking in to places…. I will not check in at my home… that is the only security measure I will take.
I just finished the Facebook Effect and they talk about things like this in the book. Facebook has positioned itself to take all kinds of existing businesses and copy them by placing them on top of its "social graph" and quickly have a 500 million user head start. Scary.
Why do you think Foursquare has a terrible market position?
Do you really think the ad model is going to survive this system?
This is also in the recent edition of Wired Magazine. Chris Andersen has an article called the Web is Dead. I would encourage you to read it. I talks about the build out of Facebook and the social graph that might potentially destroy Google's open model.
Never thought I'd hear the words "destroy Google"