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Foursquare is Small

Oct 08, 09 in Internet, Startups   10 Comments

I love Foursquare.  I really do.  I am a SuperUser.  I play all the time.  And have been doing so since it was introduced to Atlanta last year shortly after South By. 

Foursquare_girlFoursquare is fun.  It's on online location based game that is currently available in a select few cities in the United States.  When you go to places you check in on Foursquare you earn points for your check ins.  And when you play the game you earn badges such as Bender, Local, and Super User.  For all I know there may be a Walk of Shame, but I have not yet seen it.  You also get to become "The Mayor" if you've got more check ins than anyone else at a particular place.  It's kinda fun to compete and oust folks.  As a matter of fact it's a lot of fun.  More than fun, it is addictive.  I love it.

And Foursquare has been getting a lot of attention.  They raised venture capital.  And Robert Scoble thinks it could be bigger then Twitter.  I disagree.  Here's why.

Fred Wilson quite correctly points out that the value of a social network is derived with frequent usage and a large friend network.  Foursquare has captured the former through their addictive game mechanism.  The large network however, is an issue. 

I have approximately 1,900 followers on Twitter, 700 connections on LinkedIn, and 300 friends on Facebook.  On Foursquare I have 31 friends.  And 9 requests from others to become their friends that I doubt I am going to accept.  These numbers are partially based on the relative size of the networks and my use of them.  But there is something else at play.  Think about these networks.  The size of these networks are inversely related to their intimacy.  The less intimate the larger the network.

Foursquare is very intimate.  Very.  It tells people where I am.  When I am there.  This leads to much more discriminate friend acceptance.  Anybody can follow me on Twitter.  On Foursquare I only friend people whom I would welcome having a spur of the moment in person conversation.  That number is small.  

And while I love Foursquare, unless they can overcome the intimacy effect or achieve extreme density, they are going to be small as a result.

Comments

I think this is why Brightkite just added "fans" in addition to "friends". They want people to have larger networks, but at the same time retain intimacy with a smaller network.

In general, I think most services will start to adopt both asymmetrical and symmetrical models. Facebook started intimate, but is gradually going more public. Twitter is going the other way by adding "lists", which I bet will evolve into deeper privacy settings.

Daniel Sims  |  Oct 08, 09 at 09:21 PM

I might not be the norm but I fail to find the utility of Brightkite and am creating a more intimate audience on Facebook as my network expands to include those in different life stages.

Lance  |  Oct 08, 09 at 10:00 PM

I think you're absolutely correct. Broadcasting one's location publicly is not going to catch on. And is why I think Twitter's location aware features will not do well. Except for stalkers and the aggressively single crowd.

BTW, you can always find me. Online. Why do you need to know which Starbucks I am at?

Paul Freet  |  Oct 09, 09 at 09:33 AM

It is kinda cool when you walk into a big crowded space to check in to Foursquare to see if there are some of your close friends in the area to get the networking started.

Lance  |  Oct 09, 09 at 09:41 AM

Lance, I'd love to know 24/7 precisely where ever yone of my friends, family and colleagues are. The point is, I don't want them to know where I am. Besides, how crowded does a Starbucks have to be for you not to see me there? :-)

Paul Freet  |  Oct 09, 09 at 09:58 AM

I'd be interested to get a female's perspective on this as well. Is it more of a danger for them to post their whereabouts at all times?

Also, location sharing is probably a lot more useful for college students, even though I'm sure most of them don't use it yet.

Wei  |  Oct 09, 09 at 10:16 AM

Paul, you are probably right that broadcasting your location will not catch on. But I think broadcasting something interesting about your location will catch on.

The utility of Brightkite (which is not as prevalent in Foursquare) is the wealth of metadata around a certain location. I could post a note about something at Turner Field, which shares a link http://brightkite.com/places/91b66cb48e50be403202c6690e30cbb8 to twitter and facebook. There you can see a map, notes, and photos that other people have left at that location in the past.

One can really get a feel of what a place is like based on what notes and photos people leave, which is often more honest than a Yelp review or a company website.

Daniel Sims  |  Oct 09, 09 at 10:27 AM

i'm in complete agreement with you lance. just gave foursquare another shot here again last week and i'm still not pleased with it. this one is surely bound to fizzle away in the near future.

Jonathan Nelson  |  Oct 23, 09 at 01:16 PM

Jonathan: To be clear, I like the Foursquare product, I just think there might be some challenges to scaling the social network of the service.

Lance  |  Oct 23, 09 at 04:07 PM

I think the intimacy of 4square is actually an advantage - I only friend actual friends on 4square, and they're the only people I want to share my location with, or have ad hoc meetups with in the first place.

The question is, will the usage rate among my friends increase to the point where there is real utility. Right now I don't know enough people here using it for that to be the case. If this happens for a lot of people, I think the service will prosper.

Russell Jurney  |  Oct 25, 09 at 11:48 PM

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