Foursquare Splits To Take On Yelp

InformationWeek reports that check-in app Foursquare is splitting into two pieces. One of them -- the part that will retain the Foursquare name -- is actually losing the original check-in functionality, in favor of local reviews and recommendations; a second app called Swarm will get the who's-where-right-now part of the Foursquare functionality. From the article: "Foursquare isn't the first company to unbundle its features into new apps. Last month, Facebook announced that it will separate in-app messaging from its official iOS and Android apps and require users to download Messenger to chat with friends. Users will have two weeks to download Messenger before the service in the main Facebook app disappears, the company said. ... Foursquare's changes also aim to capitalize on a mobile app trend: Taking online friendships offline to meet up in person. Most recently, Facebook announced its opt-in Nearby Friends feature, which will display your friends' locations on a map and track, store, and share your location with others."

Re:

[crashumbc]

Not originally and even when they added it, you didn't have to use messenger, you could access messaging from within the main app.

Re: Always seperate

[loufoque]

And it was better

Seriously, Get A Life (tm) ...

[Frosty Piss]

I suppose that one could actually make use of the Foursquare thingy to see when people are all arriving for a party or get-together, but really, mostly it's just Facebook post: "So-and-so just arrived at Podunk Pizza" or "So-and-so just arrived at Whole Foods to spend a lot of money of trendy food..."

Is Foursquare just an automated Twitter feed to Facebook where the user no longer actually has to type in narcissistic crap that no one is interested?

Facebook should by Foursquare.

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

There is a game element to check-ins where you can become mayor, gets points, do runs etc...

Let me fix that for you:

There is a lame element to check-ins where you can become mayor, gets points, do runs etc...

Re:

[perryizgr8]

Facebook should by Foursquare.

1000x this. Foursquare has been the most obvious purchase for facebook since the beginning. Instead of buying unrelated crap (instagram/whatsapp), Zucky should just buy foursquare and integrate the whole functionality. It will be the first acquisition which would add real value.

Unbundling seems like an odd fad

[DavidinAla]

While I don't want an "everything including the kitchen sink" app, the idea that functions should be broken into separate apps seems like an odd (and insane) fad to me. If the functions are related, they belong in the same app. If they're not related, why were they ever designed into the same app? For instance, in Facebook, the messaging app is for messaging people I'm connected to on Facebook. I don't want it for anything else and I'm not going to make that messaging system into my primary messaging system. It will ONLY be for communication with people I don't know well enough to be connected by email. It just seems as though folks in Silicon Valley talk to each other and somebody came up with the idea that functions should be different apps, so many companies are doing it with no rational reason behind it.

Re: Agreed! mod up

[loufoque]

Is there a use to facebook beyond messaging?

Re: Agreed! mod up

[mikesd81]

I suppose you could install the app and NOT put a shortcut on your homescreen. If it is an app used but only very little, then you don't need the shortcut. Also on Android you can make folders on the home screen. So if you put all FB apps in that folder and touch the folder all apps in there are available.

that order kind of makes sense

[Trepidity]

If you're going to unbundle them (no idea if this is a good idea, but say you already decided that), it makes sense to make the already-installed one be the reviews/etc. thing, and the new app be the check-in thing. You can probably get existing Foursquare users to install a new check-in app, because that's the functionality they came for in the first place. But if you kept check-in in the existing app and created a new reviews app as a Yelp competitor, it'd be harder to get any installs.

Hence it makes sense to move the thing people actually want out of the existing app, though that initially seems counterintuitive.

Re:

[Nemyst]

The only risk is if a competing app has a low enough barrier to entry that people decide to migrate to it instead. In the mobile world, for this kind of service, this is a very real possibility.

History repeats itself

[Brian Kendig]

"One of them ... is actually losing the original check-in functionality, in favor of local reviews and recommendations..."

Because this worked *so* well for Gowalla.