Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘GPS’

Being a regular user of Foursquare I have been wondering for quite some time when the ‘Beta’ emblem would disappear. Last week that happened along with a host of other reported changes (Lists, events, photos – all of which I am not likely to use but are kind of cool in and of themselves). Betabeat wrote about it last week – http://bit.ly/oCgLRj. Unfortunately, the GPS is still fairly inaccurate and you can still check into places that you have not entered – this has to be fixed and Foursquare is working on it.

The offers at nearby places on Foursquare are slowly getting better and more frequent. Yet in the lighting fast world of the social web I am surprised at how long it is taking for a truly enhanced version of Foursquare (for users) to be offered. CEO Dennis Crowley seems to be focused on creating value for merchants – he would be wise to keep in mind that the users might be getting a bit impatient with the slow rate of progress toward what I think is still a good platform with strong legs.

One big question I have is how much more social Foursquare will get. Aside from checking into places where friends might ‘meet-up’ and offering nearby potential customers a reason to come into a particular establishment I am not sure people will embrace and interact with yet another social media platform. Mr. Crowley and his team are counting on that – what do you think?

While Foursquare was making its changes location based Yelp.com made a few changes in its application as well. I use Yelp when looking for nearby eateries, bars, or movies wherever I am in the United States (it does not work outside the U.S. nearly as well).

Last week an update to the application popped up and I installed it but since then the application has suddenly lost its ability to recognize where I am currently located. Good thing I am not depending on it. And before you go asking – all my other GPS based applications are working just fine and I changed nothing in my Yelp profile. Not good. In fact I ended up using Bing to find a restaurant near me this weekend and it worked out satisfactorily. For Yelp that is also not good.

In order for social media applications to continue to gain in value they have to deliver the basics – they have to work (always), be fast and accurate. Once users lose confidence in a social media app’s ability to enhance their lives the downward spiral is underway. I hope that Foursquare and Yelp respectively fix what ails them.

Are you using Foursquare or Yelp?

If the darling of 2010 applications is to truly take hold Foursquare still has some work to do.  A location based mobile application; the mobile marketing community is watching Foursquare’s adoption and usage with great interest.  

It’s pretty simple.  You put the app on your Smartphone and it links with GPS (and even Facebook if you want it to) and wherever you are you can ‘Check-in’ to let fellow Foursquarer’s (my term not theirs) know where you are and even invite them to ‘Swing-by’ (their term).   These ‘updates’ can also be posted on Facebook automatically. 

So say you are in Manhattan at your favorite watering hole.  You check in to let your friends and followers know where you are so they can stop by if they are nearby.  You can also make comments on whatever establishment you are in – good or bad.  If you are the person to visit a particular establishment more than anyone in the network you are then deemed ‘Mayor’ of that establishment. 

You gain ‘badges’ for checking in the first time and when you check in more than 3 times per week at a location you then get a ‘local’ badge.   I cannot resist the temptation to think ‘we don’t need no stinkin’ badges’..but that’s not apparently how the folks at Foursquare feel. 

The marketing implications?  I’m not sure just yet.  A few of my marketing associate friends are using it probably out of the same curiosity that I have – to learn more and see how people use it.  But the whole check in thing while ok can be a bit much.  There’s no way to not invite someone to ‘swing-by’ so wherever you check-in you invite people to swing by.  This may not always be the way you’d want to go.  If you check in when going home do you really want people to swing by?  

One way Foursquare could be used is by companies that have sales and other employees on the road visiting clients and prospects.  If integrated with a platform like Salesforce.com Foursquare would be able to show that the agent was at the location on the sales report.  GPS is a wonderful thing – and big brother like at times as well. 

At present it seems to me that Foursquare is primarily an urban-oriented tool.  So that people could actually ‘swing by’ if they are in the neighborhood.  Suburbanites and those in even more remote locations won’t immediately have as much use for it.  But for some reason I think Foursquare is going to take hold and be a big-time force in the future.  I’ll let you know if I figure that out and if you have any ideas on that I’d love to hear them.