On Foursquare’s usefulness

Dan Frommer recently said this about Foursquare’s usefulness:

The broad, public perception of Foursquare still seems to be that it’s all about being the mayor of some bar, or something useless like that, which actually hasn’t been the company’s focus for a long time.

But it is a little hard for someone who only knows the old Foursquare to grasp how useful the new Foursquare has become. The company has actually made great progress in product, design, and utility over the past year. But like many companies, it hasn’t communicated this sufficiently. That’s a big part of the reason, I’d guess, that it isn’t growing as fast as it could be.

I completely agree. Foursquare is an incredibly valuable tool. Even if you don’t use it you see it in use within Instagram, Path, and many other applications. Foursquare has been collecting very useful data for years and has recently really begun to understand how to use that data in a way that is valuable on the go.

I still see people using Foursquare daily that focus mainly on the badges and not on the discovery engine, the ability to plan trips using its list features, etc. Foursquare needs to start telling people the best way to use it.

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