I’ve been on Foursquare for six months and on the recommendation of several friends, I also signed up with it’s primary competitor, Gowalla two months ago.
However, the more I use it, the less enamored I am. The more annoyed I become. The more I question it’s usefulness. And I’m not alone. Time Magazine just named Foursquare one of the 50 worst inventions. Perhaps Gowalla wasn’t big enough to make the list.
I won’t go that far, but do have a few questions:
- Why, when I’m standing in the middle of a building, the location feature identifies places down the block and I have to keep scrolling to find my current Place or Spot?
- How does Foursquare determine the following statistic – “Average check-ins when out“? Does it identify the exact location of my home and trace my every step to determine when I’m out? Creepy!
- I have five stamps and three pins on Gowalla. What the heck does that mean? I don’t care enough to read the manual. Manual?
- Why am I awarded points every time I check in on Foursquare? How many points can I accrue? What do I win? With whom am I competing? Should I check in at the bagel shop, then the bus stop, the subway station, lobby and office on my way in to work so I amass as much points as possible? If this is a game, I don’t think I want to play. It’s not fun.
- Why does Gowalla have so few places identified? Is it a wiki-location application? Am I supposed to add to their database of locations – do the work for them – and then check in? I don’t think so.
- Why doesn’t Foursquare list nearby places in chronological order either by distance or alphabetically by name of location? Why?
One possible use of this application is as a journal or record of events and meetings. But checking-in would have to be more streamlined. How about the option to auto check-in at a location if present for more than a few minutes. I could then be push-notified to choose if I want to broadcast check-in to other platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. This would enable a level of consistency and reduce potential abuse
With over a million and 250,000 users respectively, and adding more at a fast clip, Foursquare and Gowalla are not going away anytime soon. I’ll stick around to see what they come up with. Meanwhile, my check-in rate when I’m out and about will continue to be very low.
If you have answers or more questions…or suggestions of how to use these applications more effectively, I’d love to hear about it.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I just came across this terrific video of a conversation between Kathy Sierra and Gary Vaynerchuk where at around the 6 minute mark he states, “…I think people are grossly underestimating what Foursquare and Gowalla leads to…”.
Gingerly raising my hand
Check out the rest of the conversation:
http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/644827703/chat-with-kathy-sierra
Foursquare is a waste of time and privacy risk especially if you have children
Thanks for your feedback, Solidad! I hear ya. I’m not compelled to consistently use it. I haven’t really considered the privacy issue but starting to hear concerns about that.
All of the GPS apps have their uses. I find a majority of the users can be broken into three catagories
1: Techno-lovers
2: Marketing/SEO types
3: Young Single people.
My wife and I go out often with a group of people who met on Yelp. Yelp does a few things to help communities get started, but here in the South Bay of the Bay Area of Cal, the group really took off. So on a night when you are having a group go out and this group consists of 20 to 75 people who will show up at the place or places listed between -1 to +3 hours of the event starting, it is a GREAT way to find out where your own group is. Yelp even has a Checked In app for this that I find both easier than both the ones you list as well as stripped of the games or marketing extras. I wouldn’t suggest this to most people. Also, groups of just two or three tend to call each other and say “Where are you”.
As another side shot, My wife and I ran into friends in the middle of Campbell due to a proximity search of who was checked in. We would never have found them otherwise and it was nice to say hello. Again, something we could have lived without, but then can’t that be said for most technology?
For myself, I also like to keep the historical “Where was I” on file so I have a database to remind me of what day I went somewhere. There are security risks with this as there are security risks with anything that entails living.
It may be a slight waste of time for me, but I see it’s usefulness. As to completely a waste of time and I still can’t understand it, can we talk about the TV show Survivor for a moment?
Oh, John, don’t get me started on reality TV shows. Not my thing. More interested in reality of my friends lives than strangers on television.
Yelp sounds pretty cool. I’ve used it only to look up restaurants, but I like the way you guys use it. Will definitely explore.
I started playing with Gowalla last weekend when I was traveling and I used it once to find recommendations for a restaurant that I subsequently ate at. But I also realized it was using up a great deal of my limited iPhone data plan, plus I didn’t see any payoff with checkins, etc. Plus none of my friends are using it, so no meet-up possibilities. I installed it a few months back and never used it. Now I’m thinking it’s a total waste.
That’s why I googled “why bother using Gowalla” and found your article. Thanks for confirming my impressions. I really don’t need a “daily diary” that John mentioned, especially when I have to check in to record things!
So out the door it goes!