Articles tagged “foursquare”

Facebook already made life difficult for social travel startups, but its latest move into local discovery will run into the same problem as its wannabe competitors did: The functionality is limited by the quality and tastes of your social graph.

Any deal between the two companies would be a boost to both their efforts: Foursquare on reaching the next level of growth and Apple on making its much-derided maps app better with more utility information.

Foursquare's location guidance seems a lot more reliable than Apple Maps', and this Foursquare add-on improves the Uber iPhone app's customer experience.

Foursquare is walking a fine line between user engagement and commercialization, and its fate is dependent on this balancing act.

There was so much hype about Groupon and Zynga, and perhaps their stars are getting clouded over. But, Foursquare, if it handles its commercial strategy with a little more acumen than it has shown so far, could really turn into a viable business.

With three billion check-ins, Foursquare has a Fort Knox of data about consumers' retail habits, but a sizeable portion of its 30 million tips about places leave a lot to be desired. Foursquare will have to do a lot of partnering or get the check-in crowd into review-writing mode to improve its search results.

Crowley has been passionate about connecting people's habits and desires with real-world locations since at least the point where he launched Foursquare predecessor Dodgeball. Will he finally be able to translate this passion into widespread adoption?

Crowley & co. may be able to turn this communication between merchant and loyal customer into a product they can monetize that won't anger anyone.

Bing has reorganized its search results pages to incorporate the social element, but it really has a long way to go before the service evolves into something really useful for travelers.