Henshaw

Foursquare has yet to solidify a competitive advantage. 

Asides from a basic ‘friend’ system, Foursquare’s social features have always been pretty limited, compared to a service like Brightkite.

What did give Foursquare a brief competitive advantage was the points and merit badges for ‘checking in’ at a variety of locations. It’s here that the app shined: these rewards give users an incentive to check-in frequently. Now this could be seen as a necessity especially given the fact that the iPhone can’t automatically update your location as you travel. That said I found the wore off pretty quickly and it sounds like I’m not the only one. One might argue that the partnerships with the New York Times and Huffington post might give them an advantage but I’m not sure how sustainable those would be – I’m pretty sure if something better comes along Foursquare might not have a leg to stand on, speaking of which…

Now it looks like Facebook could potentially eat Foursquare’s lunch with this month’s announcement of “Locations API” and “Deals”. And from my layman’s perspective isn’t it logical to just use one app to do three things versus two? I suspect that the folks at Foursquare are hoping for a call from Google right now…

What I see for Foursquare.

The principles that originally made Foursquare so appealing from a marketer’s perspective will of course live on. Mobile, location based apps are very, very attractive – especially from a retail perspective.

 What I’ve learned is that rather then fall in love with an application, understand the strategy behind it and align it with your own. This way if that application fails you can pick the next one that has the most potential to stick.