Foursquare blog has informed me of new ways for them to make money off of people checking in, but no real way to make the game more interesting to me. Check-ins now aggregate your and your friends' information to recommend venues that you might like based on your previous check-ins. Fine. Whatever. I don't care. I have Google Places.
They've revamped their leaderboard. Now you can earn points for things like checking in with a friend you haven't checked in with in awhile, going to a kind of restaurant you've never checked into, or checking into a city you haven't been to in a number of days. Seriously? I have three friends on foursquare and I never check in with them. We happen to live in different cities. No one else I know is on foursquare, whether it be facebook friends or IRL friends. That's at least 150 people altogether. (I know, big deal, right? But still...)
The theory behind these two additions is that it will motivate people to check in more often and visit new places. But they've got it all backwards. They are still neglecting universal badges, constantly expanding their list of badges that only work in certain cities or that are only available if you follow some really lame-ass profiles (Big Boi, anyone? Pennsylvania just to get a Groundhog Day badge? Gimme a break).
Maybe I'm jumping off the boat too early, but foursquare just isn't offering anything in the way of gameplay anymore. It's all about the "social network" aspect of it, which is where they are going to make their money. However, I don't see how this can have much sticking power among users, no matter that they grew 3,000% in a year. Shooting stars die out fast.
Still bored! That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment