The Four Square concept is definitely an interesting phenomenon with a lot of potential. The ground work is simple, and anyone who is somewhat cyber savvy can immediately witness its’ appeal; A social networking game with amusing features. It is no surprise that the newly launched application has gained immense momentum since its launch less than a year ago (zero to 300,000 thousand users). Personally, I’m not a fan, but that is only because I enjoy my privacy. Others feel the need to inform the whole world about their every move. In any case, with 300,000 members, it makes you wonder what are they doing right. The question however, facing many skeptics today is whether the popular site can sustain this kind of growth, despite the recent changing/evolution of its business model?
As we are all very familiar (by this point) with the popular site, I will briefly recap. Until recently, Four Square was a free publicity, point system, gaming social network. Members received badges, titles (mayor, newbie, douchebag, etc.) depending on how many visits they accumulate. Someone who visits a specific restaurant very frequently can become the mayor of that place. That is not the interesting part however, was IS, is the development of their business model towards a Revenue Based one; hence the theme: Turning gaming into reality.Basically someone who earns the status of “mayor” will actually get rewarded by their prefered restaurant with specials, discounts, rewards, promotions etc. Why? Because you have become the MAYOR of this place
By focusing their attention on businesses now, they have partly succeeded in bring them onboard (check out snacksquare.com as well). One example is the new dashboard for business owners to check out statistics on how many people visited their store, etc.). Furthermore these visitors/users can now unlock real specials, earn coupons, and a lot more). The idea is basically a Cost per Check-In model, where stores are willing to pay money per actual visit referred off Four Square. It’s interesting for now, a game that portrays itself as semi-real. The question is will it last and generate profits for both website and participating businesses. Well, for sure, it needs a larger user base to attract local restaurants, stores and large chains. It also assumes that all members are active (vs. idle). Another question is whether store owners find it rewarding enough to invest the required promotional time. All these questions raise doubts about the success of their current new business model. For the time being, what we do know is that it is an interesting business model, one that links the surreal with the real.
Cost per check-in? Or plainly cost per action (simpler and already invented long time ago)? What can Foursquare do from their central standpoint position, collecting all this information? Will Foursquare be something you'll appreciate to know your friends whereabouts, find nice places to go, get tips and recommendations, etc.? If so, if you happen to create value for the users, you need to understand how to turn that into money. Otherwise, you need to study more... ;-)
ReplyDeleteMO:
ReplyDeleteCool that you mentioned snacksquare; you were the only one who did. I couldn´t figure out a way to work that into my post on foursquare.
But what foursquare and snacksquare did really interests me. <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/snacksquare>Snacksquare only has $30,000 in funding (PS this is a useful site)</a>, but somehow they´re using or piggybacking off Foursquare´s API.
Now that really interests me: I wonder that if foursquare is strong enough in building their core product that they can start to license it out for other geoapplications. ´Cause you know, my buddy JC had this idea for an iphone app...