In case you missed it, Facebook just shoved their body through the location door in a big way last night. The company cloned the most popular location services in the world and baked their ideas into its own platform. Everyone is asking the same question: what does this mean for the little guys?
Facebook has made a big deal so far about working with Foursquare and Gowalla, two companies that are going to integrate with Facebook’s new location API. Ostensibly, that sounds like a potential win for Foursquare and Gowalla – after all access to 500 million people is a big deal, right?
Half way. Think of it like this: you can use Facebook to check-in and never touch Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, or Yelp, which means that a lot of people will not access these services. Most people will likely start using Facebook Places and never even hear about Foursquare. The hardcore fans of each of those companies will continue to use the first-party clients to check into Facebook with the Places API, but they will comprise a small portion of the overall userbase.
Why bother to work apart from the social graph that matters? Facebook, not MyTown, is where all your social data is, and they are going to help you leverage it. I care, to put it plainly, one hundred times as much where my Facebook friends check-in, than where my Foursquare friends do. Why? Of my 300 or so Foursquare friends I know about 5 of them personally. Without giving any numbers, I will say that I actually know quite a few more of the people I’m friends with on Facebook. It’s a huge difference.
Facebook controls my entire social life in an odd, annoyinlgy pervasive way. If my normal friends (no offense, but that probably means not people reading this post) start using Facebook places, as none of them use anything else, why would I want to use Foursquare to check-in apart from Facebook? Why not go to the source? Why has my data moved into Facebook from some other application, only to then be treated and refarmed back to my phone? I could just use the built-in Facebook Places feature. It’s a one stop shop, simple and done. I’m going to lose my lone mayorship, but I can live with that.
Also, let’s be plain and blunt: Facebook is not going to help grow Foursquare, and the service’s paltry 2 million techies are not going to float it. Facebook is doing a big deal of playing nice at launch so that they don’t seem to be the evil big corporation who show up late to a small but growing party. Now they’re going to drink up the bar and pee on the host’s carpet.
Look at the graph below. It’s a rather famous way to look at a product life-cycle. Guess where we are right now? Before Facebook’s announcement we were teetering on the edge of the chasm between real momentum and the earliest adopters. Facebook just pushed the entire idea of location over the gap. In one fell swoop they changed the game. All the other location services have to jump sooner or later, but with Facebook sucking up their potential sign-ups and current users, will they ever make it?
Realistically, in six months Facebook will have built out its Places capabilities and will have at least three times the number of active users that Foursquare sees. They will also have a special tool that Foursquare will never have: access to Facebook’s real back end. Facebook Places can be integrated so deeply that everything else is just tacked on. Things like that can dry up and blow away; things that have ‘four’ in their names. Being able to access an API is not as useful as being the application that the API works with.
So, go ahead and do it, delete Foursquare and get set up with Facebook Places. After all, why fight the giant who is destined to win? Foursquare is going to remain a hyperactive hideout for nerds on the go. The future is here, and if you update the app, it will be on your phone.
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PS: I am hardly alone in this line of thought, just in case you think that I have a personal axe to grind. I asked this question on Twitter: “Can anyone explain to me why Foursquare/Gowalla are at all excited about FB Places? I’m catching up at the moment,” and received these responses:
Not unanimous, but they have a strong lean towards the “uh Foursquare and Gowalla are in hot water” view that I take. What do you think?
People have the same worries about Google when it enters their market, and Google has hardly made a dent in some of these established services, mostly because the implementations have been crap. The success of Facebook’s location implementation will depend on how seamlessly and usefully it integrates into its current platform. I’m not jumping on board until I see how well they’ve implemented this new feature.
It looks nearly identical to Foursquare, so the move should be pretty simple.
Rommy – the difference is that for most people there is no move from one to the other. 4SQ’s user volume is miniscule compared to FB’s. A few million people doesn’t equal “established” compared to 500m. People will just see “Places” on their phones and start pressing buttons. There’s no need for them to seek out another application.
I totally agree, I stopped using 4Sq and Gowalla after the first few weeks when it was of no benefit to me. I could see the use case, but because my mates weren’t on it, there was no need for me to be on it.
We predicted this in a broader post on the topic of giants killing upstarts a few months ago – http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/05/11/video-killed-the-radio-star-facebook-killing-the-foursquare-star/
As an aside, I love the bit where you say “my normal friends (no offense, but that probably means not people reading this post)” – that’s so true for me too.
I can’t think of an example of Google doing this though… Facebook has taken it’s 500 million user base, and released what is in essence it’s own version of Foursquare, in a format that 500 million people will already be familiar with, on a network that all their friends are on . For the majority of facebook users (note the majority, not the tech/social crowd), there’s now ZERO reason to create a foursquare account.
Interestingly I actually think Gowalla has the best chance of survival in all this. Their offering is different enough to be able to stand alongside Facebook’s. What was an issue for them a week ago has suddenly turned into a strength, I think. Will still be tough for them, and definitely not a slam dunk that they’ll survive, but I think they have a better chance than foursquare, personally. Hope I’m wrong, but that’s what it looks like to me.
Wait. That sounded like I was saying I hope I was wrong about Gowalla surviving… what I meant was… I hope I’m wrong that Places crushes the little guys :)
You are not alone.
It seems to me that the people I’m more likely to want to meet up with are on my Facebook friend list. I mean, if I look at it and realize my mom, my aunt, my cousin, or my good friends are a block away, that means more to me than knowing some guy I hardly know is close by. Not to say that I don’t want to meet up with people I know on Twitter / Foursquare, but it just has more significance if I know family and good friends are nearby.
I think that because people are so comfortable with Facebook, this thing will gain adoption pretty quickly among users who have capable phones.
My problem now is, I’m outside the US and have friends in multiple countries. I probably won’t get much of any use out of Places until I’m back in NYC.
Brad, good point on the spatial problem.
Like what you were saying here, good read.
Although I think I may still hold on to the Geo services. Twitter was identical to Facebook statuses when it first launched, everyone thought whats the point but she pulled through ;-) Obviously FB has the numbers, but there
could still be good things on the way, who knows. I’ll wait and see
The second Facebook was entering the Locations business, FourSquare and Gowalla were going to be in hot water. But I think this partnership is actually beneficial to both companies because rather than everyone switching over to Facebook altogether, at least they’ll have some leverage to keep current users running on their own first-party services.
Plus, majority of people don’t just play 4sq and Gowalla to show where they are at a certain time, but to gain badges and whatnot; Facebook just adds more functionality to both services and connects the game to every other social aspect, so I don’t think it’s a terrible thing for either company in the end.
And as for newer users, I think that if they become more comfortable with Places, they actually wouldn’t mind adding a gaming aspect to it. If both companies play this out right, they can share a lot of new userbase with Facebook through this.
Gaming could be a draw, but couldn’t FB just add that in to places in a weekend?
They could, but they won’t. The actual Facebook service was never about games, it was about an online social life. If you look, Facebook has no first-party games, all of them are third party apps that use the social features Facebook has to offer. Originally FourSquare and Gowalla were just another one of these apps, but now they can be more deeply integrated with all of these new features.
I expanded on my thoughts – http://techthirst.com/?p=170
There is potentially a big difference 4sq could leverage. In the same way that twitter complements facebook by being “conversations in public”, foursquare could make itself “location in public”. Facebook can’t do this so easily because of privacy mix ups (they focus on the friend group) – but if foursquare changed the rules and allowed anybody to follow anybody they could actually be the platform of choice for applications which rely on loose social ties rather than strong ones.
One of the things I like about foursquare is that they incorporate these nifty little “badge” things. Also, while at San Diego Comic Con this year, foursquare worked in cahoots with the event to give out prizes if you checked into certain places, and showed your badges to certain people.
Will Facebook be doing the same thing?
Will Facebook integrate itself with popular franchises like VH1, Bravo, Food Network, etc like foursquare has? I wants me mah badges!
Also, I only ever add people I KNOW to my foursquare. While on Facebook, I add everyone (because of that nifty little “privacy” feature where you can set people to a “limited profile”). So does that mean that I’ll be seeing a bunch of annoying updates from people that I don’t even know? Foursquare doesn’t do that to me!
Unless they’ve taken care of all of these little kinks, I will continue to use foursquare and rack up my points, mayorships, and badges. Plus, the “places” feature isn’t even available in my town yet. WTF? No thanks.
Nice article though, Alex.
I’m glad we stumbled onto each other on twitter. ;-P
As am I :)
Just about to launch a location based start, so I’m understandably nervous. However, were seeking to tip the balance so the benefits of using our service are clear and costs low. Remaining useful is the key to location apps and that doesn’t change because of this. In my view it will do location good. As long as services don’t go head on but offer distinct value.
In a nutshell, FB will dominate, but the others will maintain (at least) a niche presence. This is a typical shake-out in the industry. Eg: Google dominates, but Ask & Yahoo! are still around.
Exactly.
hell no ! i will keep using my 4sq acount, yes fb places will take off , but us geeks will keep 4sq afloat ;)
oh and Alex do come back to 4sq , we forgive you ! ;)
If 4SQ brings cupcakes.
This is exactly why the only way for Foursquare and GoWalla to survive is to start honing in on the potential of location based services in a way that Facebook hasn’t yet…start working deals with Groupon and Living Social to provide personalized location based discounts and offers.
I couldn’t agree more Alex. It’s good for FB and it will mean the end for Foursquare and Gowalla.
Good things can happen when an established organization makes a change because of visibility. It can definitely pull other smaller groups over the chasm.
Facebook, however… The more I have to update my facebook privacy settings the closer I am to deleting my profile
Foursquare for life, Places and igroups can blow me. I don’t want everyone to know where I am. Just a select few. Just 2 companies now trying to capitalize on something they wish they thought of.
I wonder how much you were paid to write this article. Facebook is good at what it does. Foursquare it good at what it does they compliment each other. Places will blow there is no incentive there. Foursquare will survive. It’s not like either will be around in 10 years and if you think they are then you have no clue what the internet is and should go work on a farm you and your article are lame and uniformed that’s the problem with the internet everyone thinks they know what they are talking about. I work with both and I actually do know.
I would take a stand on the advantages facebook has now; but it is just that they are following the principal of not reinventing the wheels; but forgetting that the creators of foursquare and other great services have actually and would have by now prepared for this competition. Creativity is the ultimate thing that brings you to the success grounds not followers who merely does the touch up; Like FACEBOOK :)
Most use foursquare for more personal connections, not the random masses. It sounds like you didn’t use it well, so yea – delete it. The rest of us will enjoy it until Places adds the other valuable features that LBS users are looking for: something beyond the check-in