miamime

provocations & observations by William Plasencia 
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Foursquare Fail: The reasons I gave up

My frustration with Foursquare -- the location-based social media network -- has been on the rise for some time. At first it was because the popular service didn't have a Blackberry app that let me easily check into the places I frequent or see which Foursquare friends happen to be nearby at the moment. The company took care of that by pushing out some buggy betaware that, a few updates later, was usable. 

Then came the invites. As people I know saw my location notices on Twitter, I slowly started to receive invites from my friends on Foursquare. That's normal, after all it is a social network. I just never knew I had so many friends in Washington, D.C., or in Chicago, or Detroit. Well, I don't. No matter, I just clicked on the "ignore" button -- every day. There is no way to block people from sending friend invitations. It got to the point where I disabled my email alerts because the number of unsolicited invitations became bothersome.

But the last straw came today when the glaring fatal flaw of Foursquare became too apparent. Sitting at the Starbucks in Mary Brickell Village -- a dense retail hub near downtown Miami -- I tried to to check-in my location on Foursquare. Here's a sampling of what the app listed as possible places where I might be:

Starbuvks

Cafe Sci Sci -- twice

Balans -- twice

Baru Urbano -- twice

Rosinella's -- twice

Sushi Siam -- twice

Well, you get the picture. The whole premise of Foursquare depends on the ability of the user to check into a place and gain points. The value proposition for businesses -- future value, since I don't know many businesses locally that are enjoying much traffic from Foursquare yet -- is that people will flock to and spend money at the places their friends or acquaintances frequent. And while that premise is appealing, and the game can be fun, the quality control just isn't there right now. I don't feel like promoting or helping build a network whose makers seem to ignore the detrimental drawbacks undermining their own business model. 

Maybe I'll come back once they've fixed these flaws, but for now I'm not willing to be a sheep on Foursquare. I'll go bleat somewhere else.

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