I have a business plan for Foursquare: Fuck Yelp, get money.
Yelp is getting unreliable. Gawker knows it. VentureBeat knows it. The SF Weekly knows it. (When they implied Yelp resembled a mafia, users expressed their disagreement by giving the newspaper low star Yelp ratings. Ooh burn.) They all agree that Yelp reviews are based on too many irrelevant factors, that elite users wield more power than is healthy, and that Yelp has little incentive to improve reviews. The only thing these articles disagree on, actually, is whether Yelp’s average venue rating is too high or too low.
Yelp was an improvement on its main predecessor, Citysearch. They put more power in the hands of the previously mute consumer, and their approach was, at least at first, less mercenary. But they’ve managed to bloat and go inbred at the same time: They’ve accumulated low-quality users while rewarding their elite users more for showing up to cheesy parties and fawning over the same crowded venues than for writing accurate reviews.
So we need to replace Yelp. What with?
What about Foursquare? It’s this seemingly niche app for socialites who want to keep track of all their friends at all times, or who want bragging rights for visiting a bar more often than anyone else. But look at how it’s evolving. Foursquare now partners with businesses to offer freebies to its users. It’s finally giving normal people a tangible reason to join for more than bragging rights.
Founders Dennis and Naveen say they’re gonna use GPS to keep users honest. It’s in their best interest to guarantee that no one is earning free drinks by checking into a bar ten times while they’re at home.
So while Yelp has a userbase of people claiming to have visited a venue, Fousquare will have a base of verified actual customers. It also collects more info on these users, most importantly their phone numbers, enabling further identity checks.
With this, Foursquare can build a database not of where people claim to go, but where people are actually going day to day. As their userbase rises, the Foursquare database will more closely resemble the whole population’s shopping and entertainment habits — at least more accurately than Yelp.
Meanwhile Foursquare is building a friendlier relationship with businesses, based less on maintaining reputation and more on directly attracting customers. It feels a lot less mafia-style, especially since venues can see the users who are on location at that moment instead of reviewing the venue two days later at their home computer.
Foursquare has a lot of options right now. Maybe some are more profitable. But the one I’d love to see is a replacement for Yelp. Just let me rate the places I go, Foursquare. Let businesses talk to me. You’ve already got my attention. Use me.
