Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner
“Location” has become the new keyword over the past few months with the rise of geo-based sharing services, most notably Foursquare. But many observers are skeptical, and a new report by Forester Research has everyone wondering: if they build it, will users actually end up checking-in? We think they will.
The report suggests that only urbanite techies and marginally employed twenty-somethings are interested. Just 4% of Americans have tried location-based services, and only 1% on a regular basis. And apparently it’s only for the kids, as 70% of those who tried it were between 19 and 35.
The most cited reasons for user reluctance were privacy and perceived lack of utility. “My life isn’t exciting enough to broadcast where I am and what I do,” one 30-year-old MySpace mom tells the The New York Times. A 75-year-old man is even more dismissive, saying:
I can’t think of anybody who cares where I am every minute of the day except my wife, and she already knows. Maybe it’s a generational thing. As we old fogies die off, maybe [privacy] will no longer be an issue.
It’s testimonials like this that no doubt prompt Melissa Parrish, an interactive marketing analyst at Forrester, to conclude, “Clearly the question is whether it has reached the mainstream, and it looks like the answer is no.” (To be fair, other analysts think Facebook Places will push it into the mainstream.)
All this doubt has us thinking about the term coined by VC heavy David Hornik earlier this year: “Foursquare Fatigue.” The term has reached viral status among location-based critics, as they continue to wonder if it’s “fun enough” to survive, and if it’s as profitable as Foursquare CEO David Crowley makes it out to be.
But to us, this just sounds like the same arguments that fueled doubt about Facebook and Twitter when they were just puny start-ups. In fact, Foursquare just announced that it has reached 3 million users. This is coming from a company that was launched only 18 months ago. So how fast did Facebook’s and Twitter’s user-base grow after 18 months from their founding? The graph bellow tells the story.
Foursquare, it turns out, is proving just as popular as Facebook when it first came out, and it totally blows away Twitter, now with 100 million tweeters globally. On top of that, we shouldn’t forget the major growth in the smartphone and apps markets, which are essentially the tools for location-based sharing participation.
Critics beware. Location-based services could yet surprise you.
22 Comments »
Location check-in bonanza? Could be just around the corner – SMI blog post http://tinyurl.com/35uh2ef #socialmedia #social
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner – “Location” has become the new keyword over the past few month… http://ow.ly/18NANW
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Interesting read: Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner http://bit.ly/aOidyl
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
La crescita di Foursquare è stata molto più veloce di quella di Twitter (nei primi 18 mesi) http://ow.ly/2xJIM cc @luca2d
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@stefanomaggi #crescita di #foursquare / Interessante! /http://bit.ly/a3Vljt
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Critics beware.Location-based services could yet surprise you. http://bit.ly/a3Vljt #foursquare #gowalla #lbs #fb #twitter via @stefanomaggi
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Interessante e anche un po’ inaspettato: Foursquare è cresciuto più velocemente di Twitter. http://fb.me/vv3TYAbi
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[...] go mainstream is now the billion-dollar-question. But let’s not write it off just yet. As we reported yesterday, there may be doubts among some fence-sitters, but many more have taken up the location-based [...]
Here we go! RT @BenLaMothe: Interesting read: Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner http://bit.ly/aOidyl
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner http://ow.ly/1qOOQB
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Check-in bonanza? It could be just around the corner | SMI http://bit.ly/9AGtNW #socialnetworking
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Is Foursquare only for kids and teenagers or is it mainstream? 3 million users already signed up! http://bit.ly/cmDGRG
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Great overview, Jordan; I love reading through all of these mashups.
Foursquare’s growth is really impressive and I think its audience is going to quickly grow far beyond "urbanite techies".
This comment was originally posted on We Are Social
[...] the corner Despite geo-location being on the minds of many marketers over the past few months, a new study from Forrester Research suggests that only a small segment of users are actually interes…: Only urbanite techies and marginally employed twenty-somethings are interested. Just 4% of [...]
foursquare user growth proving just as popular as facebook 18 months after launch http://bit.ly/9tUBkw
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
GeoSocial taking off – RT @wess foursquare user growth proving just as popular as facebook 18 months after launch http://bit.ly/9tUBkw
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
*poke @ID4SQ* ~ RT @wess foursquare user growth proving just as popular as facebook 18 months after launch http://bit.ly/9tUBkw
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“@wess: foursquare user growth proving just as popular as facebook 18 months after launch http://bit.ly/9tUBkw”
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Jag tycker det saknas en mängd parametrar för att faktiskt kunna jämföra på det här sättet. Det viktigaste är att utan Facebook och Twitter hade inte Foursquare ens haft en handfull användare. Varför? För att Foursquare (och Gowalla och andra liknande tjänster med Facebook Places som en sorts slutgiltig punkt) handlar om att Facebook och Twitter krattat manegen, gjort användaren van att uppdatera, vara mer personlig och integrera ett nytt beteende. Genom smartphones med GPS och apputvecklingen skapas sedan förutsättningar för att det analoga och det digitala smälter samman och vi väljer att berätta även "var" vi gör "vad" och "när".
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
[...] to see is the belated momentum behind Twitter. It had a slow start. Much slower, for example, than Foursquare’s early rapid development as we charted [...]
[...] like Twitter. By September 2010 that proportion had quadrupled,” the newspaper writes. And, the growth trend for global usage numbers behind FourSquare still look compelling, as we learned in [...]
[...] if I were to not congratulate Foursquare on its impressive growth. Last August, we reported they hit 3 million, at their 18-month-anniversary. In the next ten months, they’ve more than tripled to [...]
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