Foursquare/Location based Social Media

When Foursquare launched in 2009, it was an app that used phone GPS antennas to allow people to check in at local business and share that information with their friends and followers over other social media platforms. Foursquare gave people the ability to leave reviews of the businesses where they checked in. It was also a somewhat gamified, location-based app. If you checked into a location more than anyone else, the app would give you the “mayor badge.” Besides the digital pat on the back of the badge, some businesses would offer incentives to people who had reached mayor status, like giving them a dollar off coffee or a free scone.  

Facebook’s nearby friends feature never really took off. The app allowed people to share their real time locations with their network. The app never really caught on; people weren’t keen on the idea of everyone in their network being able to track their every move. While other GPS-based friend finding apps have flopped the creators think they have the solution. 

Foursquare has split its app in two. It is focusing Foursquare on checking in at businesses and providing users with reviews tailored to the users’ tastes. Its new app Swarm is taking on the GPS friend-finding social aspect. What Swarm will do differently than Facebook’s nearby friends is that it doesn’t show your exact location. It only show you who is nearby, who is on the same block, in the same neighborhood, or in the same city. If you decided you would like to meet up to a person in your curated Swarm network you simply check in with them and then you provide your exact location. 

In Facebook’s goal to replace SMS texting with its Messenger app, it needed to give its app an advantage over normal texting. One of the ways it does this is by making it much easier to share GPS coordinates with other users. Within its current app, there is a toggle button which allows people to send their location with every message they send. For people who only occasionally want to share their location with others, this might be the simplest option.