Last week I wrote a post somewhat sensationally titled, “What the hell is Foursquare doing?” In that piece I criticized the still-young company about what I perceived was a tin ear regarding certain complaints.
Which is why I am befuddled at some of the partnerships and directions the young company seems to be taking. I am not sure if it is due to their tremendous growth, both in users and internally, or the ridiculous expectations that everyone seems to have, but Foursquare doesn’t seem to know what its doing. I wish they would just tell us. Isn’t the hallmark of the social web supposed to be that everything is open and transparent, authentic and honest? Is that only for the users of these services but not for the companies that enable us?
In particular, I have been very critical of Foursquare’s customer service when it comes to helping business owners utilize their marketing offerings. I’ve worked with a bunch of firms trying to utilize this unique service who have been dissapointed with the functionality. The forms that Foursquare uses were counterintuitive and it was common for firms to get absolutely no feedback or contact from Foursquare. This was unacceptable.
I am interested because I think incentivizing both people and businesses is they to Foursquare’s growth and its success. But that’s not where they are directing their energy. I’ve worked with businesses who have tried multiple times to get their specials on Foursquare. The customer service is basically non-existent. One client got a message saying they were simply overwhelmed and were having technical issues uploading all the new specials and deals. The risk in this is that even if you can get venues interested enough to take the time to offer specials and deals to Foursquare’s own users, by making it extremely hard to do so, they are only alienating their future business partners.
Which is why I was so pleased to see that Foursquare was taking it seriously enough to make some minor changes. Every business venue has a unique ID on Foursquare’s platform, and what Foursquare has done is make it exceptionally easy for business owners (or their marketing or PR firms) to claim their business. They’ve done so by placing a little widget above the map of the venue that says “Are you the manager of this business.” Brilliant, simple, easy.
It’s what they needed to do, and its what they’ve done. I criticized them for not doing it sooner, and now that this has been corrected, I am only too happy to call attention to it.
One other thing caught my attention as well, and that is that beneath every venue they’ve also integrated the near-ubiquitous Facebook “like” button. Interesting that they are experimenting with Facebook’s new social graph plugins considering that Facebook is on the verge of launching a location-based service as well.
Although many believe that Facebook’s “Places” is going to nullify Foursquare I actually disagree and think there is plenty of room in the eco-system for location based applications and functionality. Based on some of the troubles that Foursquare has had lately (their service was done for hours just last week) I am not so sure Facebook is immediately going to leap-frog them. As of now, Foursquare has a great brand name and reputation in the space. And Facebook? We’ll let’s just say that some of their recent efforts are starting to rub even some of its oldest supports the wrong way.[fblike layout_style='button_count' show_faces='true' verb='recommend' font='lucide grande' color_scheme='light']
