The Foursquare pivot 4/15/15

From Matthew Cox via Joel Housman:

In May 2014 Foursquare removed check-ins and transformed the app into a lesser imitation of Yelp (using the accumulated reviews from Foursquare’s loyal audience.)

Today Foursquare is barely more popular than when it launched.

Be sure to check out Matthew Cox’s post for the brutal Google Trends graph.

I’ve personally stopped using Foursquare almost entirely, despite being a fan of the old check-in based app. Foursquare used to have great tips for what food to order when I’d check-in to a new restaurant, so I was hopeful I could use the new app for just that information. However, I was confused by Foursquare’s new interface and went back to using Yelp exclusively.

Foursquare did have check-ins in a separate app called Swarm. But Swarm is lifeless without the reviews and tips locked away in the Foursquare app.

It may be too late for Foursquare to merge the Swarm experience back in to their core app and succeed, but I can’t help but think there is an opportunity for someone to come along and make a new Foursquare-esque service.