This year’s SXSWi did not herald the next Big Thing in tech, as some guessed it wouldn’t, but it wasn’t always this way. In 2010, a year when people were a bit more optimistic about the new new thing, Foursquare was the boss. First appearing in 2009, by 2010 it came into its own as the mayor of the location wars with its app based around checking into places and then sharing that information with your friends.

Fast forward to today, and the picture has changed. Foursquare’s chief competitor Gowalla has gone to Facebook and is making products like Nearby to challenge Foursquare’s dominance in social location. People are starting to focus more on how consumer apps may make returns.Foursquare has had its share of changes

And Foursquare has had its share of changes, too. Key people at Foursquare have stepped back from the company, some starting new ventures. The company has faced (unconfirmed) reports it is running out of cash estimated to have a burn rate of $2 million and only $2 million in revenue last year, and (again unconfirmed) reports saying it has had trouble raising its next round of financing amid claims of a too-high valuation and question marks over its business prospects.

One part of the problem appears to be that check-ins, the cornerstone of Foursquare’s early growth and its traditionally main source of data points, are no longer what they used to be. A year ago CEO Dennis Crowley said Foursquare was noticing more people using Foursquare but not checking in. In fact, as the company has doubled its user base to 30 million people in the last year, growth of check-ins appears to be flat: today, Crowley says Foursquare sees 5 million check-ins per day, but that’s also what the company said a year ago. For some, the novelty may have worn off of game-play elements, like getting badges and points part of a wider trend for challenges in app gamification.

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Former Square COO & Foursquare CEO battle about Foursquare's success (VentureBeat)

Former Square COO Keith Rabois Has Started A Square-Bashing War On Twitter (Business Insider)

Twitter slapdown: Square's ex-COO, FourSquare's CEO feud (Silicon Valley Business Journal)

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