Monday, April 22, 2013

5 Reasons Foursquare Is Losing The Social Local Mobile Revolution

Foursquare has been the darling of the burgeoning “SoLoMo”(social-local-mobile) revolution ever since the company burst onto the scene at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2009. The company’s financial fortunes, however, have not been so sweet. According to BusinessWeek, Foursquare brought in a paltry $2 million in revenue for all of 2012. Perhaps that’s why after raking in $71 million in three major funding rounds, Foursquare’s lastest funding comes in the form of $41 million in debt.

Still, that’s a lot of money, and with the new cash stash, the company is shifting its business focus away from check-ins toward selling its trove of user location and behavior data to businesses, ad exchanges and others. This may be the company’s last, best chance to succeed.

What went wrong?

Here are five primary reasons why Foursquare failed to capitalize on the disruptive market potential of social-local-mobile despite its early mover advantage.1. Gamification Doesn’t Scale

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