Back in March I wrote a post about the battle for venue checkins between mobile location–based services Foursquare and Gowalla. Since then there have been some developments that certainly point to the rise and rise of Foursquare.
Since then Foursquare has been busy courting local businesses and partnering with a growing number of bigger brands. It has followed in Twitter’s footsteps in trying to become a platform by launching an App Gallery. In addition, a couple of weeks ago Foursquare announced that it was starting to reach close to a million checkins a day.
Now Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley has gone and landed himself on the cover of Wired UK, although Josh Williams from Gowalla is also featured in the article within.
Click on the image to go to Dennis Crowley’s Flickr stream for the back story, ‘So this happened. (Wired UK, July 2010)’.
In addition, Mashable, one of the world’s most popular blogs, is partnering with Foursquare to give Foursquare users tips and recommendations on social media venues, tech gatherings, startup headquarters and some of their own dining picks.
Last year in a CNN post, Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare, Mashable’s founder Pete Cashmore argued that Foursquare was already aligning itself to become a mainstream hit in 2010. His post alone would have done no end of good for the service, and now this.
Furthermore, at the Mashable Media Summit, it was revealed that Foursquare is fast-approaching 1.6 million members and is now experimenting with CNN Cup badges. The new badges are a move towards addressing “badge fatigue” by attempting to add more value to badges. For example, once a badge is unlocked it will guarantee the holder priority entrance into specific parties and events. It’s the equivalent of a VIP program.
Above is a Google Trends comparison between the search terms ‘Foursquare’ and ‘Gowalla’ over the past 12 months. It’s based on the average search traffic of each search term. This doesn’t reflect user growth, but I think it certainly gives a good indication of the buzz surrounding Foursquare, which you’d have to agree is a big factor in encouraging users to at least try the service. What’s clear is that there is certainly no shortage of interest. Foursquare is going from strength to strength.
As Business Insider points out, the battle may now be between Foursquare and bigger companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. Do you agree or disagree? Still sticking with Gowalla?
