I’ve had an on/off relationship with Foursquare for a few years now. I started using it in March 2010, and the whilst the initial fun of using a ‘location based app’ (this was a few years ago when such things were new) quickly faded, it was replaced by a level of usefulness through discovery, particularly as I moved into the fair city of Glasgow.
So I would dutifully log in to the places I visited and was rewarded with badges and mayorships and other such ‘gamification’ tricks. I did use it quite often to see what else was close by as I wandered around, and it proved useful when visiting other cities; not so much when travelling abroad though, thanks to the varying cost of data charges.
These days though I have a better service for finding local places, Yelp. I’ve been using Yelp since December 2012 but it’s already proven useful. I use it mostly for finding places to eat or drink, but beyond that it’s also got a wonderful community aspect to it, with coordinated events (taster menus, guided walks and more) that have helped me get out and about a lot more than I used to in the past.
I’m not really sure why I stuck with Foursquare for so long, but it’s now gone from my iPhone. Oddly whilst I question the value of things and how much benefit they can bring me, and the converse for things that drain time or energy, Foursquare remained. Perhaps it’s the hope that that data might one day be useful?
For the last few months I’ve been grabbing my Foursquare checkins and logging them in my journal (Day One) but I’ve not once looked back at the data.
Ultimately I have no good reason to use Foursquare anymore. It offers me no value (I’ve never gotten a discount anywhere for checking in, nor used the data for anything of note) so it’s time to say goodbye.
All of this creates another problem, I now have a free spot on my homescreen! Ahhhh, such are the trials and tribulations of living in this day and age.
In related news, I think this is the most ‘first world problems’ style post I’ve ever written!
Weirdly, I came to the same conclusion last week when I got my new phone. When I was doing the tedious reinstall of my apps, I came to FourSquare… and I never bothered. Like you, I used to love it. It’s gone the way of MySpace and Bebo now.
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