This seems risky, but interesting. If the core foursquare app becomes focused on location discovery and exploration, they instantly become the most viable mobile competitor to Yelp, which is something I (and I think many people) would be interested in.
They're recognizing that the location browsing/discovery UX is fundamentally different than their social UX, and de-coupling them, while presumably using the same infrastructure under the hood. Hopefully, this will allow UI/UX development that diverges and serves each user group better.
I want a better, more usable location database on my phone, I would use it all the time. Yelp is unfortunately the default, I think because through crowd-sourcing data validation, they just have the most accurate listing of addresses, phone numbers, business hours, etc. But after that, Yelp is social features I don't care for, review writing that make me sad about humanity, and very likely bully-esque business practices (but I do like the pictures). Foursquare has the second best location DB that I've used, but historically the app has been more aggressive about pushing it's social features, which I do not want. So, I am curious and cautiously optimistic.
From the comments, it seems like what may be missing is the ability to check-in via the core foursquare app. This would be a problem if the life-tracking-but-not-social subset of users is as high as the comments suggest, but also may not be a problem if the "I was here" feature still exists in the core app and just has been messaged incorrectly.
They're recognizing that the location browsing/discovery UX is fundamentally different than their social UX, and de-coupling them, while presumably using the same infrastructure under the hood. Hopefully, this will allow UI/UX development that diverges and serves each user group better.
I want a better, more usable location database on my phone, I would use it all the time. Yelp is unfortunately the default, I think because through crowd-sourcing data validation, they just have the most accurate listing of addresses, phone numbers, business hours, etc. But after that, Yelp is social features I don't care for, review writing that make me sad about humanity, and very likely bully-esque business practices (but I do like the pictures). Foursquare has the second best location DB that I've used, but historically the app has been more aggressive about pushing it's social features, which I do not want. So, I am curious and cautiously optimistic.
From the comments, it seems like what may be missing is the ability to check-in via the core foursquare app. This would be a problem if the life-tracking-but-not-social subset of users is as high as the comments suggest, but also may not be a problem if the "I was here" feature still exists in the core app and just has been messaged incorrectly.