"Why Now?"
Nice quick post by Chris Dixon reflecting on why certain web-based marketplaces are taking off now when they haven’t in the past. The key:
I asked Roelof Botha the “why now” question regarding web-based marketplaces. He said something I thought was really interesting: marketplaces depend on trust, and trust requires knowing the reputation of a prospective counterparty. Today, for the first time, you can get background information on almost any prospective counterparty by searching Google, Facebook etc. Or put more simply: we finally have an internet of people.
One of my favorite things about Airbnb is the way they handle reputation by looking at your social connections. If thousands of people follow me on Twitter and I have hundreds of friends on Facebook, I’m probably not an impostor looking for trouble. Square does some of this as well, I believe.
More broadly, “why now” is often just a matter of timing. I think of Dodgeball, which never took off in the way Foursquare has even though they’re essentially the same thing (or at least started that way). Sure, you can probably partially blame Google for neglecting Dodgeball post-acquisition, but a bigger key was the rise of smartphones, and the iPhone with its app marketplace in particular.
Dodgeball was a great idea. Foursquare exploded because it was a great idea at the right time.
Foursquare On The Big Screen
Yesterday, Foursquare’s website was basically useless. Today, it’s not.
The continued evolution of the Foursquare game. I love this (mostly because I’m winning and was called both “Juan Valdez” and achieved “Jedi Status”). More importantly, this automatically converts badges into something more meaningful.
Finally, all that wine drinking and sushi eating will pay off — at least for someone else in the form of automatic recommendations.
I’m still holding out hope for my last remaining gaming feature request: Mayorships amongst friends. You basically can’t get mayorships in popular spots in major cities. Too many people are playing. But if you could just battle your social graph, I think that would drive interesting combative social behavior, hearkening back to the early days of Foursquare.
Foursquare Radar
This is something I’ve wanted from Foursquare since about week two of using it: ambient alerts.
The biggest barrier of any app is simply the need for it to be open to be useful. This starts to move away from that.
Icon-olution
As mentioned in a previous post about the evolution of our iphone app, one of the great things about working at a start up is the ability to iterate and the speed at which you can do this. As we strive to improve our product, we wanted to make sure we had an icon that reflected the current state of our brand.
To achieve this, we made a few subtle changes to the icon as opposed to a big change. This didn’t feel like the appropriate time to do a complete revolution; an evolution felt more apt.
You’ll notice we’ve rounded and softened the edges to better align with other illustrative elements you find in our app such as badges and icons. We’ve replaced the purple ball with a green ball, as purple no longer lives in our color palette elsewhere in the app or site. Green is one of our primary colors and we wanted that represented here. We’ve also gone back to a less perfectly parallel trail of the ball (which also makes our iconic check mark) to inject a more playful feel into the icon while still maintaining our clean edges and lines.
Attention to detail. Very nice.
Update: Dennis Crowley shares more history about the logo.
An evolution of foursquare design from January 2009 - August 2011
One of the great things about working on one product is the ability to iterate; the bad thing is you never feel like you’re done.
When foursquare started there was no real visual design on the app. Naveen was coding it up alone and he used all native Apple UI elements. I was helping out on the side and slowly we added custom elements and branding and for SXSW 2010 we did our first visual pass at the design. At that point I was doing everything, and it showed. One person can only do so much. Now we have a talented group of UI and UX designers and these days I mostly work on the iOS app.
We just put out a new build complete with a new blue navigation bar, photos inline, single tap cells and a newly designed check-in detail screen. I’m really proud of this current iteration of the app and can’t wait to see it continue to evolve.
This sort of reminds me of looking at the high school yearbook photos of an old friend.
I’m sure glad Foursquare has shaved that moustache and cut that mullet.
Already the most interaction I’ve ever had in the comments section of a Foursquare check-in. Nice work on that new notification bar. Potential game-changer.
GroupFoursquareOn
Foursquare + LivingSocial, Gilt, and maybe Groupon. Interesting, but the execution of this will be key. If it’s simply tacked on, it could flop. If done correctly, it could be huge.
Why wouldn’t Foursquare just build a deal product themselves? Because they have 75 people. The key to all of these services is having hundreds, if not thousands, of sales people. That’s a main reason why it’s not as easy to replicate these businesses as some might have you believe.
The big challengers here will be (surprise!) Google and Facebook. Both of them have location-based services and their own (fledgling) group deals products.
I recall ripping Foursquare a bit in September of last year for a way-too-confusing app design. I didn’t get why “Tips” was a focal point, why “Tips” and “To-Do List” were separate, why “Places” was a stand-alone area, and why the “Check In” button (the key to the service) was buried in the upper right corner (meanwhile the “Shout” button was in the more prominent upper left corner).
Today’s update (3.2) fixes a lot of that. “Check In” is now front and center, as it should be. The excellent “Explore” tab is also now highlighted instead of the redundant “Places”. “Shout” has also been totally removed (which I agree with). And most importantly, the app now feels much faster.
I do wonder if they should have made the “Check In” nav button bright green, like it is on the actual check in page. The move to make it bright orange in the recent builds of Gowalla I think looks great and really draws your eye. It’s a visual call to action.
Hey There, Killer
Last Year: Killer. Killer. Killer.
Today: Killer-killer.
As a bonus: An absolutely preposterous killer.
I obviously have nothing but love for Foursquare, but I still think it’s way too under-appreciated just how solid and beautiful of a service Gowalla is.
It has always been one of the best services out there from a design perspective, but in recent months it seems like they’ve even managed to kick it up a notch.
“This venue is closed!”
