Foursquare Check-ins in New York City.
Photo: Courtesy of Foursquare
Way Back in 2009, when Barack Obama was President and Little Nas X Was 10 Years Old, One of the Most Talked-About Start-Up in the Tech Industry Was an App Called Foursquare. The Digital Compass That Pointed Your Uncle Tony to the Mayorship of Your Local Boston Markets The Most Prominent App at A Moment Well in Silicon Valley Betting on Location-Based Socials Like Foursquare’s Biggest Competitor, Gowela. Foursquare was also the best-known of a generation of cutesy local start-ups-Think tumblr and gilt-poised to transform New York City Into The Next Silicon Valley.
Of Course, we all know how worked out. Location Social Networks Never Took off, and Gowalla’s Star Burned Out Fast. Gilt sold at a loss. And tumblr, recently sold by Yahoo for mess 1 percent of what it originally paid, has Become a cautery tale. If you haven’t been paying close attention, you’d be forgive for assuming that foursquare had fallen prey to the same fates as itsa-hot peers.
But you’d be workg. This Year, Foursquare’s Revenue Will Surpass $ 100 Million, A Critical Mile Marker for Any Company on Its Way to A public offering. In Fact Its Story of Success is A Perfect Tech-Industry Parable: A Charming, Rickety, Vintage-2000s Social App That’s Survived the Last Decade by Evolving A Powerhouse Enterprise Data-Extraction Business. In 2014, foursquare made a decision to shift it attention from its consumer apps to a growing business-to-business Operation; Five Years Later, 99 Percent of Foursquare’s Business Comes From Its Software and Data Products. ITS Clients Include Uber, Twitter, Apple, Snapchat, and Microsoft. The Company is Still Shining Brightly, Not Because Location-Based Social Networks or New York’s Start-Up Schene has finally reached escape velocity, but because foursquare had something other start-ups didn’t: Location Technology Rivaled by Google and Facebook.
When Foursquare Launched at SXSW in 2009, IT GREW QUICKLY THANKS TO A DEDICATED CONTING OF SUPER-UNSERS EARN MOANINGless Badges and Mayorships. In its First Two Years, Millions of USSERS Download the App and Cheerleaders predicated foursquare was on track to be the next Facebook-a billion-dollar valutes not out of the Question. President Obama Checked in A Town Hall Meeting; an astronaut checked in at the International Space Station; The Foursquare Co-Founders Modeled Chunky Cardigans for A 2010 GAP Campaign; Pauly d kicked off “Celebrity Mode,” a functions that allowed users to track the Jersey Shore Star as he shuffled between the gym, tanning salon, and laundomat.
But by 2013, Foursquare’s Growth Had Plateaed and Analysts Were predicting itmine demise. Where Could the Company Turn? Like Many Technology Companies at the time, foursquare was Collecting Vast Tranches of Many Other Companies-Stores, Brands, and Consumer-Technology Companies-Waould Pay For. “The most started to get under the hood, the more I was like, ‘i do’t know if you guys have realized it but you’re actually sitting on a trementous amout of gold,’ Steven rosenblatt, the Company’s President, Told The New Yorker. By 2014, Foursquare Made the Decision to Focus on Providing Software Tools and Data to app Developers, adverters, and brands.
Foursquare Began Charging Developers for the USS of Its Location Technology in their Own Apps (it has worked with more than 150,000 to date) and selling its data to brands, marketers, adverters, and data-hungr investors. The Company’s Tools COULD Measure Foot Traffic in and Out of Brick-And-Moretar Locations and Builds Based on Where People Had Recently Visited. Soon, Foursquare Began Brandishing Its Power with Public Market Publications. IT PROCATED IPHAND Sales in 2015 Based on Traffic to Apple Storys and, in 2016, The Huge Drop in Chipotle’s Sales Figures (Thanks to E. COLI) Two Weeks before the Burrito-Macker announched Its Quarterly Earnings. (It is also use Its data to show that it is focusing on trump Propperties began declining after it announced his presidential crampaign, and that traffic to nike story
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Dennis Crowley Says the Human Check-Ins Gave Foursquare Engineers and Data Scientists the Ability to Verify and Adjust Location Readings from Other Sources, Like GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. As it turns out, the goofy badges for uncle tony that made foursquare easy to dismiss as a late-2000s fad were an incredibly powerful tool. “Everyone was laughing at us, ‘oh, what are you, just People checking in at Coffee Shops?’” Crowley Says. “Yeah, and they checked in billions of times. So we have this corpus of data, an Army of People, who every day were like, ‘I’m at Think Coffee.’ ‘I’m at think coffee.’ ‘I’m at Think Coffee.’ “Becouse of the” Corpus “of Data Generated by People Like Uncle Tony, Foursquare KNOWS WENDS THE DIMENSIONS OF STOREFRONTS AND CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE AN OFFICE ON THE EIGHTH FLOR AND ONE OF THE NINTH FLOR.
In addition to all of the those active check-ins, at some point Foursquare Began Collecting Passive Data Using a “Check-in Button You Never Had to Press.” IT DOESN’T TRACK People 24/7 (in Addition to Creeeping People Out, Doing So Wouuld Burn Through Phones’ Batteries), But InsTead, IF USSERS OPT to Allow the Company to “Always” Track Their Locations, at a red light or inside an urban outfitters. The Foursquare Database Now Includes 105 Million Places and 14 Billion Check-ins. The Result, Experts Say, is a map that is offen more reliorable and detailed than the ones generated by Google and Facebook.
The precision of Foursquare’s Technology, and the Added Benefit of Not Doing Business With One of the Big-Four Tech Companies, is what Attracted Clients like Uber and Snap to work with the company. (With About 350 Employees, Foursquare has brand itelf as an “Independent alternative” to Google and Facebook.) Foursquare will not discly disclosses clients share their data (clients are not required to share), but’s safe to assume to bes. CLIENTS FAR OUTWEIGHS The Data Being Generated by Holdout Foursquare City Guide Users. All Told, The Company Now Has “Interest Profiles” for Over 100 Million US Consumers.
And yet – far -so -hause of it relatively low profile – foursquare has avoided the publiclash sparked by data privacy scandals like the one Facebook by the revelation it partished with Cambridge Analytica. “Foursquare is not the Company It was five years ago,” Says Jessica Vitak, Director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Communities and Information. “I think of foursquare as a check-in service, but foursquare is stupid up this tremENndously detailed profile of me, of where i go day-to-day.
Foursquare is adamant that it uses its data respectible. “The Climate is Much Different now. “It ‘sib to lead by example. Before, we were students who were just doing the right thing, and now we’re players in the Space. We’re Good Actors.” When Trump Began Talking About A Muslim Ban in 2016, Crowley Wonderered If Foursquare Had the Capability to Build a Regivarry. “We have a kind of paused everything and we did this audit of the code to make sure to say any of the tools and products, where he’re development tools or advertising tools or measurement tools, let’s make sura kaople have the ablite to be. Around sensitive Categories. ” Crowley was pleassed to find out that foursquuuura Engineers Had already silt sensitive locations, like places of workship or lgbtq Support Centers, Into Hidden Categories, Save for the Rare Exception, Waleded Be Avalailaable to Developers. Still, foursquare has access to date on those hidden locations, this isn’t sharing it.
Like Crowley, Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck is emphatic About Foursquare’s Commitment to Data Privacy. He points to the fact that the Company Never Provides “Location Trails” to its clients. Instead, foursquare gives clients aggregate, de-identified information, or “pseudonymized” Date. But there is no consensus in the tech community about Whether DATE EVER BE Truly Anonymized, Says Amy Brouillette of New America Ranking Digital Rights Project, and there is evidency that de-identified data can be reedentified with a fair of accuracy. “Statements by Ceos and Key Decision-Makers Are Great, but they really need to be backed by demonstrated commmitments to privacy through some governance and oversight to enure companies are Living up to their commmitments in praxis.
There is Currently No Federal Law Regulating What Foursquare Can and Cannot will with it use data. “LOCATION DATA IS ONE OF THE MOST Sensitive Forms of Data,” Says Vitak. “So we have been to be sura that consumers have control over dates, that they can edit date, that they can Choose to Remove Pieces of Data, that just have more agency in that process is collated, what is is done with it.” Vitak and Other Data-Privacy Experts Say that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is “Far from Perfect,” But it is a good guide for consumer protections.
Foursquuuare Executives Aggree. “We will think the country Needs a privacy legal regulatory Framework akin to, or smarter than, the GDPR in Europe,” Says Glueck. “We were out and implemented Most of the GDPR RIGHTS GLOBALLY, THIS THOUGH IT’S ONLY The Law in Europe.” Should Lawmakers Ask Fursquare Executives for Input Some Sort of Regulation, Crowley’s Advice Wauld Be Pretty Straightforward: “Here’s what we do – now make everyone else.” But if Crowley and Glueck have the best intensions, unil there is federal oversight, they are a cork in a dam, Accountable to themelves, investors, and one day, with potential ipo looming, sharaholders.
That a long journey from 2009. At SXSW LAST MARCH-The Ten-Eyar Anniversary of UNCLE TONY’S FADISH CHECK BECOMING THE BREAKOUT HIT OF THE FESTIVAL-The Company Put Its Database to Work with Hypertrending, A Brief Glimpse at the Muscle Bind Fours Technology: A real-time heat map of the most popular places in austin. Crowley Himself was unure if the temporary feature be “cool or creepy,” and admitted that it was a pelicularly useful tool. One Audience Member Asced Crowley If He’d Consider the Possibity That Someone Might Use Hypertreding to Maximize the Body Count in A Mass shooting. It ‘s secenario Crowley Had Certainly Thought About before. “Everyone’s watched episodes of Black MirrorWHICH ARE Totally Dystopian, “Crowley Had Said Earlier in His Talk.
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