My claims are complete bull.
Every time that I check my analytics and see that my most popular posts from the past few months have to do with Foursquare, this leads me - at least subconsciously, if not blatantly - to write more about Foursquare. I mean, my early June post about Foursquare's Lakers and Celtics badges continues to get traffic, as do my January and May posts on the mayor position in Foursquare. It stands to reason that more of the same will result in more eyeballs to my Empoprise-BI business blog, and what's wrong with that?
But I've seen two things that suggest that this strategy may backfire.
One of these was found via a post on Foursquare's own blog. It turns out that The Onion has paid attention to Foursquare. This is what they said (except for the naughty bits):
NEW YORK—While millions of young, tech-savvy professionals already use services like Facebook and Twitter to keep in constant touch with friends, a new social networking platform called Foursquare has recently taken the oh, [expletive deleted], can't some other desperate news outlet cover this crap instead?
Launched last year, Foursquare is unique in that it not only allows users to broadcast their whereabouts, but also offers a number of built-in incentives, including some innovative new crap The New York Times surely has a throbbing...
And we'll leave it right there, but suffice it to say that the Onion definitely captures the inevitable boredom which greets every announcement of the shiniest, newest toy.
Adena Schutzberg isn't necessarily as funny as the writers of The Onion, but she feels the same way, especially after reading mind-numbing press release after press release about this company or that company partnering with Foursquare. By the time the Six Flags press release (you can find it here) came out, Schutzberg was tired.
I've not ever used Foursquare and I'm bored of these announcements of new games and prizes.
Why? Is it because essentially all the promotions are "the same"? That the partners do not interest? That I'm not "competitive?"
Presumably others are getting tired of repeated Foursquare mentions also, in which case one of two things will happen:
- Interest in Foursquare will peak and then swiftly dissipate faster than a packet of Pop Rocks, or Milli Vanilli's career.
- Interest in Foursquare will continue to bubble, and then an event (similar to the Oprah-Ashton-Twitter event) will occur which will make Foursquare REALLY popular - so popular that your grandmother will use it.
So which way is it going to go? Is Foursquare about to jump the shark? Or is it about to really take off?
