Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Foursquare… Check-in… Ads turned on!


"Beginning at 3:00 EST today, Foursquare will begin rolling out a new feature called Local Updates. Local Updates will help lure loyal customers into their favorite stores.
Local Updates are status messages that appear in a Foursquare user's activity feed. The updates can include a new deal or promotion, up to three pictures, and a text message from a merchant. They are only seen by current customers who have checked in to the store multiple times and are in its vicinity.”
Moreover, according to www.businessinsider.com, local Updates will only live in Google searches and user feeds. There won't be any push notifications associated with them.
"A lot of businesses have chalk boards outside for new promotions. This is the digital equivalent of that," says Foursquare product manager Noah Weiss.

You can also see how a “Local Update” looks like in this webpage:
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5006f3be69bedd704600000b/foursquare-local-updates.png
Honestly I’m not sure whether this decision will bring any benefit to FourSquare, of course in the short term could boost Foursquare’s revenue, but on the other hand could lower customer satisfactions.
Will you be keep checking in FourSquare if you know that your location won’t be just shared with your friends but used to lure you in a store?

No comments: