Foursquare, which was introduced about a year ago, has become one of the best ways for a retail destination establishment to take advantage of social media — (in addition to an enewsletter, a blog, a Twitter program and a Facebook fan page.)
Now Facebook has introduced their own app, called Facebook Places, for consumers to let others know where they’re having coffee, enjoying a beer or real time gathering for a get together.
Facebook is a formidable competitor with 400 million users and provides very strong competition to Foursquare. But Foursquare has several advantages:
- Right now Facebook’s Places is only for iPhone, but F
oursquare has apps for the Blackberry and other devices. - And it’s only available in the USA.
- Foursquare has been first to market
- Foursquare seems more fun… half game. Just look at the difference in the graphics?!
- You can already connect Foursquare to Facebook
- And there’s the foursquare store
But nonetheless, Facebook already has everyone’s friends in place, so the biggest barrier (getting all your friends to join) is already overcome. Privacy issues? I expect to hear more about it.
Only 3 million users are using Foursquare as of August 2010 (today.) I wonder how many people will be using Facebook Places one year from now? (Note to self, come back and check!!)
If I was promoting a restaurant, coffee shop, kickboxing studio, amusement park or destination, you bet I’d be displaying BOTH symbols for my marketing program and offering incentives for everyone who checks in or use both in my marketing bag of tricks!
My bet is on Facebook.
Flickr photo via creative commons Nan Palmero
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }