Twitter wasn’t the new Second Life..but Foursquare might well be
Remember Second Life? The virtual world where you could live out a completely new existence in what was (and still is) essentially a 3D chat room? Many marketers were drawn in, believing that this was the next big thing.
I was one of them, thinking that predictions, such as ones by academic Edward Castronova that we were about to see a trend of internal emigration, were about to come true. Indeed, I even got my last agency Cow an “island” (long since gone) that I figured could be used for client events and recruitment days.
Not my best decision.
That’s because Second Life never turned out the way some of us expected. The user numbers didn’t justify the effort and when it came to commercial returns…well, with a few exceptions there were none. But thanks to that first hand experience, I now know a little more than I should about social networks where the reality never matched the hype.
According to some predictions last year, Twitter was going to be the new Second Life. The churn rate of 83% matches that of Second Life and it hasn’t yet achieved Facebook style mass adoption.
But Twitter won’t be – it has built up a self contained, influential community, including many bloggers and journalists and it’s often used to spread and break news. The numbers aside, it has found the role Second Life never did.
1% of online Americans regularly use it
Twitter won’t be the new Second Life, but Foursquare might yet be.
According to Forrester, 84% of Americans that are online have never even heard of location based networks and only 1% use them more than once a week. (The Next Web)
And though a Foursquare boss claimed in Fast Company that out of 2.3 million Foursquare users, there are one million check ins a day, that’s not the same as saying that one million people actually consistently check in.
In fact, I suspect that like with Twitter, Foursquare is a network where a relatively small share of power users account for most activity.
Echoes of Second Life again come in with those user numbers. In its hey-day, Second Life bosses used to tout 10-15 million accounts and 1.5 million regular residents (translation – logged in past 60 days), yet at any one time you’d find 50-75k human beings online…..worldwide.
33 million passengers….2000 odd check ins
To look at Foursquare numbers in a bit more detail take one location that sees 33 million people pass through every year, many with smart phones and often with time to kill: London Gatwick Airport (which happens to be a Rabbit client)
Even allowing for duplicate locations, Gatwick has seen:
South Terminal 754 people, 1081 check ins
Gatwick Airport 1242 people, 1978 check ins
North Terminal, 386 people, 517 check ins
This is since October 2009, when Twitter launched in the UK. By comparison, Gatwick is being tweeted about every six – seven minutes (or 10x an hour and up to 100 times a day)
It’s a man’s world
So why isn’t Foursquare – yet at least – gaining more traction? The reasons seem to boil down to a combination of usefulness and privacy.
There have been a lot of well publicised Foursquare deals, but there are questions over whether $1 off a frappucino for being a Starbucks Mayor (so check in more than anyone else – in itself a tall order), is enough to blast your movements to the outside world.
And on that note, take a look at the male / female split on Foursquare.
Forrester says it’s 80% male, Foursquare says it is “approaching” 60% – so suffice to say it’s probably at least 2/3 men. That makes Foursquare different to other social networks – only last week Comscore published a report again highlighting female dominance in social media worldwide.
Why is Foursquare so male focused? I suspect that’s where privacy comes in. The other week, Leo Hickman in the Guardian wrote a piece where he tracked down a recruitment consultant called Louise he’d never met before, in a London pub.
Now personally I’d be flattered if anyone even cared where I was. But then again I’m not a 20 something woman.
Which throws up a final point. Foursquare allows you to collect badges. Isn’t the whole badge collecting thing, in itself quite male (makes me think of cards and collectables)?
Utility or numbers?
Forrester Research has advised marketers to hold off Foursquare for now. I agree in part – it should be included as one of the elements of a social media marketing plan, but definitely not the main one.
Foursquare, as well as its much smaller counterpart Gowalla, has yet to do one of two things. It hasn’t got mass appeal and 500 million users like Facebook. But on the other hand it also doesn’t have a smaller number base, but real utility and influence like Twitter.
This might all change. But Foursquare has to up the incentives for people to check-into places. And then user numbers will follow.
Finally – even if Foursquare doesn’t live up to its promise, that doesn’t mean location based networks won’t in future.
Coming back to Second Life, it’s still entirely possible that in future spending time in virtual worlds will be the norm, given that kids today think nothing of going into places like Club Penguin. And Twitter and Facebook are of course both integrating location based functions anyway.
But then again, what do I know? This is coming from someone who thought buying a virtual island was a good idea after all.
(Thanks to Louise Doherty and Lauren Fernandez – my conversations with them about Foursquare was what prompted me to write this post)
1 – Worth a read is this piece in ‘Customer Think’ by Maria Ogneva, who identifies privacy issues, lack of wider business adoption and a clunky (and not 100% accurate) check in process as reasons why location based networks in their current form haven’t extended past a “small, albeit passionate, group of techies, geeks and social media people.”
2 – For one example of a location based network that does look interesting, take a look at local North Carolina network TriOutNC. (Via Max Gladwell in response to the Foursquare / AdAage piece)
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Hi Nick, Agreed that other airports show higher check in rates in the US, but as a result I’d maybe shift the focus to – say – entertainment venues – the 02 (1061 check-ins), Wembley Stadium (1085) and the Emirates (988).
In fact, one thing that really brought 4sq’s relatively low usage rates home for me is when I went to see Flight of the Conchords at the Hammersmith Apollo the other month.
The venue holds 3000, it was obviously sold out and you’d imagine that this would be the kind of act that would attract a disproportionately high proportion of social media and smartphone users….yet when I checked in I found out that precisely three other people had similarly done so.
I do agree that location based networking does have a future (the subject of my latest post – http://bit.ly/bNqZ3t), I just wonder whether 4sq and Gowalla are the ones to realise it, and as you say Facebook’s planned geolocation product might raise the bar for them that much higher.
I also think Gatwick is probably the wrong airport to look at for FourSquare analysis. The US has obviously had FourSquare for more time and the airports there show a different picture. On the main airport listing Chicago O’Hare has 54,471 checkin’s, Atlanta Hartsfield 50,853 and LAX 68,151. These airports all have multiple listings (different terminals, areas, flights etc which further add to the numbers.)
I recently found user data pulled from FourSquare and GoWalla API’s and FourSquare globally grew it’s user base by 28% in the last month alone, now standing at 6.5 times larger than GoWalla (here: http://www.nickburcher.com/2010/08/foursquare-28-growth-in-last-month-and.html).
FourSquare will have to work hard to compete and stay relevant once Facebook introduce location, but this weekend’s GAP special offer – 25% discount if you checkin at a GAP store is a much larger incentive than a free coffee for the mayor! (Though yet to see take up numbers.)
I can’t believe that GPS + social + mobile isn’t going to become a really exciting area, but not sure if FourSquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Loopt could ever beat Facebook?
Hi David, thanks for commenting.
I’m aware that Second Life has given a lot of people a vehicle for self expression. I also know that Universities use it to provide a rich environment for distance learning, and that some companies have used it as a virtual meeting space.
What it’s not is – for the most part at least – a good place for brands to engage with audiences. As you said, the environment is suitable (and not just when it comes to plastering the place with giant billboards) and the numbers simply don’t add up.
Much as Second Life is still going and several hundred thousand residents are obviously getting enjoyment from it, I would question the extent to which it is about to see the renaissance you’ve talked about after Second Life creator Linden Lab shed almost a third of its workforce last month (http://bit.ly/9EXx7c)
That you can dismiss Second Life as a 3D chatroom only shows that you never really “got it”. Second Life is not about what you can take from it, but what you bring to it. Second Life – which is still there and thriving, by the way – has empowered people with disabilities, given artists new forms of expression and educators amazing new tools. Using it to sell Hondas and Coca Cola and corn flakes was nice, in that advertising agencies foolishly pumped a lot of money into the system, but essentially doomed. Nobody wants billboards in their Second Life. As an online service it started out as bleeding-edge technology that few people were really able to access and enjoy. Now, even computers with basic, out of the box Intel video capabilities will provide a satisfactory experience. With Congress about to end the online gambling ban, which is what really killed the economic explosion, second Life is set to take off again, this time with servers better able to handle the traffic and computers better able to access it.
…was wrong (pressed enter too quick).
Excellent blogpost. I’m a wavering Foursquare sceptic, but your post gives food for thought. To me, there are two main limitations to Foursquare: 1) people’s concerns about privacy and 2) that it doesn’t offer the same opportunities for self expression as, say, Twitter. That said, I’m still playing with it and open minded to the possibility that my original scepticism.
Hello, yes Gatwick was chosen simply because it was front of mind, but even bearing in mind what you’ve said I’d still say that the check in rate is low compared to the large number of tweets – which also of course announce that someone is leaving the country.
But to give another example, the 02 Arena – 807 people and 1000 odd check ins (http://foursquare.com/venue/143973)
I agree on the badges though, personally collecting them do nothing for me.
I think that the notion of geo-located checkins and social networks is the keeper here – not the tool. I’m on Foursquare and I find the whole badge thing a bit awkward – as soon as Facebook or Twitter properly add the geo-location to status updates and link it to your friends Foursquare will be dead.
BTW I’m not sure Gatwick is a useful example to pick though (chosen because they’re a client perchance?!). The Guardian article shows that people might think twice about revealing they are leaving the country for two weeks. Most only go to Gatwick once in a blue moon so there’s no chance of getting the repeat check-ins required for any kind of offers the stores might have. It’s also a dull place – usually a conduit to somewhere more interesting – I reckon others would wait until arriving at their infinitely more interesting destination before checking in. Or tweet about their late flight, expensive burger, rubbish exchange rates instead!
Hi, according to this PC Mag piece, Gowalla has around 300k users: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365593,00.asp (which makes it around 1/7 of the size). Personally I prefer it, but even fewer people I know use it.
Do you have any stats to back up the “much smaller” comment re Gowalla? Not that I’m disputing it – I just haven’t seen many usage stats for either!