Foursquare hits 10 million users. Impressive or not?

Jun 22, 2011 by

Foursquare, the pioneer in location based networking hit a milestone this week.   It passed the ten million user mark.   Sounds impressive, but is it?   Yes and no.   More to the point, it is a case of needing to look beyond the numbers.

Foursquare took over two years to reach this total.   And as Wessel van Rensburg of RAAK pointed out, at this rate it will be 2020 until they get 100 million – less than half of what Twitter and less than 1/6 of what Facebook has now.

Also, newer social networks are posting much more impressive growth rates.   Many of us at Rabbit have been huge fans of the mobile photo-sharing network Instagram.

But we’re not alone, in only eight months Instagram has amassed five million users.   In other words, Instagram has only been around for a third of Foursquare’s existence, but has half its user numbers.

As a result, the prediction by US digital strategist Bryan Jones that Instagram will pass Foursquare in numbers and usage by year end, actually sounds reasonable.

Then there is Soundcloud.   The social network, which has been described as a ‘Flickr of sound’ has also amassed five million users, four million in the past year – @jas (who also works for Rabbit client AVG), has an interesting podcast interview up with Soundcloud’s founder Alex Ljung, where he talks about sound becoming bigger than video.

So when you add all that together, ten million really doesn’t sound all that impressive.

And yet, bear this in mind.   If you are – say – an electronics retailer you’d love to have a way of spotting the one person likely to buy an HD TV as opposed to the 99 who will walk out with AA batteries.

Arguably that is exactly what US electronics giant Radio Shack has been able to do.   Radio Shack admits that Foursquare users will spend 3.5x as much as customers that don’t check in on Foursquare.

The constant temptation for brands is to automatically default to Facebook, because it delivers the big number.  Yet, as Radio Shack demonstrates with Foursquare, it ultimately is less about who is using a social network, than how they are using it.

(I originally posted this on the Rabbit site.   Rabbit = the day job)

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4 Comments

  1. Howie at Sky Pulse Media
    July 7, 2011

    Considering I destroy networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Yelp etc by going deep in the numbers it is important to realize websites like Mashable, VC’s, Social Media Agencies, and the networks themselves benefit from the BS in the numbers.

    Facebook won’t ay how many people are heavy users and how many log in once a day for just 2 mins or maybe just once a month. But their time spent per person per day is down 34% from April 2010.

    Yelp! claims a business is called every other second from their mobile APP. This comes out to only 86 per state per day.

    Twitter might claim 160mil accounts but based on Tweet volume only 30mil are active per day worldwide.

    And Facebook might claim 134mil unique visitors in April but based on total visits for April only about 22mil US consumers are active on the sit each day.

    As for Radio Shack? Yes they are the only ones who when I check foursquare for nearby deals always has deals. Usually 10% off a purchase so is this bringing people in or are just existing customers eroding their margins?

    Great post btw!

  2. Dirk Singer
    June 28, 2011

    @lisa peyton – thanks Lisa, appreciate the comment. Also, Amex recently released the results of their SXSW pilot where people using 4sq + Amex spent 20% more. Not as outstanding as Radio Shack but still significant

    @bryan jones – I agree, the layer of applications built on top of 4sq is significant. However, one thing that does strike me when looking at Instagram is how few users actually tag their photos by location (I do, but I seem to be the minority)

  3. Bryan Jones
    June 27, 2011

    It’s really fun to see how all of these services are becoming the infrastructure of our connected lives. How many of the services listed above would have been viable without Twitter? Would Instagram be as readily adopted without Foursquare’s location layer? Both are foundational.

    So this is the next layer of infrastructure, very cool. Let’s see what grows atop Soundcloud, Instagram and the rest.

    Cheers!
    -Bryan

  4. Lisa Peyton
    June 23, 2011

    Interesting stats regarding the growth of Foursquare. It might make marketers think twice before launching a campaign, however the Radio Shack case study if pretty compelling stuff.

    I think you’re right it’s more about reaching the right target audience with compelling and valuable offers rather than simply looking at the number of bodies in the room.

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