From the Foursquare blog:
Mayors 2.0. We wanted to get back to a fun way to compete with your friends instead of all 50,000,000 people who are on Foursquare. With these new mayorships, if you and a couple friends have been checking in to a place, the person who has been there the most lately gets a crown sticker. So you and your friends can compete for the mayorship of your favorite bar, without having to worry about the guy who is there every. single. day. Mayors 2.0 means that places can have many different mayors, one for each circle of friends, instead of just a single mayor at each place.
It is irrational and it is crazy, but I am indeed that “guy” who lately has been fighting for the mayorship with that “girl” for the mayorship of that “coffee shop.” It is one of the primary reasons why I keep Foursquare app on the first screen of my iPhone.
I have so much emotional effort attached to the virtual mayorship of that location and it has become such a part of my daily vernacular. People joke with me about the missing mayorship. The cafe baristas offer encouragement that I will win it back. Even people who don’t know me well have often broken-the-ice by using this random and totally pointless detail, but I like it.
I have had equally irrational attachment and emotional distress over email addresses, old shoes, a T-shirt with more holes than swiss cheese. And the only reason I can think of my irrational attachment to these things is that they provide a physical representation of time spent and memories associated with these admittedly unimportant things in the long run. Sometimes, I wonder if companies actually understand the emotional payload attached to their products.
So, when I read this news on Foursquare blog, I was sad and disappointed. Also, this is yet another example of modern culture which tells us the everywhere everyone is a winner. Which is bullshit to begin with. Time to move on, rev-up the day ahead.
Foursquare as I know it, is gone. Done.
First step is admitting you have a problem. Now that you’re past denial, and working through anger, you’ll soon be past the absurdity of virtual mayorships and back to leading a healthy, productive life!
I agree, it wont be the same
I stopped using Foursquare as of Monday this week. I have no use for this “New and Improved” Foursquare.
Foursquare continues to not exist for me.
I agree. Foursquare is now pointless. Literally.
I had not previously heard this news. I will have to go through the grief process before I make a decision on how to proceed.
There use to be an app called “Forecast” that was built on top of Foursquare. That was literally one of a few apps that I truly liked (loved?!). Foursquare check-in is late, it’s anticlimactic, I grimace when I check-in. Once I’m at a place, then I inform my friends, how lame, and I boasting? Bragging? Does it imply that I think you care? I want to like foursquare, but what I liked was sharing where I’m going to be, without the ‘stress’ or time consumption of a formal invitation to dozens of people. Forecast is gone, the new FourSquare allows me to say what I’m going to do and tag the place, but it doesn’t recognize the time I’m going to be there, or offer to check me in, so close but still not as good as Forecast.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one, who gave up on Foursquare because of this change. Probably a good thing. ; )
Seems the main people that don’t get Foursquare, are the people that run Foursquare.
They have virtually killed badges, now mayorships. They seem intent on taking out the game part of Foursquare, not understanding that’s the reason we play.
They seem pretty happy to sell the extraordinary database we created along the way though.
Swarm sucks.
I had the same reaction and am glad I’m not alone. Classic badges and mayorships are what I really enjoyed about foursquare, that and being able to look back at my checkins of yesteryear and see where I visited when traveling or answering the “what was the name of that place” question.
I uninstalled Swarm and will likely do the same for Foursquare. Sorry guys, it was a good run.
Noooooooooo! I love battling the other randoms near my workplace. If it’s just between friends then what’s the point of a mayorship? We always go to the same places together so it’s just going to be whoever checks in first who gets the crown.
badges are now dead as of today… RIP Foursquare
This is ridiculous. When did we start all needing to win at everything? What does this say about the world today?
(I realise it’s ‘just’ an app, but I can’t help but feel that this change speaks to a broader cultural shift about which we should be concerned…)
Amen to that Hanni
I live in Buenos Aires’s China Town and, just like you Om, I really have this stupid thing about wanting to be the only mayor in China Town amongst everyone in the world. I was getting so close, just 15 more check ins and I would be the mayor of Buenos Aires’s China Town, and never loose it. This sucks and I also agree with what Hanni says.
Now that the gasification has gone, I don’t see the point any longer – mayorships and badges were what made FourSquare fun. If you’re faint of heart I don’t recommend reading the recent reviews in the Google Play store – it looks like people are abandoning it in their droves… Like me.
I have the old app on an old phone- and it still works the way it used to, points and mayorships and all. but no checkins from friends… because THEY’VE ALL ABANDONED FOURSQUARE. Yelp.com I’m the king, fuck your mayors, foursquare is dead forever.
HAHAHA FCK YOU Foursquare. Great minds there thinking to break FS into TWO FCKING APPS and get rid of the mayorships, which was the ONLY FCKING THING the app was good for.
Good riddance you piece of sh!t company! Everyone is leaving FS, so have fun in about a year when your app is DEAD, like all the exes should be there. HAHAHAHA great plan fckrs
I can understand where Foursquare is coming from – it’s hard to monetize mayorships and badges. Swarm is just an appeasement to people that still want to check in. The real money, allegedly, is in location-based search. The competition is Google. Good luck with that.