Yelp or Foursquare: Where would you rather check-in?
I have conflicting feelings about Foursquare. On the one hand, it’s a kind of boring concept '“ a phone app that lets people know where you are via check-ins? Sounds a lot like Twitter but with less words (and who knew that was even possible?) But in spite of this, I use Foursquare pretty regularly – and I not-so-secretly enjoy it. It’s fun collecting badges and points; it really feeds into my first world-bred need to acquire useless stuff.
But at the end of the day, I’m not a huge fan of Foursquare because I can’t really connect to anything substantive with it. So, I was really excited when Yelp decided to rip off Foursquare’s idea and create badges for their iPhone check-ins. Having the ability to research businesses, read reviews, write reviews, and collect badges is almost too titillating for me… almost.
There’s been some backlash with this new unveiling, though, and the most articulate article I’ve read is on Scobleize. He basically says that Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley should be sweating; Yelp seems to be thisclose to breaking down his business model. The comment board is filled with some choice Yelp-bashing that makes for an interesting read. To quote Kelly Bensimon, “Hate is part of the ecosystem.”
Does anyone here use either of these apps? Welcome to your future, people.
Photo compliments of the Official Yelp Blog.
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3 Comments
I’ve really been unhappy with Foursquare’s privacy issues in the past. It publicly posted several locations that I checked in pirvately, which was bad enough, but when I contacted Foursquare about it, they didn’t care at all.
I don’t use Yelp that much, but I’ve been pretty happy with Gowalla for checking in to spaces. Lots of my friends are on there too.
I’ve never even heard of Gowalla. Reminds me of Odwalla and that makes me thirsty.
I really like Gowalla’s trip feature. Such a cute idea. I’m not sure I trust the suggestions though. I’d end up yelping all of them anyway.