Comments on: Foursquare and Tourism: Another New Social Media Tool

By: Dawn

Dawn — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:41:48 +0000

Critical mass is the part that is needed for it to take off in New Zealand. As Tim pointed out, when you’re the “mayor” of everywhere, it’s a bit lonely. Like being the first and only guest at a party.

However, look at both Twitter and FaceBook within the New Zealand tourism industry. Everybody is on board.

Foursquare will be like that in a few years. I think tourism operators need to be getting their heads around what it is and joining in. It will be a bleak and lonely place for awhile but our American guests will utilize it and eventually even the average kiwi family on a day’s outing will be signing in.

I don’t think Foursquare is a fad. I believe it is the next Twitter.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:52:35 +0000

http://mybookmarks.amplify.com/2010/06/02/foursquare-e-turismo/

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:32:57 +0000

Yeah good call Tim. Also, not as many kiwis have compatable phones yet and those that do, pay ridiculous tarrifs for data from the thieiving phone Networks.

I would like to see it hit this critical mass and take off but Im not sure this will happen. It could quite easily just be a fad and fade away when users realize they are not getting anything useful from the service. Hope not though

Josh

By: Tim Hayward

Tim Hayward — Fri, 28 May 2010 01:12:19 +0000

Foursquare requires a lot of users to make it worthwhile, it gets better with more users, i.e. the “Network effect”.

I was using it around Auckland recently but it became a bit lonely, being the ‘Mayor’ of many places but really getting nothing back for it.

It needs a critical mass of users and of establishments providing rewards. It has this in the U.S. but not yet elsewhere. And I think we will see similar functionality coming in other applications like Facebook and Google places, which arguably already have better scale.

Certainly a hot area to keep an eye on.

Tim