Foursquare – oh how ye has failed me

I took great pride in checking in with the location service, enjoying recording places I go and ones to remember.  I liked being able to see where my friends were at any given moment.  But, the failure soon began to materialize.

There is no quality control in making, duplicating and creating locations.  This is derived from individuals not wasting the time to correctly search and match a location, to network failures that don’t show results with prompts to create even more.  Seriously, do you really, really think no one has even been to that airport and checked in?  No one?

Then we move into the micro-location placements.  I read an article where Denny, of Foursquare, was paraphrased in saying that it is part of the fun when referring to creating these new micro-locations.

A micro-location (by my new definition) is small places within large check in points.  For example gates at an airport.  I can buy in the to the idea of doing that after you check into the airport itself due to the airport size and letting people know exactly where you sit.  However, which of the 5 airport listings did you get back in your result and how many variations of the gate are there now?  Shouldn’t “gate A7 at Stl” be matched and forced somehow into a single listing of “STL – gate A7″ and the other “A7 gate at Lambert” and maybe “Lambert gate A7″.  Oh the list goes on.  So much more.

A location service basing monetization needs controls of the data itself before moving ahead.  How can you guarantee people are using the one where you offer the free drinks or discounts?  What if two exist?  Who won?  How do I advertise?  How do I track results?

This adds to the overall complexity in the sheer number of location services fighting to be on top.  Or to get purchased and sucked into some major network.  I still use the service, for no other reason that people look there to find people.  However, I am losing value in the visits myself as the user base grows.  Even being a Level 1 Super User has me spending far too much time cleaning up others mistakes to simplify my later check-in experience.