This looks a lot like "Foursquare 2010 meets Candy Crush"
I respect that Foursquare has realized how deeply they've alienated people who were once their most enthusiastic users. I probably talked more than a hundred people into downloading the app six years ago (and wrote and used my own dumbphone client before I got an iPhone) but I don't know this update is going to make me un-churn. A 'glitch' between the two apps deleted two-thirds of my followers on the Foursquare side at the split and despite communicating personally it was never fixed. Checkie is light, fast, and works just fine without sparkling fake money in my face along with the empty promise it might someday be worth something. Sorry.
It's funny how something like this will get me to use an app more, however silly it is. The competition between friends was always nice to see who has the most outgoing lifestyle.
@alper totally agree. Badges, a silly as they were, were a crazy motivating feature. And competing with friends on the leaderboard - even more so. We have a "taunt" button at the bottom of the leaderboard on your friends with 0 check-ins that week. We'll likely integrate more messaging options into the leaderboard. My favorite feature is after you check-in, if you pass someone, we bring up that little blue bar to tell you which friend you passed. Would be fun to be able to message them a quick "Eat it, sucker!"
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@jcro When I first saw the taunt buttons I figured they'd work similar to the poke button in Facebook. Instead they just open a regular chat window. I rather like the automated 'Taunt' idea - maybe have a selection of random taunts that the user can choose to send.
@jcro What we always tell people is that points work as long as they are used to quantify real meaningful actions (which going out is). I'll be interested what kind of other interplays between real actions <-> digital pay-offs you can come up with to reinforce this loop.
Gonna state an unpopular opinion here, but that app icon really looks out of place on my homescreen. What was the reasoning behind totally changing the style up?
@tylergalpin It'll probably take me a while to get used to, but also curious to ask what the design rationale was behind the new logo. Really interesting how you guys were able to create some depth while still keeping it flat, it certainly does pop out on my home screen a lot more now!
The "taunt" function is awesome! I love how all the game elements to the checking in are now back and improved.
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Oh man. I'm so pumped about this. I used to compete for mayorships all the time!
Really love the little easter egg at the bottom of the sticker list :)
Have been using 4SQ since the day Dens+team launched it over in the UK. I checked in more yesterday than I have done in months. Mostly because I want to hit the top of the leaderboard. Ha! The little things. Nice update.
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Foursquare / Swarm went downhill for a couple of years but this update is actually great. Reminds me a lot of Foursquare back when I used to check in 10 times a day. Good work!
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I burry the Swarm app and still check in via Foursquare because I like to see the tips and pics of the place while checking in. This is becoming harder and harder to do with recent releases tho. My wide and I still battle over mayorships (which is basically just a race to see who checks on first) but other than that the gamification stuff is useless since lots of friends abandoned the app when Swarm branched off.
I've been using swarm since the beginning and I have to say, even though I love using it to check in and track where I've been, the design has been getting worse and worse.
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I like the new design but still would have preferred to see information about the places I'm checking into without having to open a separate app.
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