Foursquare is expanding it‘s partnerships. They have always been active in encouraging their venue owners to offer Specials to visitors. In line with this mission foursquare started offering Starwood Reward Points and just recently announced a major partnership with American Express broadening the Specials experience.
Since yesterday they went a step further and are now partnering with Deal companies. But what do we get out of it after all?
1. Something for everybody
Instead of just offering the classic Groupon type 50% off saving kind of deals, foursquare has teamed up with different types of partners giving them the ability to cover a wide range of interests. Of course there are the typical save today deals. But there‘s also insider access to „the best of your city“ like exclusive menus or tickets to sold out shows through Gilt City. Or handpicked experiences that can be shared with friends through Living Social. And even if you‘re more into non mainstream activities like moonlight kayaking or shark diving, you might get your piece of the pie through zozi.
2. Personalized Deals
Now this will be interesting: Foursquare is using its broad knowledge about our likes and behaviors. They say they will target the Deals to their audience, offering them through the already personalized Explore tab. And they will let us know, based on which facts we find each coupon there. Like for example because 2 of your friends have been to the place, or based on activities you yourself have engaged in before. So far, Deal platforms have not wasted too much effort in targeting their offers. This might be a welcome alternative, given the targeting algorithms are adjusted right, to receive deals that are suitable, versus being overwhelmed with multiple offers that don‘t matter to you.
3. No intrusion with the foursquare experience
That‘s the other nice thing about the Explore tab. The deals will not overtake the foursquare experience by being all over the place. Instead they‘re integrated in the tab where you can chose to go, if you‘re interested in what‘s special today. That sounds promising. Let‘s hope foursquare can keep it that clean and still get enough exposure to the deals to stay relevant for its partners. With 10 million users and growing, there‘s a good chance for that scenario though.
4. It‘s all within foursquare
The way it seems to be implemented is such, that we won‘t have to leave foursquare in order to buy the deals. They are all integrated in the app. For now on Blackberry, Android and iPhone. That should ensure consistency in the usability and spare us multiple registration and login procedures with each partner.
For me the Deal integration sounds like a promising step by foursquare. It seems as though they stayed true to their practice of putting the foursquare user and his experience in the center of their activities. Time will tell how well the deals are received by the foursquare user base.
What do you think of the news? Will this help the foursquare experience? Are you looking forward to foursquare deals? Post your thoughts in the comments below.
About Michael Weberberger
