Foursquare 'Unbundles' Its Features to Release 'Swarm' App
Foursquare announced their plans to split apart the functions of their system in order to create 2 separate apps with 2 separate user experiences. The reasoning behind this is that Foursquare users seem to use the app to only do one of two things.
- Stay updated on and meet up with their friends
- Discover great places
So they've pulled out the social aspect of their system and built it out into a new app they've named Swarm.
We built Swarm because you've told us how often you still have to text your friends: “where are you?” and “what are you up to later?” We wanted to build a quick way for you to know these two things for all of your friends. With Swarm, you can easily see which of your friends are out nearby, figure out who is up for grabbing a drink later, and share what you're up to (faster and more easily than you can in Foursquare today).
Swarm users will be able to access their friends' approximate location as well as show friends what they are planning on doing in the near future. It's also very suitable for anyone looking for new places to visit like the hottest coffee shop or a local retailer. It allows users to find these locations and share them with others. In fact, some critics say that Swarm has similarities to sites such as Yelp or UrbanSpoon.
By removing the check-in and social functionality from Foursquare it paves the way for further development of local discovery and exploration features. Going forward, local searches done with Foursquare will be far more personalized to the user's tastes. According to Foursquare's blog, the new app will allow users to get more relevant information when making local searches.
Right now the real differences between the two apps is a bit muddled as they're still adding and removing features. From what we can see there are a lot of features duplicated between the apps. This decision to fragment their user base into two different apps is a move we didn't see coming. It sounds like they're breaking off the part of their business they aren't passionate about growing and who knows maybe Swarm will be quickly sold off to the hig...
