For a while the game mechanics of mobile location based social network Foursquare was humming along at a nice clip. Then as the temperature went up in August less and less crowns where being taken, less badges earned and mayorships lost. As September hits we are seeing the amount of these occurrences sky rocket.
So is this what do you do when the 500M pound gorilla steps into your market place(s)? When you see their product is a cheap b/w Xerox of your service and its missing all the nuances, game mechanics and rewards that make it engaging..(read: good) you up the colour of yours. This could be the strategy behind this significant change in the game machincs and volume of transactions taking place on foursquare.
I had heard this was going to be dialed down and back, It was confusing for new users, etc. I was also equally suprised to see in Walt Mossbergs review of Facebook Places in the Wall Street Journal site the game machinics of Forusquare as a liablility vs asset in the market place. Either way this is what is actually happening. I think its a super smart move in the face what could be a death knell. Yes we will see itterative changes in Facebook Places to bring it more in-line with the marketplace over time, but by then, I could be married not just engaged .
A sample of engagement activity can be seen in the Twitter stream because a certain percentage (and personality type I might add) post their check-ins and Foursquare engagment activity there.
Tracking “BECAME THE MAYOR OF” , FOURSQUARE OR @FOURSQUARE , 4SQ.COM , “I JUST UNLOCKED THE” BADGE ,and OUSTED “AS THE MAYOR OF” show less… on TWITTER SEARCH as a single spark line (below) shows that up until August there where around 25,000 of these occorences taking place a day. Then on August 1 things dial down about 5,000 a day and then pow on the 27th things go way up. Yesterday the last day of August was 61,360 for the day.
