A brief excerpt from the recently released March '10 Insights report, which focuses on the market implications for the fast growing location-based service foursquare: Undoubtedly, the ability to accurately predict the next big thing in digital, mobile and social media is much more of an art than a science. That said, from our perspective there is a fast growing perfect storm made up of user interest, appeal and stickiness leading us to believe the location-based service foursquare is extremely well positioned to become "the next big thing" for the youth and young adult market.
We first discussed the potential market implications for location-based services and mobile applications in the 2009 Youth Trends Macro Trends & Predictions report and have been refining and tweaking our point of view and outlook ever since.
The highly positive feedback, interest and intent expressed by panelists in this month's Insights Immersion represented the final confirmation of our belief that foursquare has the real opportunity to be the killer app of 2010 for the market. Simply put, foursquare has made location-based social networking cool by implementing game-like elements in the form of badges and points into the fabric of its offering. As Twitter encourages its users to tweet, foursquare users "check-in" with their current location. From there, their location is broadcast out to their list of friends who are also using the service.
Ultimately, it's a straightforward value proposition as the app functions mainly as a friend locater, which isn't such a bad thing on a sprawling campus during a hectic Friday or Saturday night. While the friend locater acts as the headline element of the service, it's the ancillary social and game-like features that really distinguish it from other location-based services like Loopt.
Download the March '10 Insights report to read the complete analysis.
Comments