I personally don't use Foursquare (or any other geo-location app or feature) primarily for privacy reasons. I'm pretty open about most things on the web, but my location is not something I want people know about.
That being said, I think socialized geo-location is a feature. Not an app. Clearly, there are a lot of people who disagree with that position and Foursquare is using it to create great value for people and businesses. Aside from mass adoption, Foursquare doesn't have a lot of market advantages that justify their continued success with their current business model. All it would take is some "Me-too" to provide a better experience in a stand-alone app (I can't think of any that have gotten adopted in the mainstream) or even bundle it with some other value proposition (ahem, Facebook and Path). There's nothing particularly compelling about what Foursquare is doing anymore (as far as I can see, though I'm open to enlightenment) that can't be recreated more easily or better.
I think they were in the right place at the right time and unless they shift their business model in the near future, I'll bet that during their market decline (within 3 years) they will be absorbed by some other company to include Foursquare as a feature in their own app.
Whether this is "failure" or not, that's a religious question that I'm not prepared to answer. It's certainly not the word I'd use.
That being said, I think socialized geo-location is a feature. Not an app. Clearly, there are a lot of people who disagree with that position and Foursquare is using it to create great value for people and businesses. Aside from mass adoption, Foursquare doesn't have a lot of market advantages that justify their continued success with their current business model. All it would take is some "Me-too" to provide a better experience in a stand-alone app (I can't think of any that have gotten adopted in the mainstream) or even bundle it with some other value proposition (ahem, Facebook and Path). There's nothing particularly compelling about what Foursquare is doing anymore (as far as I can see, though I'm open to enlightenment) that can't be recreated more easily or better.
I think they were in the right place at the right time and unless they shift their business model in the near future, I'll bet that during their market decline (within 3 years) they will be absorbed by some other company to include Foursquare as a feature in their own app.
Whether this is "failure" or not, that's a religious question that I'm not prepared to answer. It's certainly not the word I'd use.