[joeshaw]

Yes! I can't believe that nobody else has made this point.

I am as disappointed in the pivot of the app as everyone else, but it's hardly the sign of impending death the post (and many of these comments) make it out to be. 4sq built up an incredible points-of-interest database, and that is their real product.

By providing that POI data to other providers -- most notably Twitter -- they get much of the same data that checkins in their own app gave them. And Twitter is massively more popular than the Foursquare/Swarm apps ever was or ever will be.