[joeshaw]

The app isn't the product. The points-of-interest database they built from their apps' users is the product. And that is what they're now selling to companies like Twitter.

Twitter's incorporation of the POI will give them much more "check-in" data than their own apps ever could.

https://medium.com/@dens/six-years-in-a-few-thoughts-on-four...

[bandrami]

Ah, yes, I've done broadcasting too. The app is not the product if it's free. But people mistake that: you still have to actually have an app people want, if you're going to make them the product.

[joeshaw]

The app doesn't matter anymore. Twitter is the app now (and whomever else they license their points-of-interest service to). Consumers of their service likely feed back check-in-equivalent data to foursquare, which allows them to do trending and bolsters their database further.

I lament the loss of the app too. Checking in and becoming the mayor was the fun of the old app, and Swarm just doesn't do it for me. At this point I use it mostly as a log of new places I've been to so I can visit them again in the future, particularly while traveling.