Despite being relatively young, Foursquare has quickly surpassed competing location-based networks like Gowalla and Yelp.
Neither one seems content to go down without a fight, however. Yelp especially has tried to evolve, including the introduction of badges and a ruling system similiar to Foursquare mayorships. And yesterday, Yelp announced they are testing a deal-a-day coupon feature similiar to Groupon.
I really like this move, seeing as how Yelp is already well-established as a location-based network. That means that branching out into a deal-a-day service seems like a smart fit, because they can offer more localized deals without running into as many of the logistical problems that a startup company would.
Innovation is key in this type of social media market, and Yelp is the first of the three big location-based networks to adopt this sort of hybrid location/coupon method.
More importantly, this not only provides competition for Groupon, but could do wonders to help it compete with Gowalla and Foursquare for the location-based crown.
Showing posts with label yelp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yelp. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Follow the Leader (or Mayor)
Over the weekend, Yelp announced that they would be adding the ability to earn badges and "rule" a location if you check into it more than anyone else.
Sound familiar? Well it should, because it seems that Yelp is borrowing heavily from their main competitor: Foursquare.
Some people will view these latest changes by Yelp as competitive, while others will just look at it as copycat tactics.
But what I see is the idea of "badges" and "mayorship/ruling" becoming not only an integral part of location-based social networking, but that Foursquare will be the monitored more and more by current location-based services and future startups as well.
We saw this same thing in 2006.
That was when Facebook was launched globally, utilizing a few major social media concepts like "friending" and "status updates" that the general public really seemed to connect with.
The meteoric rise of Facebook that followed caused every other struggling social network to start copying what Facebook was doing in hopes of achieving that same level of success.
Just like that, Facebook became the gold standard of friend-based social networking.
Fast-forward to 2010, and Yelp's transparent attempt to surpass their biggest rival could actually solidify Foursquare as the top location-based social network, giving it that same gold standard status Facebook acheived in 2006.
Sound familiar? Well it should, because it seems that Yelp is borrowing heavily from their main competitor: Foursquare.
Some people will view these latest changes by Yelp as competitive, while others will just look at it as copycat tactics.
But what I see is the idea of "badges" and "mayorship/ruling" becoming not only an integral part of location-based social networking, but that Foursquare will be the monitored more and more by current location-based services and future startups as well.
We saw this same thing in 2006.
That was when Facebook was launched globally, utilizing a few major social media concepts like "friending" and "status updates" that the general public really seemed to connect with.
The meteoric rise of Facebook that followed caused every other struggling social network to start copying what Facebook was doing in hopes of achieving that same level of success.
Just like that, Facebook became the gold standard of friend-based social networking.
Fast-forward to 2010, and Yelp's transparent attempt to surpass their biggest rival could actually solidify Foursquare as the top location-based social network, giving it that same gold standard status Facebook acheived in 2006.
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