The leadership of Foursquare failed. They had a very popular product but couldn't make anything out of it; hence the pivot. They should have sold the company while the valuations were good. Now, the company is the Mayor of crushed expectations.
Is it really the leadership that failed? Their product was popular, but I can't see any way they could make money on it. I don't think that means the leadership was bad, I think it means the product was inherently un-monetizable.
That's a fair point, but I read the parent post as complaining that the leadership couldn't squeeze blood from a stone, not that they came up with a non-commercial product in the first place.
You could have monetised it the same way you monetise many other apps. With ads? I mean, Twitter's monetisation model isn't exactly genius either...
Why not give a coupon when checking into a place that is near others - making people stop by another place/shop to maybe purchase something? (lat/long based)
Lots of valuable data for mapping, local search, and the ad targeting that goes with it. Valuable to Google, Apple, Facebook and a few others. The failure was in growth, blame likely correctly laid on Facebook.
It's funny how everyone in this thread is saying they needed a monetisation strategy but no one has suggested one. Maybe there just isn't a business in check ins.
Foursquare didn't agree. They didn't pivot just because it's the cool thing to do.