Foursquare's ambitious plan to split its app in two

J Thoendell stashed this in Tech

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/1/5666062...

Foursquare's new direction wasn't based on gut instinct. It relied on some pretty scary data the company gathered about how people had been using its app — or how they hadn't been using it. "We looked at the session analysis and saw that only 1 in 20 sessions had both social and discovery," says Noah Weiss, Foursquare’s vice president of product management. In other words, just 5 percent of Foursquare’s users were opening it to find friends and find a restaurant. "Why not actually just split those apart, because 19 out of 20 times, tapping on one icon or the other, you have satisfied your need completely," says Weiss.

"The more we played with that idea the more we realized that there was a ton we wanted to do on both sides that we can’t do if they are married together," says Jon Steinback, Foursquare’s VP of product experience. "It’s like were were in a three legged race and each side was slowing the other side down." Weiss is a bit more cynical. "We had been taking on a little bit of a mission impossible," he says, "trying to make a single-purpose mobile app that actually had two purposes.

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Foursquare's new direction wasn't based on gut instinct. It relied on some pretty scary data the company gathered about how people had been using its app — or how they hadn't been using it. "We looked at the session analysis and saw that only 1 in 20 sessions had both social and discovery," says Noah Weiss, Foursquare’s vice president of product management. In other words, just 5 percent of Foursquare’s users were opening it to find friends and find a restaurant. "Why not actually just split those apart, because 19 out of 20 times, tapping on one icon or the other, you have satisfied your need completely," says Weiss.

"The more we played with that idea the more we realized that there was a ton we wanted to do on both sides that we can’t do if they are married together," says Jon Steinback, Foursquare’s VP of product experience. "It’s like were were in a three legged race and each side was slowing the other side down." Weiss is a bit more cynical. "We had been taking on a little bit of a mission impossible," he says, "trying to make a single-purpose mobile app that actually had two purposes.