Aydın Tiryaki (2026)

​In the world of technology, Foursquare, the pioneer of the “check-in” culture, has become a textbook example of how a brand can undermine its own success. To understand how a platform with millions of loyal users transformed into a digital ghost due to the ambition of becoming a “bigger umbrella,” one only needs to look at the strategies of today’s tech giants.

​1. The Fallacy of the “Unbundling” Strategy

​Until 2014, Foursquare was the sole destination for location check-ins, social competition, and venue discovery. At that time, management decided that the app had become too complex and made a radical move by splitting the platform into two separate entities:

• ​Foursquare City Guide: Remained strictly as a venue discovery and review platform.
• ​Swarm: Took over the check-in feature, gamification (such as Mayorships), and social interactions.

​For users, this move was not perceived as progress, but as a disconnection. Users who were accustomed to managing their entire experience within a single app suddenly had to switch between two different platforms. This severely damaged the user experience and initiated the mass exodus of the loyal user base.

​2. The “Invisible Umbrella” Strategy of Tech Giants

​Contrary to Foursquare’s mistake, giants like Google and Facebook successfully executed their corporate transformations without disrupting user habits.

• ​The Google (Alphabet) Strategy: When Google created Alphabet as a parent company, it kept this change at a corporate and financial level. They never changed the name of the search engine. If the search engine had been rebranded, the verb “to Google” would have vanished from our language.
• ​The Facebook (Meta) Strategy: Mark Zuckerberg rebranded the company as Meta to reflect a broader vision. However, he did not change the name of the “Facebook” app that people use in their daily routines. Thus, brand recognition and user connection remained intact.

​Foursquare did the exact opposite by trying to detach the “check-in” action from the Foursquare name and force it onto Swarm. This led to a significant loss of brand identity and user belonging.

​3. User Habits and the Power of a Name

​A brand reaches its highest value when it transcends being a technical service and becomes a “verb” or an “action” in the user’s mind. For a long time, Foursquare was the very definition of checking in. By telling users, “You will no longer do this here, but in this new place called Swarm,” the company essentially pushed users out of their comfort zone.

​Users are creatures of habit. They want the interface, the name, and the competition for “Mayorship” to remain under one roof. By fragmenting these features, Foursquare made the user experience cumbersome. The void they left was quickly filled by the more practical, integrated location features of Instagram and Facebook.

​Conclusion: Protecting the Flagship

​The story of Foursquare proves the vital importance of protecting the flagship brand. Once a strong brand has created a daily habit for its users, attempting to migrate that habit to a new name or a separate app carries immense risk. While Google and Facebook expanded their corporate structures, they kept their core products untouched to mitigate this risk. Foursquare, in its quest to build a “big umbrella,” dismantled its own flagship and lost its most valuable asset: user loyalty.

Aydın Tiryaki

Ankara, January 9, 2016

Note on Methods and Tools: All observations, ideas, and solution proposals in this study are the author’s own. AI (Gemini) was utilized as an information source for researching and compiling relevant topics strictly based on the author’s inquiries, requests, and directions; additionally, it provided writing assistance during the drafting process. (The research-based compilation and English writing process of this text were supported by AI as a specialized assistant.)