Posts Tagged "foursquare"
Jul28

Fuck You foursquare

Posted at 6:13 PM • No Comments

Fuck you foursquare. You are the 2nd biggest group of douchebags in a startup, right after Gowalla. Yeah. You both suck. Thank you for turning me down a second time to be a super user. For the first year of your existence, you gave out super user account upgrades like it was going out of style. You gave them to people that had only ONE check in, you gave them to people that were never active, you gave them to people that didn’t even care, and then you stopped upgrading people like you hit a brick wall. And a few months ago you started some new process. I had one of your smarter super users recommend me, because of my diligence and eagerness to fix bad venues in my area. So after the first application, you denied me. Why, I have no idea. Your form letter gives no answers and only leaves more questions. I waited 30 days and submitted another application to become a super user. 30 days later I finally get the same form letter that you sent last time.

foursquare Superuser Application Denial Email
click to enlarge

So, it seems that you, foursquare, do not want me to help you correct the hundreds of bad venues in my area. You’d rather let them continue to build up and multiply through your databases instead of fixing/removing them. After 2 months of not using your app, I found a lot more new bad venues in my area. A LOT more. And none of the super users in my state of Delaware are doing a damn thing about them. The venue threads on your support forum on GetSatisfaction.com are a fucking joke! The way that they’re operated does not lend itself to fixing the integretiy of your database. You have more bad venues that need to be merged, fixed, or moved being deleted from those threads than you have being fixed.

Since you don’t want me to help fix the bad venues, I will then help the majority of your clueless users contribute to the fucking increasing mess of bad venues in my area and wherever I travel to. Duplicates venues (how many venues for I-95 can there’s be in your database? I’ll guess 1000. At least!). Venues that you say people shouldn’t create (“traffic”, “I’m on a plane”, “your mom’s bed”, etc…), yet still do and your super users & staff refuse to delete. Venues that are spelled incorrectly. Venues in the completely wrong real, physical locations. Eventually, your venue databases will be full with more bad venues than good ones.

That’s the fucking mess you continue to let grow. The system you have to “supposedly” fix this doesn’t work like it should. You piss on your users that want to help you.

Fuck You foursquare

Fuck you foursquare. Fuck you!

And if you delete my account, I will create another one. And another. And another.

May25

Denied by Foursquare

Posted at 6:06 PM • 4 Comments

So, I signed up on foursquare’s website a few years ago. After trying out their app I was quickly disappointed that their GPS system was very inaccurate when it came to where I lived. They tried to blame my iPhone’s GPS for the issue, but I was playing with Gowalla at the same time too and their GPS location for me was spot on. So I ranted a little bit about them & then forgot about them…

foursquare logo

And that was until last summer when I was backstabbed by Gowalla. Do you remember that set of blog posts I did? I quickly jumped back into foursquare and soon got aggravated by all of the duplicate and inappropriate venues in my area. I jumped back onto GetSatisfaction.com and posted under foursquare’s threads to get the venues I found fixed. I check back in a few day to a few weeks later and most of the duplicates and inappropriate venues were still there. So, I would repost the venues that weren’t fixed. Eventually some got fixed. And this same reposting of duplicate and inappropriate venues that were never merged or deleted continued, for months. One time a superuser from outside of the US tried to correct some venues for me. I guess his English wasn’t all that great because it took several different locations of company’s venue I was trying to get fixed and merged them all into one location. That’s a bit aggravating.

So I decided that I wanted to help foursquare clean up their venue database for Delaware up. I found out that you have to be active on foursquare’s GetSatisfaction.com support forum to get noticed. OK. I kept posting venues that needed to get merge, moved, or deleted.

As time went on there would be more and more new duplicate & inappropriate venues popping up and I would continue to post them to get fixed. Funny how foursquare is slow to react to venues that they state themselves are inappropriate and will be deleted. They don’t delete them or the superusers that read the posts on GetSatisfaction.com don’t mark them for foursquare to delete. You can still do a search for “traffic” in Delaware or “on a plane” at the Philadelphia International Airport from foursquare’s website and get a lot of venues popping up that match those key words.

I wanted to get noticed by foursquare. Another funny thing is the only time they do notice me is when I had issues with them, so I decided I would start the “Make @The_BORG A Superuser” campaign. I wrote up my blog post and tweeted it to my followers. Many regular followers gladly retweeted the tweets I had for this. To those followers, I thank you dearly. Thank you for showing me your support. Then there were a few that maybe retweeted my tweets once. Thanks for trying fellas. You heart wasn’t into it, was it? And then many other followers of mine that didn’t even bother. Thanks. You’re some good friends & followers.

Then I started to tweet, mentioning a few foursquare (official & unofficial), about how the venues I posted onto GetSatisfaction.com were not getting fixed. Mostly this is because whoever runs the foursquare forum on GetSatisfaction.com only allows like 15 posts to be listed under the thread for fixing venues in my part of the US. So, another 15 people post on that same thread and my posts get deleted. Not too smart of a system… Well, back to the story: So I got a reply from Chris at @aboutfoursquare. We sent a few tweets back. One of his last tweets to me was that he was endorsing me to become a superuser to foursquare.

foursquare Superuser Endorsement Email
click to enlarge

And shortly after I got an email from foursquare stating this and to fill out a short superuser application & submit it. I read everything, answered the questions, and submitted it. Chris, THANK YOU for your endorsement. So now it was just a matter a time before I heard back from foursquare.

Last night I get home from work and there’s an email from foursquare. Look. It’s a form letter stating that my application to become a superuser has been denied, but don’t worry, you can try again in 30 days.

foursquare Superuser Application Denial Email
click to enlarge

In the letter they give a list of possible reasons for being denied to be made a superuser. Not much help there in determining why I was denied. It’s pretty vague. And they basically gave you the answers in the application itself before you submitted it. And I’ve been a foursquare user for 2+ years. In the past foursquare has made superusers from BRAND SPANKING NEW users that have only checked in a handful of venues only a few times. SO I DON’T GET IT!

I have not seen anyone from this area take any public interest in becoming a superuser to help clean up the mess of bad venues in Delaware. I have been the only one and foursquare denied YOU, the people of Delaware, the one person that was actually interested in doing so and working with a local organization, a local chapter of a nationwide company, and every other foursquare user in Delaware to help clean up the mess that’s here.

Now, what are my choices? Well, (1) I could do nothing and wait 30 days to try again, (2) delete my foursquare account and remove it (and other apps tied to their venue database) from my iPhone and rip foursquare apart for this, or (3) Use the account of a co-worker that is an inactive foursquare user and a superuser.

Option #1 doesn’t seem so good when it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the back again or getting pissed on by foursquare while they’re shaking my hand & smiling. And that doesn’t sit well with my boys and girls. Option #2 I’ve thought about. One thing that has slightly irked me was the quest for badges in foursquare and in other apps like GetGlue and Miso. Do we really need these stinkin’ badges? “(We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” – The Wild Bunch). And then there is the ever-present “mayor” thing. Finally there is option #3. I would have preferred that foursquare acknowledge me by making me a superuser and help them and their users out by cleaning up all of the bad venues and not do it by sneaking around their backs with another loophole that they have open (They have had many loopholes open over the past few years.).

There is another option, but that mainly entails me sticking around and seeing what happens with a few things. Is it possible for a large US organization request that I be made a superuser on the condition of uploading their database to foursquare? How about the Governor of Delaware? The Vice President of the United States? Would they help me?

For now, I’ve been put off from using foursquare. The biggest losers in all of this is foursquare and their users in Delaware.

May6

Foursquare Super User Campaign

Posted at 10:07 AM • One Comment

To the the Delaware foursquare users:

I am trying to get the attention of foursquare to make me a super user. I have found that their support via GetSatisfaction.com is lacking in getting venues corrected in a timely manner & that local super users do not correct duplicates, misspelled names, or follow foursquare’s own rules for venues named for traffic jams, people’s beds or other inappropriate venues. I have posted multiple times to get the same venues moved, renamed, or deleted. It is very frustrating trying to get people from outside our area to fix these venues when they have no clue of where they are.

I do have a co-worker that is a super user, but I can not rely on him to make all of the fixes that I come across, and there are A LOT. And he’s not an active foursquare user.

Also, I will gladly take emails from local foursquare users (YOU) to fix venues that might have issues. Haven’t you come across a venue where you found there there’s multiple ones listed in foursquare and you feel frustrated that it would be like pulling teeth from a lion to get them all merged?

If you would please retweet the following tweet below as many times as you can so that foursquare & their support Twitter accounts notice:

Please make @The_BORG a @foursquare super user in Delaware. We need him! He’ll actually fix venues! @4sqSupport

Not just once, but twice or three or four or more times during the day…

Even if you’re not in Delaware, you can still help by retweeting the above tweet!

This is kind of like a campaign speech, but I feel the need to reach as many Delaware foursquare users as possible to help get the attention of foursquare on this.

Thank you for your help.

Aug16

Issues With Foursquare & Gowalla

Posted at 5:32 PM • One Comment

If you read my recent posts than you know the story. I know I bashed on foursquare something good last year, but they’re app was full of BIG holes, but since then they have made some improvements. Some. And while I was banned from Gowalla (see last post on the issue), I’ve been playing around with foursquare again. Both companies & their apps have some issues that I want to talk about. Let’s jump right in… Shall we?

Foursquare
- Unable to connect to server.
- Really bad venues.
- Impossible system to get venues fixed.
- Can check into venues from anywhere in the world, but only get points/badges when within 300m or so.

Gowalla
- Terrible communication skills.
- Horrible customer service to users.
- Can check into unlimited spots within 1km radius.

I’m not going to discuss the first two issues under Gowalla. You can see my recent posts on that and see how I feel.

I’m pretty sure Gowalla knows this, from my series of recent posts about a certain incident. Not sure if Foursquare is aware of some of these issue, since I haven’t visited or commented on their GetSatisfaction.com support forum. Both companies haven’t replied to several of my emails, which I just think is plain fucking rude.

Foursquare has changed how check-ins work a few times, mostly for the better. I don’t like that you can still check into venues from anywhere in the world. Gowalla HAD it right when they limited check-ins to a radius that was set by default or by the spots creator, but changed that to allow check-ins to spots within that 1km radius.

But with all of the above issues and a few that I really can’t put into words, they’re both putting me off from using their apps (besides no apology from Gowalla). Maybe I need to make my own geolocation company & apps for smartphones. Who wants to help?

Aug14

4 Weeks Later

Posted at 1:10 PM • 2 Comments

I woke up this morning and decided to see if I could log into Gowalla for shits and giggles. Well looky looky here. I was able to log in! It seems they’ve finally unbanned me for NOT CHEATING. I’ve been checking every few days to see if they have or haven’t unbanned me, again for shits and giggles. It’s been over 4 weeks since they banned me for just picking up an exclusive item.

After a few emails back and somewhat forth with Gowalla CEO Josh Williams (and never a response back from their main support email), I didn’t hear back from him for over 2 weeks. Last he said that my account would be reinstated with a group of other accounts & I would be able to start checking in again “soon.” That was over 2 weeks ago. Like I said in my last post on this matter, “soon” is a few days to me, not a week and not 2 weeks.

I have been knocking Gowalla hard on Twitter the past few weeks for their lack of communication skills and their terrible customer support. Gowalla and Josh Williams really need to work on these. Over the past few weeks I’ve heard from other Gowalla users (current and former) that have the same complaints about Gowalla’s customer service. It’s pretty pathetic that such a company in these days, especially one that is involved with social networking, has horrible communication and customer service skills.

I’ve mentioned this news on my Twitter feeed and I’ve been asked by several people if I’ll start using Gowalla again. In my last post I did say “Goodbye & Fuck You Gowalla.” Right now I don’t know what I’ll do. I still haven’t received an email from Gowalla or Josh Williams apologizing for banning me when I never cheated. I still think what they did was wrong and it’s been compounded by their lack of communication, terrible customer support, speed to resolve the issue (see posts 1, 2, 3), and the lack of any form of apology for the entire situation. And I still haven’t heard why they never selected me as a STE (mentioned to Josh Williams in our emails). Great communication skills! I still need to think about using Gowalla again. My anger towards them has not changed yet. Maybe someone at Gowalla will grow some fucking balls!

I would like to thank Lucas and JefCon1 for showing solidarity with me during the past 4 weeks (I think they were the ONLY ones to do so publicly) and anyone else that stopped using Gowalla because of this. Thanks to everyone that retweeted my posts on this. And to anyone else that didn’t feel like showing your support, “Go fuck yourselves, you cunts!”

Aug6

Goodbye & Fuck You Gowalla

Posted at 5:18 PM • 4 Comments

Well, it’s been over three weeks since I was banned from Gowalla. If you need to catch up on what’s been going on, check out post 1 and post 2.

Here’s the latest. Since last week I have not heard back from CEO Josh Williams or Gowalla support on the matter. Josh said my account would be unbanned “soon” with a bunch of other accounts that were to be unbanned also. Well, “soon” to me means a few days. It’s been a week. Josh could have just had someone unban me right then, but it’s obvious that Gowalla doesn’t want me as a user.

Well, all I have to say to that is…

Fuck You Gowalla

I don’t care if Gowalla unbans me or not any more. It’s been over 3 weeks and it took them only 3 hours to unban the person that was cheating. They consistently ignored my emails on different instances. And it appears they really don’t care about their once dedicated users.

Normally I can be a patient person. Shit, I waited 7 months to hear back about becoming part of your Street Team Elite so I could help other Gowalla users. Never heard back from them. They had set up other, less dedicated, less knowledge NEW users as STEs the very next day they sent you an email (go look on GetSatisfaction.com). FUCK YOU! Their support email never responded to my emails when I got banned, but the person I know that cheated they had unbanned in 3 hours. I didn’t cheat. Let me repeat that… I DID NOT CHEAT! FUCK YOU!

Josh Williams, you lied to me. That just makes it worse. You should not ignore your users. You really need to fix your communication skills and you need to learn some customer service skills too.

So now I’ll be using their main competition, Foursquare.

Goodbye Gowalla. Maybe you’ll learn from this.

Jul30

Gowalla Doesn’t Understand

Posted at 10:38 AM • 5 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter or read my last post, you’ll have a good idea of what’s going on. Since whoever handles Gowalla’s main email contact doesn’t respond to my emails, I went to the top of the company by emailing Gowalla’s CEO, Josh Williams last week.

Josh seems like a very nice guy, but seems to lack the authority to get things done right away. This is what I’m getting from our correspondence, but I could be wrong. Being the CEO of any company one would think all you would need to do is bark out some orders and your employees do as you say. Doesn’t seem like that at Gowalla. Josh said that last week he’d have someone look into my situation. Nothing happened so a week later I emailed Josh again. Josh’s reply last night said that “We’re going to be reinstating several accounts that were turned off a couple weeks ago do to Terms violations and I’m sure your account will be included in that group. You’ll be able to resume your check-ins soon.” Ummmm… “soon”? Why not just tell someone to reinstate my account now? Why wait? What are you waiting for? What’s the hold up? It should be a very simple process to do.

My email to Josh on Wednesday mentioned in great detail on how they have ignored my emails on requesting to become a Street Team Elite member since January and with being banned for doing something less than cheating, while the person that cheated was unbanned within 3 hours and was sent a pleasant email from their main contact email. Josh said in his reply to me “Thanks for your patience for a reply. I know you’ve been disappointed with our response time on this one.” All I have is patience for lots of things and sometimes, just sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting (like waiting to become a STE after 7 months) just erupts like a volcano.

Josh also mentioned that he was saddened with the fact I’ve taken my “frustration public in such a lengthy manner. It seems very unnecessary to me.” So now, it’s obvious that they are watching my Twitter feed (or just looking for mention of “Gowalla”) and maybe reading my blog. I’m not always the one to complain, but after being ignored with my request to help make the user experience better for all Gowalla users for 7 months while others got a 1 day response & acceptance and with no response as to why I was banned & someone that did something worse than me was unbanned very very quickly, just has finally pissed me off enough to scream my frustration to the world. This happens a lot. People need to voice their opinions about how they’ve been wronged by companies that didn’t do the right thing at first or just ignored their customers.

Although I have loved Gowalla since day one and made the entire state of Delaware and everyone else that follows me know this, I fell that I’ve been wronged so I made myself very vocal about the situation.

Companies should never ignore their customers/users. Never! They need to listen, find out what the issue is, and promptly try to fix it while communicating to their customers/users what’s going on. Gowalla got a lot of heat back in March during the item drought and when GowallaTools creator Ben Dodson gave up developing with Gowalla’s API a few months ago. Negative reviews and press are heard 5 to 10 times more than positive press. It’s a fact. Look at the issues with Apple’s iPhone 4. What a cluster-fuck that was. A simple issue that’s in every other smartphone blown out of proportion by the blogsphere, tech sites, and making all the news outlets in the world. Apple’s first few replies about the issue where received with a lot of shock, but they bounced back by trying to make the entire situation right with their customers and letting them know what was going on and what their plans were. And because I know that negative press is heard 5 to 10 times more than positive press, I went very public with the situation.

Josh, please don’t let your users be ignored. Communicate with them. Don’t give them the opportunity to become this frustrated with Gowalla that their only outlet/recourse is to be very outspoken & public about their issue.

Oh yeah, I am still banned from Gowalla. I’ve been playing with foursquare a lot in the past 2 weeks. I’ll have another post soon about all of that.

Jul25

Gowalla Doesn’t Like Me

Posted at 5:33 PM • 6 Comments

You might be able to title this post “Why I’ve Been Banned From Gowalla” or even “Why Does Gowalla Ignore Me?”.

I’ve hinted at my recent issue with Gowalla on Twitter. Many have asked what’s up, but I haven’t brought forth any details as to what’s going on since it is a long story. Now, here it is:

About a week and a half ago, the Red Bull user on Gowalla started picking up the new Red Bull can item from locations. I asked them if this item was everywhere and they said “yes”. I mentioned the new item to a friend of mine on Gowalla and we started to try to locate the item locally. Around the same time, my friend noticed another person in our state checking in to Gowalla spots across the country. This is what Gowalla & their users consider cheating. Yes, it is. We watched him for a day or too. My friend inquired with him on how he was doing that and learned how to also. I was also sent the information on how to cheat, but since I was at work, I couldn’t try it out (all blocked by a nice firewall). I contemplated the idea of trying it out, but didn’t know if I really would. I mean, come on, it’s cheating. So, still at work, my friend tells me to check into a local spot and that there’s something for me. I do and what do you know, a Red Bull can sitting there. So I picked it up and placed it in my vault.
Read the rest of this entry »

Nov11

iPhone Location Games

Posted at 9:17 PM • 4 Comments

I’ve come across two iPhone apps that people say are fun to have, play, and use. First, I found Gowalla (App Store link). Nice interface. Interesting GPS-based location game. You start off with a blank passport. You go to different locations (they call them ‘spots’) and check in. When you check in, you get a stamp for the spot. You can also pick up items or drop items at the spot for others to get. If you come across a new spot that no one has been to before, you can easily enter the location’s info into the app to create the new spot for Gowalla. If you drop an item in that new spot, you become the founder. You start of with five objects. Unfortunately for me, don’t live in a major city so I’ve had to drop all of items to become the founder of new spots. Not too big of a deal. I don’t think I’ll have a large collection of items until for a while. One nice thing, Gowalla will surprise you sometimes with giving you an item when you check into spots sometimes.

Gowalla

As for the finding ability of Gowalla, it uses the GPS on the iPhone and it works SPOT ON. No issues. If you make a mistake, you can edit the spot’s name, actual location on the map, category, and check-in radius. As far as I can tell, it’s for the web site only. There are multiple spots set up close together called trips. You can complete trips by going to each of the trip’s spots. You can also create trips for others to complete.

One last note about Gowalla: Do not get discourage if you drop all of your items if you live in an area where there aren’t many Gowalla users. You’ll find more when you check into spots. Trust me.

Next, is foursquare (App Store link). It seems to be popular in some major cities worldwide. It works similar to Gowalla in that you go to different locations and check into them. Instead of getting stamps in a passport, you can get badges and earn points for different things you do, like go to a new spot, bringing friends with you, and traveling some distance.

foursqure

I’ve played with the app for a few days and have be very disappointed. Since I don’t live in a big city that’s supported by foursquare, I’ve had to create new locations. After doing so a few times, I’ve discovered that this app is not GPS based, but based off of addresses from Google Maps. So my new locations are way off from their actual location because foursquare does not use GPS to pinpoint my iPhone’s location. Even if you do edit the address of a created location, it still won’t be right due to Google Maps. I’ve tested this on the iPhone and on the Google Maps web site. The problem is with Google Maps. foursquare tweeted me after I tweeted with what I’ve found and they were quick to blame the iPhone’s GPS for the errors. They said “Phone GPS can be wonky sometimes… esp when deep indoors.” That might be true IF I was indoors, but I was outside. I WAS OUTSIDE. Now this might work great if you live in a major city, but I don’t. I live in the suburbs.

If foursquare ever changes how their app finds location then I’ll give it another try, but my clear favorite is Gowalla. Both apps are free, so it doesn’t cost you anything to give them a try and see for yourself.