Yahoo in Talks to Buy Foursquare

People forget that Mayer acquired 56 companies (57 if Foursquare deal goes through). That is, 41% of all of Yahoo&#x27;s acquisitions over the past 20 years happened in the last 3 years. Think it is important to analyze this Foursquare deal the context of this yet-to-be-proven strategy.<p>Back to this deal: Interesting possibility, for sure. Will it work out? Who knows with Yahoo.<p>Foursquare assets:<p><pre><code> 1) Brand name with both consumers and businesses 2) 45m daily active users 3) Valuable data- Can improve Yahoo Search, Yahoo ads, etc 4) Large group of domain experts </code></pre> Yahoo&#x27;s value add:<p><pre><code> 1) Yahoo does have a strong ad sales department, so it can bring lots of brand names to Foursquare 2) Can heavily integrate Foursquare into its search features- so Foursquare&#x27;s DAU can stabilize&#x2F;grow. </code></pre> Seems like Mayer&#x27;s strategy is:<p>1) Buy her way out of changing Yahoo&#x27;s employees + culture. This is a longer term play.<p>2) Try to create some constellation of a platform. Ideal world for Mayer would be:<p><pre><code> a) Get your homepage to be Yahoo b) Read the latest trending headlines via Yahoo media c) Yahoo stories pump up Yahoo-owned Tumblr blogs, Yahoo-owned Flickr photo sharing, etc d) After that, you search for things on Yahoo. The search would ideally share information coming from Foursquare. </code></pre> The big thing is on execution and that&#x27;s why people constantly criticize Yahoo. If they do actually make a sensible platform, expect Mayer to be viewed very positively.

This has got to be entirely for their location data. While I see the migration of check-ins to swarm as Foursquares way to say individual check-in data is largely useless, their data on latitude and longitude of businesses as well as their somewhat lengthy knowledge about the venues from user reviews is very valuable. Foursquare is also probably cheaper than buying Yelp, or Google Places which are the only other ways to get this sort of in-depth information. Untappd is exclusively Foursquare so you also get a link to all that information. I see Foursquares migration away from check-ins and more of a location API as their way of saying &quot;there are so many niche markets that do check-ins why not just focus on what we do so well which is providing location &#x2F; review data&quot;

When your company is on its way down and may never make money again, Yahoo will be there.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;CNBCnow&#x2F;status&#x2F;588354385249435649" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;CNBCnow&#x2F;status&#x2F;588354385249435649</a><p>edit: cnbc saying they are not in talks for the twitter blocked individuals here

What is Yahoo&#x27;s acquisition strategy? Looking at the list of acquisitions since Marissa Mayer&#x27;s arrival [0], the theme seems to be pageviews + content + userbase + advertising. This is the strategy of a media company. Attract as many eyeballs as possible, then monetize them.<p>How does Foursquare fit into this? Perhaps the plan is to turn it into an advertising platform for businesses, and differentiate from Yelp through feaures like better review transparency?<p>Advantages I see of Foursquare:<p>- Recognizable brand, offline and online, despite declining userbase.<p>- Lots of brick-and-mortar businesses already signed onto platform.<p>- Businesses pay money to advertise. Yahoo can monetize offline channel and reach customers in-store.<p>- Businesses frustrated with Yelp, now is opportunity to differentiate.<p>This acuisition could fit into the &quot;media company&quot; strategy because it enables monetization of businesses and opens up offline communication channels for reaching customers.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Yahoo!#cite_ref-Tumblr_83-0" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...</a>

I&#x27;m going to post it here because the other post complaining about FourSquare&#x27;s check-in function (Swarm) dying is saturated.<p>I&#x27;m a big check-in user but FourSquare&#x27;s pivot has been brilliant. You can clearly see the benefits when they partnered with Twitter, with FourSquare being the &#x27;Google of the physical world&#x27;.<p>Having a dedicated app for checking in (meaning the people who like to check-in are properly looked after in their own, siloed app) is a lot nicer than before.<p>Back to Yahoo!: Don&#x27;t think this will be a good acquisition. Look at their previous acquisitions: Tumblr. Nothing much has happened, no major monetisation project.<p>Twitter would be a better company to buy. It also makes logistical sense as well. Combination of Twitter and FourSquare would be an effective combination against Facebook, and also Google Plus and Google Maps.

Pump the brakes a bit here, a lot of folks I trust saying no such acquisition talks are taking place.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;recode.net&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;15&#x2F;sources-say-yahoo-foursquare-are-not-in-talks&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;recode.net&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;15&#x2F;sources-say-yahoo-foursquare-ar...</a><p>Ugh... I hate that I enjoy this type of gossip so much. It&#x27;s the reality TV of my demographic.

Do people still use foursquare or is this about something else? I don&#x27;t know anyone who still uses it. At work, I once remember a time when people were competing for most check-ins at the coffee place across the street, or even our building itself.<p>Now, nobody ever mentions it.

Looks like Yahoo! is where startups go to rest in peace!

Seems their list of troubled acquisitions was not long enough ...<p>If Mrs. Mayer has strategy - she better execute it fast. If she has not - at least deal with tumblr before wasting money on another company.

A lot of people here don&#x27;t realize Foursquare is something entirely different now. When it comes to traveling to a new place Foursquare definitely beats Yelp in recommendations.<p>For check-ins and that sort of gamification there is Swarm.

Used to be one of my favorite apps - used it a few times a day. Until great bate-and-switch! :)<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;locationplay.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;so-long-and-thanks-for-all-checkins-or.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;locationplay.blogspot.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;so-long-and-thanks-...</a>

Related, but unrelated: Many people who perform a search using the default on their browser do not know whether they are on Google, Yahoo, Bing. They just Googled it, Google may as well be a verb to them as in &quot;I googled it on Yahoo. The first link was from Foursquare.&quot;

How does this kind of thing leak? When the last company I was at sold, most of us weren&#x27;t even told for fear our acquirer would get cold feet if the terms leaked.

So a company that no one cares about is purchasing another company that no one cares about?

At least Foursquare is mobile-native, which is one of the primary goals of Yahoo. One of the primary things Foursquare desperately needs is scale, which is one thing Yahoo can legitimately claim to have. For Foursquare it&#x27;s a bit like admitting defeat, but being eaten by Yahoo could be a good move for users. I&#x27;ve been a foursquare fan since 2011 and would love if the service could regain some of its former luster and glory!

Foursquare isn&#x27;t about checkins anymore, it&#x27;s about discovery and the TL;DR.<p>Yelp users love to go on and on and on in their reviews while Foursquare&#x27;s ratings aren&#x27;t review-driven though I&#x27;ve found them just as accurate.

I pray that their API stays as developer-friendly as it is now. Google&#x27;s Places API ToS makes it practically unusable and I can&#x27;t think of any other obvious alternatives.

Yahoo is indeed the place where startups go to die!

Yes, Foursquare&#x27;s situation is bad. Still, it has gathered precious and unique data.<p>One shouldn&#x27;t underestimate its holistic value.

Looking at Foursquare&#x27;s history on CrunchBase, they show &quot;only&quot; $150 Million in funding. That&#x27;s not even accounting for some of it being debt rather than equity financing.<p>That makes $900 million a good return, even though I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s not the peak return FourSquare good have ever gotten.

It is funny to see that the total amount Yahoo gained from all her other acquisitions put together is less than a fraction of the Alibaba deal.

Yahoo is forming a monopoly in the outdated tech company space.

Congrats to the founders they did it again! <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dodgeball_(service)" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dodgeball_(service)</a>

I couldn&#x27;t even remember what foursquare was ...

Yahoo and Foursquare both lack a clear strategy moving forward. I&#x27;m not sure adding two struggling companies makes a strong one. Reminds me of Microsoft&#x2F;Nokia.

that would be another bad acquisition.

People still use Foursquare? My first reaction when seeing this was: &quot;What year is it?!&quot;

I realize this isn&#x27;t contributing to the conversation, but it&#x27;s funny to see this directly underneath the post describing the immense dropoff in foursquare&#x27;s popularity.