Foursquare - Why Checking-In is So Addictive

1. Why Checking-In is So Addictive by Max Zamkow habits.stanford.edu

2. Lets Examine… How Foursquare gets new users to repeatedly open their app We’ll look at the process by which a first time user is persuaded to open the app a second time…

3. User finds out about Foursquare User connects friends to their Foursquare profile User gets push notification from friend User visits the AppStore and downloads app User sees badges and points User wants more badges and points User opens app again User opens Foursquare for the first time User checks in User must open app later to achieve their goal User gets a badge and/or points User sees someone else as mayor of somewhere important to them User wants to be mayor

4. Now let’s look at the different types of behaviors that the new user goes through. For this we’ll classify each behavior into one of the 15 behaviors in the Fogg Behavior Grid (see http://behaviorgrid.org) Legend: Legend: - Green Behavior - Blue Behavior - Spot Behavior - Purple Behavior - Span Behavior - Action (not a behavior) - Path Behavior

5. User finds out about Foursquare User connects friends to their Foursquare profile User gets push notification from a friend User visits the AppStore and downloads app User sees badges and points User wants more badges and points User opens app again User opens Foursquare for the first time User checks in User must open app later to achieve their goal User gets a badge and/or points User sees someone else as mayor of somewhere important to them User wants to be mayor

6. So the Route to the User Opening the App again is (on average)… This is the key, motivating the first time user to want more

7. Looking just at the behaviors that influence the user to return to the app… User gets a push notification from a friend Cue User wants to become a mayor User opens app User wants a new badge / more points User checks in daily Cycle

8. Synopsis Foursquare’s trick is to influence new users to create purple span behaviors which then lead to the blue path cycle behavior of opening the app often. Additionally they utilize blue spot cue behaviors to further increase the frequency of users opening the app, re-presenting them with the purple span behaviors which, as above, lead to the creation of the blue path cycle behavior.