What Happened to Foursquare?

When Foursquare came out in 2009, I was a huge proponent of the service. Checking in was cool for keeping track of places you’ve been and seeing where friends are. The discounts and leaving tips were also amazing features.

I always felt it was extremely underused by the general public. That may be why they recently changed to become more of a Yelp service, simply as a database indexing businesses with tips from users, reviews, pictures and other content, but the “check-ins” component of it is gone. Instead, Foursquare made an app called Swarm to replace that function.

Now transitioning a Foursquare account to Swarm is surprisingly easy, but one must ask the question why have a separate app? What’s wrong with the check-in service being integrated in Foursquare like it was in the first place? 

The rationale could be Foursquare is for finding specific places and Swarm is for seeing where your friends are and what they’re up to. But I still don’t fully understand it.

Since Swarm, even less users have been checking-in I feel, and almost no businesses support the check in Specials anymore. I find it to be tragic! 

What do you think? Were you a Foursquare user?