Food, water and shelter are the basics for survival. For thousands of years, humans strived to achieve these basic needs trough famine and wars, struggling to achieve the most basic requirements of human survival. Now in the 21st century, the fight for survival has diminished and we are able to pursue more lofty goals such as love, belonging and self-actualization. Or just to try and find better ways to get food with as little effort as possible.
On Thursday, Foursquare announced they're partnering with delivery.com to help you cement your status as mayor of your couch.
The partnership with delivery.com gives Foursquare users the ability order food, alcohol and groceries to their door. They join a crowded field with companies like Instacart, Uber Eats, Amazon, Favor, GrubHub, bitesquad, DoorDash, eat24... the list seems to get longer every day.
Last month Foursquare raised a down round, valued at about half of the $650 million it was valued at a year ago, the second time the company was devalued by investors. The company's CEO stepped down amidst the $45 million raise and seems to be throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. They've already integrated GrubHub and Seamless into their app and delivery.com is another way to give users more access to tacos at their door.
Foursquare has also been using its users' tags to generate data for geotagged advertising. When users check in, they create a set of coordinates that are then listed alongside the business or location associated with the coordinates. So the data collected by Foursquare gives them the ability to accurately tie in geolocation data with the business associated, and sell that information to advertisers. That way when you're swinging by a fast food joint, you might get an ad with other options or specials. So Forusquare doesn't necessarily need to champion user growth for growth's sake (to compete with the other platforms that have billions of users), they just need their current users to be extremely active.
While adding food delivery to their service seems like a logical add-on, multiple down rounds and sagging user growth makes the move seem a little bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
