I don’t know much about psychology, but below I have brainstormed my own quick thoughts on aspects of why users are using these various services. These services allow you to broadcast what you are doing. This is a follow-up to my post about the metrics of ‘me, me, me!’ on these services.
- easy to tweet
- hope for a retweet
- hope for a reply
- people include URLs and wasn’t til last release that twitter embedded videos, photos, etc
- 3rd-party apps allow easy input to twitter
- celebrities to follow
- follow/stay up-to-date on friends
- discovery/bored
- unstructured data input
- my life history and interesting stuff
- 600 million users
- easty to update status
- 3rd-party apps make easy to update your status
- hope for likes and comments
- stay up-to-date on friends
- discovery/bored
- unstructured data input
- my life history
- connect your account to 3rd-party services to easily find friends in those services
Foursquare
- easy to checkin
- specials
- focus on location
- my travel history
- ‘tips’ are useful
- see where friends are; what they are doing
- game/leaderboard; points (7-days)
- surprise factor: random badges
- tips nearby are useful
- discovery: explore around where you are to find stuff to do
- easy to share via twitter/facebook to tell my friends that aren’t on foursquare
- structured data input
- see who else is where you are… or aren’t
- mayor status
- friends (both users follow each other), and followers
- 3rd-party apps help get check-ins
- there are comments, but seem rarely used
- no ‘like’ buttons — user can get that on facebook/twitter if wanted. Replaced with game mechanics
Some notes on GetGlue (an app for checking-in to movies, tv shows, music you’re listening to, etc)
- Personal note: my friends aren’t there
- Personal note: If I was more into TV, maybe I’d use it more?
- Personal note: my friends wouldn’t be jealous of me watching a movie or show — they are out living life; the game of life is doing as much as possible, not being a couch potato
- “Guru” is like foursquare’s “Mayor”
- show details, no tips; ‘Guru’, ‘Superfans’, ‘Fans’
What are your thoughts?