light headed!

I have never really been a big fan of social networking. I quite think that this is a fad which is going to or aleady has suck up a lot of investor capital and then go bust! Its only a matter of time.

Foursquare raising another round of funding with a particular two paragraphs caught my interest.

As someone who is an unabashed fan of Foursquare and what it represents, I have to admit my usage of the service has been waning. The early thrill of checking in at different locations has vanished, replaced by indifference.

and then another..

When I asked Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley about my lack of interest, he emailed me back saying that many of these issues will be addressed as he and his team of 27 are building what is essentially Foursquare 2.0. He didn’t want to go into details — he’s worried about being copied.

If an entrepreneur is worried about a feature being copied then he should not bother about the “feature” at all. Infact it ceases to be something distinctive as soon as someone copies it and brings you on par with everyone else.

Where is the value in all this? Its like one of those games where it holds your heightened interest for a while and then ceases to be interesting anymore. This situation basically forces the company to have a way of acquiring newer customers. If this were a gaming industry, each customer was revenue, here every customer is a cost! every additional customer is a cost. The only way for these guys to have a good exit is to sell out. The creators will probably make money and so will the venture capital, the sitting ducks will be the ones who bought them.

In all fairness, Why invest in foursquare

Mr Scoble, are you listening?