Foursquare, a location sharing app, has raised another $41 million in funding from outside investors, bring its total funding amount to over $110 million. While the technology and marketing merits a separate conversation, it's interesting to see a company profiting off of things people "already do."
This concept of "already doing" things can be better explained as such: things humans do everyday (in this example, going to different destinations). Regardless of exisiting technology, people will go from place to place. Which places they will go to, of course, may be affected by technology. But the fact remains that people will always continue to move around. So it's interesting to see a company, Foursquare, profiting off of such actions.
The way Foursquare makes money is by gaining knowledge (data) on where you go. Users "check in" at various destinations, for example, going to a local coffee shop, and can share this information with their friends. Of course, Foursquare also has access to this data. It uses this knowledge and builds it into a variety of services which it can then sell to other local businesses and adveritisers.
Foursquare sits along with a variety of social apps that also hook into various "already doing" activities. For example, Facebook, which relies on the fact that people will always want to connect. The difference, however, between Facebook and Foursquare, is that Facebook makes it easier for people to connect. Foursquare does not make it easier for people to go from place to place, it simply leeches off the fact that you already do it.
In this "app economy" of companies releasing tools that hook into our daily life activities, it's interesting to think about a company taking in money (in this case, millions up millions) for a service that arguably has no effect on our daily lives, but something we would normally do. Raising millions to allow users to share where they are? It's just data, but apparently it's valuable.
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