That's an incredibly high number, so I'm guessing it doesn't mean "all users ever", but rather "all users who check in at least once a day"?
'checkin users' probably means something like "active daily users on platforms where we have released swarm" and 'moved over to Swarm' means something like "has at least 1 checkin using Swarm". This is what I like to call "counting for marketing professionals".
Isn't that because Foursquare auto-updated to Swarm? Or something? I don't even remember how I got that app on my phone, and I opened it maybe twice. Check-ins (or something) appear to be fully automatic, there's no need to even open the app, and the only reason I haven't deleted it yet is because I'm too lazy. I'm dead serious here. I loved Foursquare and used it over Yelp (making my friend Yelp Community Manager unhappy), but now I find it completely worthless.
EDIT:
[0] made me finally remove Swarm. I don't need an app I don't use eat my power while I still haven't bought that powerbank to be able to play Ingress longer.
You/Foursquare really should clarify exactly what you mean by this - we keep hearing how "successful" Swarm is but it seems most [former] users (including me) and their friends (including mine) stopped using it when (or shortly after) the switch happened.
Right now Foursquare sounds like Google in the early days of Google+ where they were touting how much people were posting but everybody was saying they never saw any activity in their stream.
Not even Candy Crush can say 90% of users download a new game, etc. Let alone Foursquare. yawns
The 2 star reviews on the Appstore show retention is likely horrible with the new app.
The 90% of users who were basically forced to switch to it have given your app an overwhelmingly negative 2 star rating.
They may have downloaded it since they don't have much of a choice but its clear the vast majority of your users hate it.
1. Hit check in 2. Pick venue 3. Type text, pick people you're with, etc 4. Hit confirm 5. Tap through insights 6. Tap to venue page
Now here's the new flow:
1. Hit check in from Foursquare's Here tab 2. Venue's selected, just tap your text, pick friends/sticker 3. Hit Check in 4. Swipe through insights, click "View in Foursquare"
It's honestly fewer steps when you think about it, thanks to the fact that the checkin flow is much faster + we know where you are with better confidence.
It's not just that tips are shorter than reviews, though that's part of it. The issue with Yelp is that every single user gets the same recommendations if they search at the same place and time. And in a world where everything is becoming more personalized, it's crazy that the predominant app in the local search category does nothing to tailor its results to you. When you sign up for the new Foursquare, it asks you for your tastes so that every time you search, every time you open the app, it will be tailored for the things you like. It's like Amazon recommended products vs the experience you get on non-smart ecommerce platforms. It's smarter at a fundamental level; the things we are doing with our data are really smart and unprecedented in this space. That's why I'm confident we have a differentiated product in this new app, and I hope you try it out and see what I mean.
Furthermore, we still have tons of check-in data - 90% of our checkin users have moved over to Swarm and continue to check in. So I don't think there's much to worry about with regards to our data getting stale and losing quality.