MarsBot — Local recommendations based on where you go. By Foursquare.

@rrhoover @dens I'd wager that the interesting thing here exactly is the dedicated app. It's basically the same Foursquare intelligence, delivered differently. Foursquare already sends passive notifications; Marsbot seems like a more powerful, more personable, more interactive version of that. Foursquare is about the content; Marsbot is dedicated to the discovery process. Then again, that's all conjecture!

@cdohertyk @rrhoover @dens We did discuss building into the OG apps, but felt that it would seem like a tacked on feature and get lost in amongst the other great features there. We wanted to try out a new app and a new communication style. Notifications (esp on iOS) tend to go into a black hole, plus there is little interaction you can have with them.

@marissachacko @cdohertyk @rrhoover @dens Notifications are dead, long live SMS! I dread the thought of the 'Messages' app becoming our new 'inbox'.

@oliverwaters @marissachacko @cdohertyk @rrhoover @dens The use of SMS was hotly debated here at Foursquare. I find SMS on the iPhone much more straightforward than push notifications, but we all have busy Messages App, so we designed something that fits in really well in terms of how often it messages you. We'll be listening closely over the coming weeks to see how this aspect of Marsbot is received.

@tollerton It is a number that you text, but we need the app in order to get your location.

@maxsklar I was thinking more like Foursquare for Slack where the user would manually mention their location in the conversation. E.g “Mezcal cocktails in East Village”

@tollerton that's how it was in the beta. Alas you can't give SMS apps your location!

@tollerton It wouldn't be impossible to build that version - though texts about places you're at now (without manually texting it) wouldn't be possible, and you'd have to manually input your notebook information. Just doing queries with location could work really well, so if that aspect of it becomes popular this is a possibility.

@coreyo If you search "find a beer bar", it'll run Foursquare's recommendation algorithm, and give you the top-listed result. You can text Marsbot and get a response (it's fun!) but we're not emphasizing that as the killer feature, since opening the Foursquare app would get you something similar. The main idea here is going to be how Marsbot begins to fill out your profile (in the notebook) automatically as you live your life, and then repackages notifications in a more lightweight and timely way. To improve over the coming weeks, we're going to look at the messages we're sending to users and find ways to increase the valuable ones and remove the less valuable ones.

Nothing personal - everyone is waitlisted! We'll be starting to take people off soon.

@thomas_howard1 SMS is really difficult to do internationally. Dealing with the regulations and pricing alone would be a nightmare! I'm the only engineer on this full time so we can't have that right away - we're going to test and iterate on what we've got first.

@maxsklar yes, but I WANT to use my US number! However I'm locked into the country code based on my geo-location. Why can't I choose my country code?

@vukovicnikola This is a very limited release right now - we're only accepting users in the United States.

@maxsklar I think you should give non-US users some indication of this in the app. Right now it just seems like it's broken + builds wrong expectations

@vukovicnikola Yeah, it shouldn't have been in the non-US app stores. Sorry about that!

@vukovicnikola @maxsklar Sorry we meant only to release it in the US app store, our bad!

@mcmurrak @dens @foursquare @marsbot Everyone is waitlisted now. I'll start taking people off once I finish answering questions!

Same situation here in the Netherlands. It's even formatting the number correctly, but "Next ->" simply doesn't work. I cannot backspace to the country code to enter my US number, either. (Yes, I know it's only useful in NYC and SF, but it'd be nice to pre-configure before my next trip.)

Neat idea ... Is there any data attached to back up a recommendation?

@roryoo Each recommendations comes with a link to the Foursquare page. You'll also be able to type "MORE" or "MORE DETAILS" and Marsbot will give you information on when it's open, the address, what people like there, etc. In the future, maybe we can support more questions.

@tuxracer fair point, but right now we are trying to develop bots in an app environment, so in order to have rich contextual data to personalize (location / identity / memory), we need an app (because Apple, Google & FB won't provide any other means) ... developing bots on messaging clients will be cross-platform but at the moment still seems like very limited and would degrade the experience we wanted to provide (something beyond a question and answer experience). Ultimately we have to push the platforms on this one, but I agree with your sentiment

@janebersbach @xstex Sorry our bad ... accidentally published to UK store when should have been US only.

@janebersbach Sorry about that, you still seeing it? should have pulled by now

@janebersbach Thanks for letting us know, and again sorry about the mess up ... launch days can be crazy!

@hashim Yeah, but that's actually exactly what we do in Foursquare today. Marsbot's location engine is built off of the same technology that powers Foursquare.

@maxsklar @hashim Any early data on increased propensity to check-in with Marsbot? Really curious!

@lukamarr If iOS goes well we should be able to spin up android quickly, but since we've been live for less than 2 hours hard to predict ...

@yl that's where we have the best/most content and that's where the team lives so we've been testing it in these cities.

@yl not sure I understand the question/comment above?