Is it really the leadership that failed? Their product was popular, but I can't see any way they could make money on it. I don't think that means the leadership was bad, I think it means the product was inherently un-monetizable.
That's a fair point, but I read the parent post as complaining that the leadership couldn't squeeze blood from a stone, not that they came up with a non-commercial product in the first place.
You could have monetised it the same way you monetise many other apps. With ads? I mean, Twitter's monetisation model isn't exactly genius either...
Why not give a coupon when checking into a place that is near others - making people stop by another place/shop to maybe purchase something? (lat/long based)
Lots of valuable data for mapping, local search, and the ad targeting that goes with it. Valuable to Google, Apple, Facebook and a few others. The failure was in growth, blame likely correctly laid on Facebook.
