The Most Accurate Business Listings come from… Foursquare?

April 30, 2012, 6:33 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

The Most Accurate Business Listings come from… Foursquare?:

There will always be business listing errors online. People sometimes do not pay attention. Businesses move or shut down. Some businesses are asleep at the wheel and unscrupulous competitors sabotage their listings. It happens. It’s not surprising that around 20% of the listings on popular sites like CitySearch and Mapquest are inaccurate. What was surprising is that the most accurate data apparently comes from Foursquare.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 18: Foursquare co...

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley speaks during the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The location-based social network that lets friends, family, and stalkers know exactly where its users are (or claim to be) at any given time has an impressive 5% inaccuracy rate when it comes to the all-important address. The next most accurate has 3 times as many errors.
This graphic developed by Yext and posted by Dodge Dealers Seattle reveals some interesting data about where to find… data. While Yelp might not be the best at addresses, it is only a notch below Merchant Circle when it comes to phone numbers. Don’t go to Foursquare if you want a phone number, though. You have a 50/50 chance of getting nothing at all. They want you there. They don’t want you calling.
For this reason, Foursquare is technically graded as the least accurate, but remember that most of the data comes from users and they’re putting in the data while they’re already present. Phone numbers just aren’t their thing. It does show that crowdsourcing the information is good for going, bad for calling.