Back in the 2010s, at the onset of the first golden age of the Internet (the second being now, of course), I jumped into a wave of newly minted social networks. Twitter, of course. Facebook. Pinterest. Google Plus. Some stuck around, some faded.

And through it all, there was Swarm. That quirky, niche little network built around checking in places—wherever you went, all over the world.

Today, Swarm (the spinout name from the original app, Foursquare) feels like the last bastion of the manual check-in era, a bittersweet memory of a simpler time when social media felt new enough to be a really good thing for humanity. You know, back before the newsfeed and the ads completely dominated the discourse.

Any continued commitment to checking in feels like one part novelty, nine parts nostalgia. My leaderboard is basically a time capsule of my early 2010s peers. It turns out, after a decade of quiet, unassuming check-ins, you see who has the stamina to really commit to the bit.

As I’ve discovered, there’s something to be said for the quiet persistence of a niche social network: a kind of long-term narrowcasting.

The Benefits of Narrowcasting

In the decade that I’ve been using Swarm, I’ve checked in 12,866 times at 5,335 places. From offices to airports. Cafes to airports. Museums to hospitals. I don’t discriminate.

I’ve hit all 100 categories and, as of today, I still hold 69 active “mayorships”—which, presumably, means I visit those places more than anyone else.

Once upon a time, my Swarm feed was lively, buzzing with check-ins from over 200 friends. Now? Only about 20 of us are left, the last holdouts of a habit that once felt universal.

But here’s the thing: those 20 people have stayed constant. Year after year. Through moves, job changes, and even a pandemic (where, let’s be honest, there was no point in checking in anywhere because no one was going anywhere).

After a decade of this long-term narrowcasting, you start to notice something fascinating. Not just the patterns in places, but also the patterns in people. 

I learn about places I’ve never been, like Carissa’s bakery in East Hampton or Erewhon corner store in Venice Beach. I see who’s frequenting the latest hot spots in NYC, who’s already seen that season’s Broadway hit (both which I make a mental note to store away for later). 

I can see who’s cutting out early for a midday shopping spree, who’s at that big tech conference that everyone’s attending, who’s at the playground with their kids, who’s catching up with old coworkers for their quarterly social dinner, who’s on the road for board meetings, who’s on a beach vacation, who’s on an enviable food tour throughout the Mediterranean, and who’s just around the corner at the billiards bar down the street. 

I know who loves the sardine sandwich at S&P and who else, like me, has a 2x/day coffee habit. Then, when I rarely intersect IRL with some of these same people, I sometimes see another side, too–at places where they chose not to check in. 

Over time, the last remaining holdouts have settled into unspoken roles. There are the reliable types, who check in everywhere but never with a photo or even a note. The narrative-seekers, always weaving a story out of their check-ins. The family photo album crew, posting from birthday parties and gatherings. The one who never comments, never engages back. The one who “likes” every single person’s post, every single day.

And yet, despite knowing their movements almost as well as my own, we rarely engage outside the app. It’s even unusual to be physically present in the same place as one of these people. In a world of social media obligation, it’s oddly freeing—a network with no expectations, no pressure to reciprocate.

The Comfort of Habit Loops

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that there are no new users on Swam anymore. But sometimes, you rediscover old ones. That’s what happened at a pub in London this fall—an awkward moment of mutual confession between me and a new peer, both still stubbornly using the check-in app.

Turns out, we’d been kindred spirits of long-term narrowcasting all along. She was the first new friend I’d added to Swarm in seven years.

Then there was my longtime check-in buddy—the only one whose habits mirrored mine: Broadway shows and Upper West Side hangs.

For years, I wondered: How do I know you? How do we have so much in common?

Then we finally met in real life and realized we must have crossed paths at a Broadway opening years ago. Now, we’ve made it official—we’ve even seen a show together. (And checked in, of course.)

There’s something oddly reassuring about seeing the same people show up, day after day, in the same places. A familiar name checking in at their usual coffee shop. Someone marking another year at their anniversary dinner spot. A friend back in town, visiting their go-to lunch spot. It’s a small thing, but it builds a quiet kind of order—a rhythm to this geo-parasocial realm.

And that’s why, when someone drops off, it feels more unsettling than it should. One day, they just stop checking in. No big announcement, no farewell post—just a sudden absence in the pattern. The coffee shop check-ins disappear. The board meeting road trips stop. The little breadcrumb trail of their life fades out. You wouldn’t necessarily text them about it. That would feel strange, intrusive. But you notice. And for a moment, the balance feels off.

What Narrowcasting Could Mean for the New Age of Social

Seeing the long-term benefits of this unusual type of digital engagement mechanism gives me hope for a new type of social connection in this new AI-driven age.

Rather than design apps for the masses, you can design micro-apps for the few. When just 20 people can make a digital space feel like home, it opens up new possibilities for designing social experiences that are more intentional, more personal.

We’re seeing a shift in software development–one that Maggie Appleton has coined as “Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers.” It’s hyper-local, hyper-niche, and deeply personal. And because anyone can build now, we’re seeing attention shift to overlooked problem spaces—places that didn’t fit into the old era of hyper-scale and social domination at all costs.

With low-code and no-code tools like Loveable, Ohara, Cursor, Vercel, Bolt, and more, spinning up a v1 prototype for almost anything is now just a few prompts away. That’s why it’s exciting to see a new wave of community-building toolkits popping up in unexpected places. Now, you don’t need to choose between the noisy (and often unproductive) chatter of overly broad apps like Nextdoor.com or Citizen or BuyNothing. You can just build your own—bespoke for your block, exactly tailored to your needs.

If I’ve learned anything from Swarm over the past decade, it’s that it’s really nice to find a burrow into a cozy corner of the Internet, one that feels a lot less like a fire hose and a lot more like that neighborhood cafe down the street. I’m excited to see what the next wave of digital spaces will look like—built not for the masses, but for the intentional few.

IYKYK. (If you know, you know.)