 Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage here in Seattle, Washington for AWS's marketplace seller conference. The big news here is that the Amazon partner network and marketplace coming together and reorganizing into one organization, the AWS partner organization, APO, bringing together the best of the partnership and the marketplace to sell through as the sellers cover. This is the second year, but technically with COVID, I call it a year and a half. This is theCUBE, I'm John Furrier, your host, got a great guest, Leah Purcell, vice president of business development at Foursquare. Leah, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Look great. Yeah, hey thanks. Thanks for having me here. So Foursquare, everyone, and that has internet history, knows you, you check in, you become the mayor of a place back in the day. All fun, it was a great app. And I think it was competitor Galala sold to Facebook, but that was the beginning of location data. Now you got Uber apps, you got all apps, location everywhere, data is big. Here in the marketplace, they sell data. They got a data exchange, Chris ahead of marketplaces, like we have all these things, we're going to bring them together and make it simpler. So you're on the data side. I'm assuming you're selling data and you're participating in the data exchange. What is Foursquare doing right now? Yeah, exactly. So we are part of the data exchange and you mentioned checking in. So we're really proud of our roots, the Foursquare app and that's kind of the basis still of our business. We have 100 million data points, which are actually places of interest across the world, 200 countries. And we're in the business of understanding where places are and how people move through those places over time. And what's the value proposition for that data? You're selling the data? We are selling the data and we're selling it. You can think about use cases like, how can I improve the engagement with my app through location data? So for example, Nextdoor is a customer of ours. Everyone knows Nextdoor. When a new business comes online, they want to make sure that business is a real business. So they use our places to ensure that the address of that business is accurate. So how do you guys get your data? Because if you don't have the first-party app, you probably had critical mass of data. But then do other people use your data and then re-contribute back in? Kind of like how Stripe is for financial. You guys are plugging in to apps? A great question. So we still do have our consumer apps. We're still proud of those. It's still a basis of our company, really. But we take that data, so our first-party data. We also, for all the web, we have some partners that integrate our SDK. And so we're pulling in all that data from various sources and then scrubbing it and making sure we have the most unique. So you guys still have a business where the app's working? Yep. Okay, but also, let's just say I want to have a cube app. Yeah. And I want to do a check-in button. Yep. So rather than build checking in, could I OEM? You could. Four Squares? You could. And we could help you understand where people are checking in. So we know someone's here at the Hilton and Bellevue. We know exactly where that place is. You, building the cube app, you could say, I'm going to check in here. And we are verified. We know that that's the right place. So that's good for a developer, if you're building an app. Absolutely. So we have an SDK that any developer can integrate. Great, okay. So what's the relationship with the marketplace? Take us through how Four Square works with AWS. Marketplace. Sure. So we are primarily integrated with ADX, which is sort of a piece of marketplace. It's for data specifically. We have both of our main products, which are places that POI database and visits, which is how people move through those places over time. So we're able to say, these are the top chains in the country. Here's how people move throughout those. And both those products are listed on ADX. So if I'm in Palo Alto and I go to Joe and the Juice, you know that I kind of hang in one spot, or is it privacy there? I mean, how do you know, like, what goes on? So we know somebody does that. We don't know that you do that. So we ensure, you know, we're very privacy-centric and privacy-focused. We're not going to, we don't tell anybody that you yourself. It's pattern data. It is. So it's normalized data, right? Over time, groups of people, and how are people using the data to improve processes, user experience? What are some of the use cases? So that example of Nextdoor, that's really a use case that we see a lot, and that's improving their application. So that Nextdoor app to ensure that the data's accurate, and that as you as a user, you know that that business is real, because it's verified by Foursquare. Another one is you can use our data to make business decisions around where you're going to place your next, locate, you know, your next QSR. So Yum Brands is a customer of ours. Those guys are Pizza Hut, KFC. They work with us to figure out where they should put their next KFC. Yeah. I mean, retail, location, location, location. Yeah. People are still, even though e-commerce, right? People still go into stores and still are. Yeah, and there's probably a lot of math involved in knowing demographics, patterns, volume. Yeah, some of our key customers are really data scientists. Like the thing about with businesses that have true data science companies, they're really looking at that. Yeah, I mean, in and out's on the exit for a reason. Right. They want in and out. Yeah, and we can tell you. So they want to put it inland. Right, and we can actually tell you where that customer from in and out, where they go next. Right, so then you know, oh, they go to this park, or they go somewhere, and we can help you place your next in and out based on that visitation. And so there's real science involved. So take us through the customers, you said data scientists? Mostly data scientists, that's kind of a key. Customer data science at a large corporation, like a QSR, that's somebody. Okay, so how's the procurement process on the marketplace? What does the buyer get? So what we see the real value is, is because they're already a customer of Amazon, that procurement is really easy, right? All the fulfillment goes through Amazon, through ADX. And what you're buying is either an API. So you can get an API, you can make real-time calls, or you're buying a flat file, like an actual database of those 100 points of interest. And then they integrate into their tool set, they can do it, so it's pretty data friendly in terms of format. There, you can kind of do whatever you want with it. We're going to give you that. As long as you're smart enough to figure out what to do, we have a lot of data to give you. So what's your experience with AWS Marketplace? I mean, obviously we see a lot of changes. They had a reorg, partner network merging with Marketplace. You've been more in the data exchange. Chris kind of called that out, it's kind of a new thing. And he was hinting at a lot of confusion, but simplifying things. What's your take of the current AWS Marketplace religion? I actually think ADX, because our experience has primarily been ADX, I think they've done a really good job. They've really focused on the data and they understand how people like us sell our data. It hasn't been super confusing. We've had a lot of support. I think that's what Amazon gives you. You have to put a lot of effort into it, but they also give you a lot of support. Yeah, and I think data exchange is pretty significant to the strategic mission. It is, we feel that. We feel like they really value us as a partner. What's the big thing you're seeing out there right now in data? Because you're seeing a lot more data exchanges going on. There's always been data exchange, but you're seeing a lot more exchanges between companies. So let's just take partners. You're seeing a lot more people handle front end of a supply chain and you got more data exchanges. What's the future of data exchanges? If you had to kind of guess, given your history in the industry, what's the next around the corner trend? I think there has to be consolidation. I know everyone's building one, but there's probably too many. I know from our experience, we can't support all of them. We're not a huge company. We can't support Amazon and X and Y and Z. Like it's just too many. So we kind of put all of our eggs in a couple baskets. So I think there'll be consolidation. I think there has to be just some innovation on what data products are. For us, we have these two. It's an API and a flat file. I think as exchanges think about expanding, what are the other types of data products that can help us build? I mean, one of the things that we see, we cover a lot of them. The cube is Edge. You got Amazon putting out new products in regions. You got new wavelengths out there. You got regions. You got city level, connectivity, data coming from cars. So a lot more IoT data. How do you guys see that folding in to your vision of data acquisition and data usage, leverage, reuse, durability? Yeah, I mean, we're keeping an eye on all that. I think we haven't quite figured out how we want to allocate resources against it, but it's a really interesting space to be in. I don't think data is going anywhere. I think it's really just going to grow and how people use it is going to expand. Okay, so if I'm a customer, I go to the marketplace. I want to buy four-square data. What's the pitch? We can help you improve your business decisions or your applications through location data. We know where places are and how people move through the world over time. So we can tell you we're sure that this is the Hilton and Bellevue. We know that. We know how many people are moving through here, and that's really the pitch. And they use that for whatever their needs are, business improvement, user experience. Yeah, those are really the primary. I mean, we also have some financial use cases, so head funds. Maybe they're thinking about how they want to invest their money. They're going to look at visits over time to understand what people are doing. The pandemic made that super important. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, this is great, great success story. Congratulations, and thanks for sharing on theCUBE. Really appreciate you coming on. Thank you. My final question is more about kind of the future. I want to get your thoughts, because you're season pro. When you have the confluence of physical and digital coming together. Yeah. You know, I was just talking with a friend about FedEx's earnings, comparing that to, say, AWS has a fleet of delivery too. Amazon, Amazon, not AWS. So, but physical world only products, location matters, but then what about the person when they're walking around the real world? What happens when they get to the metaverse? Or, you know, they get to digital. They attend an event. Yeah. How do you see that crossover? Because you have foot in both camps. We do. You got the app and you got the physical world. It's going to come together. Is there thoughts around that? You can take your course care hat off and put your industry hat on. Yeah. And not officially on behalf of Foursquare, but I'm just curious, this is the confluence of the blending of physical and digital. Yeah, I know. Wow. I admittedly haven't thought a whole lot about that. I think it would be really weird if I could track myself over time in the metaverse. I mean, I think, yeah, as you said, it's all gonna- By the way, I'm not bullish on the metaverse when it's block diagrams, when you have gaming platforms that are like the best visual experience possible. Right. Yeah, I mean, I think we'll see. I don't know that I have a prediction. Well, hybrid, I'm seeing a lot of hybrid events. Like this event is still intimate VIP, but next year, I guarantee you it's going to be larger. Much larger. And it's going to be physical and face-to-face, but digital as well. Not people experiencing the first-party physical digital hybrid. Yeah. And it's interesting. It's something that we track a lot of. Yeah, for sure. I think we'll have, I think there's something there for us. I think that there's a play there as we watch the kind of things change. All right, Leah, thank you for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. All right, with Foursquare, I'm John Furrier. Checking in with Foursquare here on theCUBE, here at the Amazon Web Services Marketplace Cellar Conference second year, back from the pandemic in person. More coverage after this short break.