Somehow, Foursquare Failed to Eliminate the Need for Belly, Frontflip, and Other Loyalty Apps.

Foursquare could have spread like a giant dandelion over the lawn of restaurant loyalty apps.

They could’ve shadowed and smothered other contenders.

But here’s a recent headline from the website “brandchannel:” FOURSQUARE HOPES TO RE-ENGAGE USERS AND BRANDS WITH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Why didn’t they just go out and dominate in the rewards-program space? They had me pumped about potentially becoming the freakin’ mayor of Three Dog Bakery, for heaven’s sake.

Let the analysts pick that one apart.

Meanwhile, let’s look at some other contenders, which, like FourSquare, assume you live life with a smartphone in one hand. There are “more than 30 [individualized, interactive customer loyalty apps out there], says Logan LaHive, chief executive of Belly Inc., the largest of the group.” So says The Wall Street Journal.

If you pay for a Wall Street Journal subscription (I don’t; a friend got me a copy of the story) you can read this article on the topic that prominently features Belly and Frontflip. Frontflip relies on QR codes, Belly provides its subscribers with an iPad. Belly lets you accrue points, Frontflip gives you scratch-off-like chances to win free product right this very second. Both charge anywhere from $50 to $125 a month.

That WSJ article makes the point, though: people are bored with traditional discounts (personal testimony: I got a “Zoo Book” for pledging the public radio station this year and have yet to remember to bring it with me to a restaurant) and loyalty-card programs: it can be overwhelming to save, carry and remember the punchcard, or to keep track of the rewards when it’s time to redeem, or to even remember what the rewards are.

And people may get bored with these apps when the novelty is gone, possibly.

That might be what happened with Foursquare. By the time they figured out how to incentivize restaurants to reward me for being mayor, I had moved on, Instagramming my friends interestingly cropped art photos of the pretzel-bun burger with Funyuns I got off a food truck. We live in an age that sheds epochs like dead epidermis.

Foursquare hasn’t gone Zune or AOL yet. Nobody’s including them in the ol’ MySpace/Friendster jokes. A lot of people continue to check in and joust for mayorships.

But whatever: specialty loyalty apps are trying to fill the gap Foursquare has managed to leave.

Which enthusiastically presented sales pitch makes sense for you?