I’ve never been excited about or, for that matter, into Foursquare.

The benefits of broadcasting my location to the world have never been compelling – not even the coupons that have become Foursquare’s “killer app”. This whole idea of location-based, real-time couponing has been around for more than a decade, and it still hasn’t stuck.

Yet, everyone still talks about Foursquare in glowing terms. They talk about how it has so much potential and how it could launch new features that will make location-based services appealing to the mainstream. Heck, it’s one of the finalists in several categories in the Crunchies awards.

To me, it’s just blah, blah, blah. The problem is no one has the balls to declare that Foursquare is never going to live up to a fraction of the hype it has attracted. It’s a niche service that will soon be supplanted by Facebook or a start-up that will crack the location-based services opportunity in a different way that will make Foursquare look like a “Model T”.

Think of Foursquare as Friendster, which dominated the social networking market before Facebook and MySpace appeared on the scene. Friendster attracted a lot of attention, including an acquisition offer from Google. before disappearing from the scene (other than a few markets in Asia).

Like Friendster, Foursquare is getting a lot of attention for being a first-mover but Foursquare’s inability to seize this advantage is becoming its Achilles Heel. This is why all the talk about Foursquare’s potential is frustrating – talk is talk but walk is walk. If Foursquare can’t create a compelling service soon, it’s doomed to remain a niche service as other players launch with more interesting services.

Aside from the lack of chatter among Foursquare, look at the numbers from Compete.com that show Foursquare’s traffic is declining. As a mobile service, maybe many people are using its iPhone application but seeing your traffic erode has to be troubling.

Nevertheless, there are still many people excited about Foursquare and what it could be. I think this excitement is misplaced; it’s not Foursquare that should be getting them stoked but the potential of a location-based service that delivers a variety of tangible, interesting and useful benefits.

To me, Foursquare is Friendster. What’s going to get me excited is the Facebook of the location-based service market.