Gowalla: Gowalla is Going to Facebook

gowalla:

Three years ago Gowalla’s journey began when I took a photograph of Lake Tahoe on my iPhone. I had just finished a phone call with my dad, and I wanted nothing more than to share that photo and place with him. Not just in a text message or status update sort of way, but with a bit of weight…

Crikey mate.

Source: gowalla

Gowalla Shows Off It’s New Direction

Josh finally took the wraps off the highly anticipated Gowalla redesign today at TechCrunch Disrupt for a sneak peak. Should be an interesting new direction for them.

Here’s my main concern with this whole new travel direction apps are reaching into. Maybe I’m in the minority but I only travel to a new destination MAYBE once a year. All my other travel is to destinations I’ve been to many times before - New York for work, Georgia to visit friends, & Florida for holidays with the family. So, for only 3-5 days out of 365, I might have a use for a travel app. Are there enough people who travel SO often to new and unknown destinations that they’ll have a need for such an app?

Gowalla:

Josh took the stage this morning at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco to give the first look at where Gowalla is going next.

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler shared his thoughts and a few screenshots: Gowalla Is Reborn As A Beautiful App For Travel And Storytelling.

We can’t wait to share the new Gowalla with you. More to come in the next couple of days!

Source: gowalla

Gowalla - Re-Imagined

From time to time, to stretch my creative legs, I like to venture into uncharted waters. And seeing as how I already gave Foursquare a piece of my mind, I thought it was time to turn my attention towards Gowalla.

I wanted to re-layout (not redesign) the check-in screen to be more in keeping with what I wanted. Gowalla has some nice features that I think are hidden or not available at all in the iOS app that I wanted to bring to light.

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Gowalla’s Street Team

I finally got on Gowalla’s Street Team and I’ve been cleaning house. In the past week, I’ve spot fixed over 60 locations - including quite a lot in my neighborhood.

Just look how neat and organized it is now:

On the other hand, I’m starting to get a bit weary of Foursquare. While I still enjoy the service quite a lot, mostly because it rewards repeat venue check-ins and I’m a huge creature of habit, the venues themselves are getting really out of hand. They desperately need some cleaning and re-organization.

But if you happen to be out and about and see a spot on Gowalla that needs some loving care - flag it and I’ll take it from there.

OH! One more thing…check this out for a fun little teaser at something we’re working on for PBS: http://gowalla.com/pbs 

Check-in Mania

When Facebook announced Places last week I wrote down some initial thoughts on how Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, etc. are going to interact with this new service and who I thought really came out on top.

After a week now of using it, here’s what I’ve concluded.

  1. It doesn’t seem like the other apps that are supposed to support Places are tying into it the way I’d hoped. Sure, they show up in my timeline, but they don’t show up in Places and I thought that was the whole point.
  2. Other location apps still rule my day to day activities. When I’m going to the grocery store, getting coffee, or headed out to the gym, I still use Check.in to check-in to the various other 3rd party apps. Mostly because I like the gaming aspects of each of the different apps and it’s fun to see how I’m stacking up. The other major reason is my friend counts. On Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., I currently only have a few friends. So, checking in at the coffee place isn’t such a big deal. But who wants to share that with their 300+ Facebook friends? Do I really want everyone I ever knew from high school realizing I have no social life? So I’ll save Places for the special occasions.

It’s that second reason that’s the most important.

I’ve already heard that developers are hard at work on creating apps that mimic Foursquare’s mayorships and Gowalla’s stickers. And with Facebook’s recent acquisition of Hot Potato, you’ll soon be able to check into movies, TV shows, video games, etc through Places. So, stay tuned. I just might change my mind again in another month.

Update: Just so I have it straight in my head -

  • Check.in (Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, & Whrrrl) - everyday things (coffee, gym, etc)
  • Get Glue - TV shows, video games, books, movies
  • Yelp - restaurants & fast food
  • Facebook - special events with friends and/or family

That’s how I’M using check-ins. How are you using them?

Update #2:

  • Foursquare - Special events, which then auto populate into my blog & iCal
  • Get Glue/Tunerfish/Miso - TV shows, video games, books, movies (Still torn between these 3. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Leaning towards Tunerfish though)
  • Yelp - Restaurants & fast food
  • Facebook - Not really using anymore because you can’t share ‘Places’ with any other media. Boo!

Who wins the ‘Check-In Wars’?

People might disagree, but right now I think Check.in wins. Read on for my reasoning.

So far the new Facebook Places check-in is a one way street. You can check-in, but it doesn’t check-out. Basically, that means that if you use Facebook’s Places feature to check into your location, it doesn’t update your other location apps (Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp, etc.).

BUT, if you use a service like Check.in (ironically, from one of the only partners left out of the FB Places announcement - Brightkite), then you can update all your services at once (sans Yelp…for now).

An example using FB Places might go like this:

Walk into a restaurant and whip out the iPhone to use the FB app and check in. This updates my FB Places status on FB only. I’m then left with using all the other services individually to check into them because FB Places is a one-way street.

On the other hand, an example of using Check.in goes like this:

Walk into a restaurant and whip out the iPhone to use the Check.in web app. This updates my location apps: Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrrl, & now Facebook - all at once.

I’m not sure what this all means and Facebook might make some changes in the future. But, for now, I think it’s a bit short sighted on somebody’s part.