Tag Archives: check-in

The new Gowalla

September 27th, 2011

I haven’t used the new Gowalla enough to have formulated a strong opinion but I thought I’d jot down my initial thoughts. Here are some bits from their blog post announcing the new Gowalla.

Here is the bit I really like:

“The cornerstone for this update is Gowalla’s new Social Guides. We’ve taken the best of what’s local, the places your friends love, and the recommendations from experts, rolled them all up, and have created the foundation for a collection of Social Guides to cities, parks and regions around the world — ready and at your fingertips with Gowalla.”

I love the idea of traveling to somewhere I’ve never been and being able to easily find places to visit that people – especially my friends/family – have recommended via Gowalla. I look forward to trying this out and seeing how well it works.

Here is the bit I’m not so sure I like:

“We’ve broadened our concept of “checking in” as well. We call them stories now. It’s easy to add friends to a story so you can add photos and comments together as a single experience. Eventually we’ll even bubble up the best stories within our guides, so you can relive all that was great about that film festival you’re going to.”

A check in is a very “thin” experience. There isn’t much to a check in besides; I’m here and so are these people. Everything else on these services revolves around the check in. Gowalla is trying to do something different and enhance that experience to make it more enjoyable and perhaps fun. That’s great. However, I think this is where Gowalla might lose me. I use Foursquare to check in because it is very quick to do so. I switched from Gowalla to Foursquare for this exact reason. And now with “stories” Gowalla seems to be trying to slow this process down even more. So they must be going after a very specific individual that wants to share their experiences with people in certain places, and who are willing to take the time to do that, rather than simply sharing their current location. I’m OK with this but it may not be for me. We’ll see.

I’m happy to see Gowalla going in an entirely different direction then Foursquare. I hope they find their niche and it works for them and for their community. I think we’re still only seeing the tip of the iceberg of the value of these location based services and what they will offer the world still remains to be seen. I look forward to watching it all unfold.

Check-in services need to get much faster and more valuable.

July 13th, 2011

Foursquare is currently winning in the check-in services space but I believe it is still anybody’s game because there is still a lot of work to do.

Even though I “know” people that work at Gowalla and their sense of design is practically unparalleled in the check-in service space – Foursquare simply works better and that is why I use Foursquare instead of Gowalla.

“I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve used Gowalla (a location-based checkin service you use on your phone). I’ve found that in most of the cities I visit Foursquare has more users, more tips, is faster, easier to check in, etc.” – Robert Scoble

This has been my experience as well. Check-in services need to be very, very fast and valuable in order for the mass market to use them. Typically check-in services aren’t social streams (that you check many times per day) they are utility apps to help you track locations that you visit, the current location of your friends, and – most of all – information about where you are from other people that have been there. When this entire process isn’t very easy and very fast it becomes a hassle to use the services and so I quickly give up on using them.

Foursquare, while far from perfect, is simply lightyears faster than Gowalla currently is. Checking into a location is quick and easy. For the most part, everywhere that I’d like to check-in is already in Foursquare. On Gowalla I had to add nearly every location I visited. This task is tedious on Gowalla. Here is one gripe, as an example: When you search for a location using Gowalla’s iPhone application and it isn’t in their database (which happened for 85% of my check-ins even in places like Atlantic City, NJ) – you can’t tap an “Add location” button. You have to back out of the location search screen and go back into another screen to find the “Add location” button. This became so annoying that I downloaded the Foursquare application and haven’t looked back since.

I have had high hopes for check-in services ever since my days using Brightkite (man I miss those days). Foursquare has legs (and $50M in the bank). I hope these services continue to improve but they’ll need to innovate very, very quick in order for the mass market to adopt them longterm.