Gowalla and Foursquare Release Some Killer Features Right Before SXSW
11 Mar
Please note: My brother and co-founder in VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk, is an investor / advisor for Gowalla
This weekend I will be heading down to Austin, Texas to attend the interactive portion of South By South West. This will be my 3rd trip down and every year I have attended, my networking experience has been dominated by mobile. The first year? Twitter. Year two featured a combination of Twitter and Foursquare and this year will most likely be 40% Gowalla, 40% Foursquare, and 20% Twitter. In preparation for this usage, I went ahead and downloaded the latest versions of both Foursquare and Gowalla. After playing around for a bit I figured I would add some input regarding the major points for both release:
Gowalla made a major update to their user experience. The app focuses much more on the check-in experience and friend activity, and far less on items. The major improvement to the overall experience is the inclusion of comments and pictures with check-ins. This update will definitely improve the SXSW experience.
Foursquare’s major play was the inclusion of “trending locations.” I am not sure if this was included in a previous update, but this functionality alone will make Foursquare a must use during SXSW. Gone are the days of texting around to see which party is either too packed or too empty – nice touch.
Have you downloaded the latest versions of Gowalla and Foursquare? If so, let me know what you think!
AJ-
Just downloading the app updates now. Hopefully we’ll run into each other at SXSWi. If I see you I’ll come over and say hi.
Cheers
Rick, agreed, sounds good!
I’ve yet to understand the value of joining either service. They both seem like the same thing to me. I’ve wanted to try both services out, but I feel like privacy is a big issue here. Why would someone want to know where I am all the time? It just doesn’t add up to me. I’m completely willing to hear why it’s valuable and how I can get use out of it like others are, but right now I’m skeptical. I would really appreciate it if someone could contact me and explain what Gowalla or Foursquare does that makes it a big player.
Hi Frank. While I understand the privacy concern, I think I should emphasize that you are not required to locations. For example, when I go home at night I do not check into my apartment. The value in these services include: entertainment, networking, rewards. Entertainment in the sense that both platforms have game mechanics. Networking in the sense that it is a fantastic utility to coordinate meeting new people, especially at events. Rewards in the sense that there is the opportunity to connect with businesses and in turn receive prizes and discounts based on check ins.
[...] top two location-based social networking services: Gowalla and foursquare. Both companies released updates and enhancements just before the conference started; and, I’m sure both hoped they would take off with users [...]