A New Gowalla

http://blog.gowalla.com/post/10513121010/a-new-gowalla

43 33 15 years ago

blog.gowalla.com

Stuk• 15 years ago

I've never used Gowalla, but I've seen a lot of complaints on Twitter that peoples' "stuff" has disappeared. What's happened there?

ry0ohki4• 15 years ago

I assume that means the "items" you used to pick up at various locations. They've killed off that whole concept, which used to be novel, but new people probably wondered what was up with getting a "Baseball bat" when you check-in somewhere.

gallamine2• 15 years ago

IIRC Josh Williams said that only a small small percentage of people actually used them.

Hisoka• 15 years ago

They got less traction than FourSquare, and are now pivoting to a less profitable space in travel guides... their apps look nice, and they got a good looking logo, I guess... but this sounds like an app in search of a problem. Gowalla looks more like a social experiment, or a fun project than an actual company right now.

aspir2• 15 years ago

Ironically though, Gowalla's new data may likely appeal to advertisers more than ever before. Each interaction is now within a very defined context -- travel and tourism. There's no need to try to filter out locals vs. tourists with this. Companies will know exactly who is using Gowalla and why. These predefined areas will be a huge leg up in negotiations with companies.

Actually, you're also off on travel being less profitable. In fact, global travel and tourism is one of the largest markets on the planet, with $919 Bil in expenditures last year[0]. It's also astoundingly broad -- nearly every country on the planet, big or small, poor or rich, has a significant tourism economy. This is the big cash cow that Gowalla's chasing.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism

avree• 15 years ago

My main issue with adopting Gowalla was that they never let me actually use it.

Their Facebook Connect was broken for months—it'd bring you to a text error page; their app crashed repeatedly (and apparently is still doing so on the 3GS with their new update.)

Very frustrating user experience.

suking• 15 years ago

Less profitable space? Is check-ins profitable at all?

deyan• 15 years ago

More narrow sounds more like it :)

ry0ohki4• 15 years ago

Yes, FourSquare has done a pretty good job at monetizing (Sponsored badges, integration with AmEx, etc...) I'm not sure whether they are profitable per say but they seem to have a pretty good road to it if not.

jefflinwood• 15 years ago

I like the snazzy pull-to-refresh animation in their new iPhone app!

Interesting to see their take on mobile+social+local travel guides, but Yelp reviews give me a lot more opinionated information than Gowalla checkins. Not sure if their new stories are supposed to be reviews.

jsavimbi8• 15 years ago

Well, it is a pivot, I'll give them that. And as always their design is superior but if they insist on listing locales like "Cheers" in Boston as a destination in their guide, they're going to find themselves pivoting to something else in the near future.

ry0ohki4• 15 years ago

My understanding is the Guides are essentially auto-generated by bubbling up top check-in places. Cheers, while corny, is definitely one of those places most tourists go to see when in Boston.

jsavimbi8• 15 years ago

I have to say that I'd really like to see the data on that. This looks like an unpersonalized kitchen sink attempt to cover everything. You can buy/rent/scrape all the locations, with geo data, from a variety of resources.

aspir2• 15 years ago

It may not appeal to everyone, but I've personally never met someone not interested in visiting the cheers bar.

Travel guides are inherently for tourists looking to see these little kitschy places.

jsavimbi8• 15 years ago

I'm sorry, but people from Boston don't go to Cheers and you're assuming that tourists are really looking to visit these traps because of the plethora of mentions these places receive in poorly conceived travel guides. In this case, Gowalla, just like every other travel app is going for the low-hanging fruit and pandering to the lowest common denominator. Yes, there is money in it, but like it's been mentioned before, this may be an app in search of a problem to solve but it just may very well be that there isn't much beyond Cheers that appeals to a certain demographic and their use case is very well served.

minikomi2• 15 years ago

Have to agree.. Tokyo is not showing me the most inspiring list of destinations. I'd like an app has these kinds of lists, weighted by how long someone has lived in a city.. I can't help but feel there's a low hanging fruit there for "off the beaten path" travel guides. Simply ranking by number of check-ins is not so novel..

buss3• 15 years ago

I'm applying to YC this round with an idea very similar to this. We're aiming to help locals make travel guides for their own cities.

What other things frustrate you about finding things to do in a foreign city?

gallamine2• 15 years ago

I find the new app much more interesting and useful than the old one. I can now create a "story" for a location and indicate who I'm there with, share pictures together, etc. The other thing I like is the new "highlights" tagging feature where you can tag locations with various indicators like: watering hole, or GTD, or "Sketchy" to give folks indicators of what's nice (or not so nice) at a location.

alexmuller• 15 years ago

> We’re building a social atlas for the world. And we need your help to do it.

This makes me think of Dopplr. As somebody who was using Gowalla purely for the check-in-to-see-where-I've-been aspect, I think I'm going to end up a Foursquare user before long. I guess you have to do what you have to do in order to stay alive and hopefully end up profitable.

jonathanmoore• 15 years ago

I have to applaud Gowalla for taking the risk of changing directions with their platform. Although it is a step away from the check-in crowd, their move is in the direction of how I tend to use Gowalla or Foursquare.

If you live outside of urban areas like most people checking in at the same places over and over looses its appeal quickly. The only time I actively use any check-in service is when I'm traveling or at a conference. I'm sure they'll continue to find their way in the new direction, but I like where they're heading.

Stellar design too.

A New Gowalla

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