Here are some of the Gowalla goodies I have collected whilst using the location based service.
I have no idea what to do with them all. I’m hoping that one day I can have a virtual carboot sale (yard sale) and sell them all in order to buy something real.
I have tended to lean more toward Gowalla as i prefer the interface, it’s prettier and really intuitive to use. The iPad app is pretty amazing too. I love viewing the country or the world as a whole and seeing what my friends are up to in their geographical position.
I am also aware that not all my closest connections on twitter use Gowalla and so occasionally at an event I dip into the slightly bland look of foursquare.
I wondered what proportion of my friends use which location apps if any at all. If you use none or one not listed (like facebook places) please comment below.
Which location based service do you use
If you can’t see the poll embedded please click the link http://twtpoll.com/m0jo67
I’m @Documentally on twitter & Documentally on Gowalla.
Eh? where to start I have an account on Gowalla, Foursquare, Rally up and BrightKite. I tried them on an then settled on Gowalla but must admit not to being a regular user. It tends not be the first thing I think of or tends to be an after thought, like D’oh should have checked in! Maybe I need to use it more or make it a habit. I’m also still trying to figure out its worth, like you say, all those object and what are they for? Time to try again I think 🙂
Hi, @tookiebunten I certainly see the benefit of location based apps. It’s the bridge between my online life & real life.
Never really thought of it like that. I suppose it could be a good thing, in that the people in your ‘real life’ already know where you are or where your going where as the on-line people wouldn’t. Gowalla lets the others know where you are and can facilitate a chance meeting that would never otherwise happen. Interesting may have to try harder to for the habit 🙂
@Tookiebunten I’ve also met in real life people i have only known online by checking into a place. This happens a lot.
That really is a great example of the good in a social network, creating tools that allow you to extend your life in such as way that it creates new meaningful openings and connections. Viva la Social Revolution. 🙂
I’ve used Foursquare for a while now, and when Gowalla came out liked the change in approach it offered, however I drifted back to Foursquare and found all the icon sharing and extra “gameplay” it presented to much for my quick check-in and get on approach.In a book i’m reading atm about iPhone App development (Tapworthy by Josh Clark) contained an interesting section on the developers of Gowalla and how it evolved from the iconbuffet website. Which made total sense in the way it is centred around icon gameplay.I think Gowalla works, but i’ve found foursquare the option for choice for me.I’ve had a few real world meetups come about from checkins – communication mediums like Twitter and Facebook spread out the checkin activity. There are some lovely integrations for example Foursquare checkins can be exported as Google Earth KML files – which was great for me when I wanted to visualise my holiday trip to Berlin.I’m about to start working on a location based iPhone / Android web app shortly.
Gowalla seems so much easier to use, and has a much better interface than foursquare, but I do have a foursquare account (though i think i’ve only used it twice). I’ve never been sure about the “items” thing though. Seems a bit too game-y and pointless, but I’ve got nothing against it in principle. Maybe just pandering the innate collector instinct in people, especially techy types.I also thought you could only have ten at any one time, but maybe that’s the android app doing something odd.
Yes you can have only ten Tom but these are archived. And yes.. you can take or leave the game. I prefer the easily ignorable game than all the mayoring lark. 🙂
I mainly use Gowalla now, although for a time was using RallyUp more, still use the latter but rarely