In the four months since SXSW – the battlefield for the “location wars” – Foursquare has passed the 2 million user mark while Gowalla is somewhere in the neighborhood of 340,000, and the gap continues to widen.
Part of Foursquare’s success has been partnering with Bravo TV, the History Channel, and the Huffington Post – along with many others. Gowalla counts the National Geographic, USA Today and LIVESTRONG among its partners. Also, Gowalla is available in a larger format for the iPad, takes advantage of the iPhone’s Retina Display, and is available for Android and webOS too.
That level of distribution means that they have the same potential user base as Foursquare. However all of this doesn’t seem to be helping Gowalla grow, which is its number one concern.
That said, Gowalla has also done a better job at working special offers into their application. While Foursquare has had the vague “special offers nearby” interaction until recently, Gowalla has partnered with Apple, Eye-Fi and the New Jersey Nets to give away iPods, Eye-Fi memory cards, and tickets with a VIP experience for those users who checked in and found an item. Check in to a location, pick up an item and win a tangible prize; it doesn’t get much simpler that than. Yet Foursquare still has built up a mammoth lead.
One area where Gowalla could quickly improve is location verification. Or more precisely, solve its zealous over verification. Gowalla is a stickler for check-ins at the proper physical location. More than a few blocks away and Gowalla won’t allow it.
While Foursquare has largely embraced “cheating” to some extent, looking at users habits and frequent locations to determine legitimacy, Gowalla has frowned on this behavior. While both applications can run on Wi-Fi devices like the iPod Touch, only Foursquare lets people on Wi-Fi participate as equals. To get the most out of Gowalla you need a mobile Internet connection or constant access to Wi-Fi.
Because of its dependence on game mechanics to spur use, without a number of different places to visit, Gowalla can become uninteresting quickly. Foursquare users benefit from visiting a location often enough because they can become the Mayor. Obviously Foursquare doesn’t want people to check in all over town from one place and claim all the nearby Mayorships, but Gowalla should be encouraging people to check in, drop and find new items, and play the game more than they are now.
Although it’s still early and all of the players in the location war haven’t fully revealed themselves yet, Gowalla needs to quickly pick up more users, or it could find itself as simply a niche service where users collect digital souvenirs, despite having a competitve product that brings a higher level of fun to the monotonous task of checking in.
According to my friends, Gowalla is unavailable on Blackberries, and RIM still holds a large share in the mobile industry. This could be another factor in why Gowalla is behind.
A beta version is available for the Blackberry, but that is likely holding back interested potential users or pushing those people to Foursquare.
The beta version works fine. Foursquare just gets all the press. Gowalla is a better app, and is a richer experience. I wonder how many of those 2 millino Foursquare users actually are still using the product. I have 125 Gowalla friends, and they all seem to be pretty active, even 4 months after I started following them.
Maybe that’s the key? Once you start playing you get hooked!
Hopefully both companies (and the numerous others) continue to innovate.
As it happens, I prefer Gowalla (nicer interface, I like collecting the pickups, etc.) but as MySpace will tell you – social network success lies in the larger usebase, not the better product.
MySpace had the larger user-base in the beginning since they were around before Facebook. Just like AOL, they had the network advantage but Facebook drew people in. Gowalla is compelling, so they have a chance.
It’s the old VHS Vs BetaMax story.
Gowalla is a far better UX than FS.
Perhaps an important factor is that most of the designers and developers that operate prominently in the online communities use Gowalla more than FS. Like with Twitter this might have an durational impact.
That’s what makes me wonder if the gap is lack of press or if people just don’t like the idea of a check-in game. The market is still young so there’s time for them to get the message out there.
I use Foursquare quite often. I happen to enjoy the mini competitions that go on locally. I have tried Gowalla and I just am not a fan. I suppose there is potential, but for the moment I will indeed spend more of my time on Foursquare checking in
I think Gowalla needs a community in your area, and your friends, to be at its best. Too few friends or places visited and you don’t encounter enough of the items or finish the tasks.
Gowalla has won my heart, but not too many of my friends. I think they are more interested in the competitive mayorships than the fun and relaxed geocaching/collecting/exploring aspect that I am. Maybe that’s just also true of the larger population.
I wonder how long the “fun” of mayorships will last. Does it scale up? If there are 100 million users instead of 2 million, it will be just about impossible to be the mayor of anything. I think that has limited appeal.
That will be an interesting obstacle. Foursquare will probably become more strict on location verification and encourage more offers that don’t require being the Mayor. If Foursquare wins location, they might very well add a Gowalla-style feature.