I’ve been using Foursquare and Gowalla for a while now and for the most part was fairly on the fence as to which of the two services offered greater value and which one was most likely to establish itself as the market leader. A few months ago I would have said that Foursquare’s API would eventually give it greater market share but that Gowalla’s user interface and richer feature set would allow to maintain a loyal following. However, Gowalla recently released it’s own API and both services have pushed out new iPhone applications specifically for SXSW.
Foursquare’s offering included a dramatic overhaul of their iPhone UI which is a very welcome update. Prior to this release Gowalla’s UI always seemed more refined and consistant with their website. Unfortunately for Foursquare, Gowalla also updated their UI. Foursquare has made up significant ground but it seems Gowalla isn’t willing to slow down just because they’re ahead. Obviously UI and design is a fairly subjective criteria but for me I’m going to give Gowalla the win.
However, Foursquare has a definite advantage in the administration of all this user generated content. Foursquare allows all users to flag spots as incorrect, closed, or duplicates and also deputizes some as “Super Users” which allows more people to go around fixing wrong addresses, merging duplicate entries, and verifying the content the end user experience relies on. Gowalla only allows the creator of a spot to edit and fix entries and for the life of me I can’t figure out how to notify them that there are two Flying Saucers, San Antonio in their system. This system also limits the admins to who drops items at a location, preventing other users from fixing the content (there are benevolent trolls out there). For accuracy of listings and website functionality I’m going to give Foursquare the nod.
Another big advantage Foursquare has over Gowalla is their “Mayor” feature. The person who visits a spot most often over the previous 30 days is declared the Mayor of local and Foursquare actively encourages businesses to use this in their marketing by offering Mayor discounts or specials. In general I think Foursquare has embraced the game aspect of these applications more than Gowalla. Gowalla does have an item collection feature but really offers little incentive or context for them, though some SXSW items did seem to indicate that they are moving in that direction. At one Gowalla check in I picked up a wristband which allowed me to use a VIP line at a SXSW party. If Gowalla keeps moving in that direction my opinion here may change. For now, their ability to connect the application to the real world gives Foursquare a 2-1 lead.
SXSW offered a great chance to test the two services head to head. Tons of users, making thousands of check ins, and creating tons of content. Gowalla never seemed to hang for me whereas I got a handful of “Servers Not Responding” errors from Foursquare. Gowalla also seemed to pull data faster and rarely left you waiting for content. At the end of the day features are great, but the overall application has to work. Gowalla ties it up and makes it interesting. Both companies also offered SXSW exclusive features. Foursquare offered new badges to unlock and a mini games testing your ability to goto SXSW’s many events. Gowalla though offered some interesting features which blew me away. They created time sensitive spots for every talk and workshop and ended up being my primary way of knowing what events were ongoing (SXSW’s app was awful). This made the Gowalla app useful in a way neither app had been to this point. If they continue to do this for events they’re going to dominate the market because they’ll be adding tons of users at festivals, conventions, and trade shows around the US. Can’t wait to see if they do this for ACL (or maybe Summerfest?). Gowalla takes back the lead and seals the narrow victory 3-2.
I’m still continuing to use both applications partially due to having friends on both. However since this weekend I’ve been leaning closer to dropping Foursquare at some point in the future. The major novelty I enjoy with Foursquare is their analytic reports which break down your nights out into graphs and pie charts which I mentioned in a post in my personal blog. However, if Gowalla were to include some graphic representation of check in history and allow users to help them maintain their content base it may speed up my decision to use them exclusively.
Tags: foursquare, gowalla, sxsw