Gowalla was a location-based

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, ac ...

. It launched in 2007 and closed in 2012. Users were able to

check in Check-in is the process whereby people announce their arrival at an office, hotel, airport, hospital, seaport or event. Office check-in Many offices have a reception or front office area near the entrance to greet or assist visitors arriving to a ...

at "Spots" in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. Checking-in would sometimes produce virtual "items" for the user, some of which were developed to be promotional tools for the game's partners. As of November 2010 there were approximately 600,000 users. In January 2021, Gowalla made an announcement that the app is coming back in 2022. At the start of December 2009 it was reported that Gowalla had raised $8.4 million in a round of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...

funding led by Greylock Partners and

angel investors An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owner ...

Chris Sacca,

Kevin Rose Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's ''The Screen Savers''. From 2012 to 2015, he was a venture partner at GV. ...

and Jason Calacanis. It was acquired by Facebook on December 2, 2011, for an undisclosed sum Gowalla, Inc. was based in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

. On March 10, 2012, Gowalla announced it would cease operation and users would be able to download their checkins, photos and lists soon. However, this seems to have fallen through, as the site was made unavailable before these histories could be downloaded.

Overview

Gowalla was a primarily mobile application that allowed users to check into locations that they visited using their mobile device. This was done either through the use of dedicated applications available on Google Android, iPhone,

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, Palm WebOS, and

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, or via the service's mobile website. Check-ins could be pushed via Notifications to iPhones, and by linking accounts, to

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

. "Trips", which as of January 2010 could be made by any user, linked together up to 20 related spots, grouped into categories such as Nature Hikes or Pub Crawls. Some Spots and Trips were "featured" by Gowalla, being highlighted on their website and awarded a special status and icon. Featured spots tended to be local landmarks such as

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

in London, while featured trips were chosen for being "unique and exciting". Within the Gowalla community, certain users had an elevated status above that of normal users. Whereas every user could create a spot and maintain its details, members of the Street Team were able to move and edit any unlocked spots. This included the ability to merge duplicate spots. In early versions of the service, users would occasionally receive a virtual "Item" as a bonus upon checking in, and these items could be swapped or dropped at other spots. Users became "Founders" of a spot by dropping an item there. Items used to form a key feature within the game and each user had a vault into which they could place items they wanted to keep. In a September 2011 update, items and the user's vault became less of a focus of the application and were removed from the user experience. Many users were unhappy with the removal of Items. On December 2, 2010, Gowalla released version 3.0 for the iPhone 4, allowing Gowalla users to check in using Foursquare, Facebook Places,

, and

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to ...

, or view friends' check-ins from other services. In March 2011 an Android version of Gowalla was released. This allowed the same features that applied to the iPhone 4 to be used on Android phones; it also updated the interface dramatically to introduce a new "Passport" look. In June 2011 a Windows Phone 7 version of Gowalla was released with a similar feature set. The acquisition of Gowalla by

was announced on December 2, 2011. Gowalla, as a service, was shut down on March 11, 2012. Gowalla stated that Facebook would not be acquiring any of Gowalla's user data. On October 20, 2020 Josh Williams announced a return of Gowalla with a new concept for Spring 2021.

Awards

Gowalla won the Mobile category in the 2010

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

Interactive awards.

References

{{coord, 30.2691, N, 97.7495, W, display=title Android (operating system) software IOS software Geosocial networking Internet properties established in 2007 Internet properties disestablished in 2012 Meta Platforms acquisitions 2011 mergers and acquisitions Mobile social software Outdoor locating games

Overview

Awards

See also

References