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, act ...

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

funding led by

Greylock Partners Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise software and infrastructure as wel ...

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 owners ...

Chris Sacca Christopher Sacca (born May 12, 1975) is an American venture investor, company advisor, entrepreneur, and lawyer. He is the proprietor of Lowercase Capital, a venture capital fund in the United States that has invested in seed and early-stage te ...

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. Earl ...

and

Jason Calacanis Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York. His second venture, Weblogs, Inc., a publishing company tha ...

. 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 distric ...

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. 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,

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...

, Palm

WebOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...

, 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, Dustin M ...

. "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 Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * ''4 Square'' (TV series), a Canadian children's s ...

Facebook Places Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of t ...

, 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 a sho ...

, 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 Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

Interactive awards.

References

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Overview

Awards

See also

References