Location Travel Based Game, Gowalla, Adds 'Highlights' Feature

For awhile it was blogs, then social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, now it is location based travel games like Gowalla and FourSquare that use your desktop and mobile device (laptop, phone, tablet) to check in with and receive rewards and social distinction for revealing to all the world the places that you think are the coolest places to be.

Each service has rewards that are in the form of virtual badges for achievements that range from the number of times checked in, to more specific interest badges like checking in at a certain number of different coffee shops, or even checking in very late at night on a school night. This system was pioneered primarily by Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert when they created another service, Dodgeball, in 2000, that was later purchased by Google. In 2009, Crowley went on to found Foursquare.

Gowalla, created by Josh Williams and Scott Raymond, has emerged as the more engaging of the two, even though Foursquare (with Kevin Rose ,of Digg, as angel investor,) had gained the most notoriety, particularly after becoming the darling at South by Southwest in March of 2010. The competition between Gowalla and Foursquare heated up in the beginning of 2010 when Crowley alleged that . Gowalla, had nothing new, and that in fact they were blatantly ripping off Foursquare. He said, in an interview with Shane Snow of FastCompany.com, "I'm waiting for the first original thing they come out with...everything they've come out with so far is a derivative of ours."

That, of course, was before Gowalla created the trips feature, which Foursquare doesn't really have. "Trips", is a way for users to link a bunch of unique locations with an interesting objective, say a pub crawl across London most famous establishments, or even a tour of famous Frank Lloyd Wright houses, that other users can earn a badge for completing. It is the kind of user generated content that can really make a location based travel game truly engaging. Last week Gowalla announced yet another compelling feature that has no competitor on FourSquare, the new "highlights" feature, which further adds fuel to the argument that Gowalla really is most compelling location service out there.

In Gowalla's blog, they explained Highlights as "like little rewards that you can give to places that are important to your life. Some are quite straightforward and practical like Best Cup (of Coffee). Some are a bit more esoteric or inspirational like My Happy Place and Scenic-At-Night. Regardless, they're all fun." Indeed, highlights do give a player a better sense of the relationship that friends have to the geography around them.Knowing the Best Date Night location, for example, certainly tells you something about their personality. And, since you can only grant each award to one specified location, it is fun pondering over which of all the places that you frequent deserves such a heady honor.

It is unclear whether Foursquare can keep up with the recent innovations that Gowalla continues to unveil, such as trips and highlights. It certainly has a long way to go if it wants to appear as polished and artistic as Gowalla. CEO of Foursquare, Dennis Crowley recently announced to BoomTown, that the company had secured an additional $20 million dollars during their latest venture capital round of funding, so they clearly have the financing to do something special, but he also admitted that Foursquare really does need to upgrade their check-in and rewards system in order to compete. At nearly 2 million users and nearly four times as much traffic as Gowalla, you have to think Crowley isn't too worried just yet, but you have to wonder how much longer Foursquare can remain the leader if they don't innovate soon.

Do you use location travel games? Which is your favorite? And why?

Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Inside the Check-in Wars by Shane Snow

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/foursquare-vs-gowalla-who-will-rule-the-check-in-at-sxsw

"Will Foursquare 2.0 fend of Facebook?" by Peter Kafka

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100816/foursquare-has-new-office-space-to-fill-and-30000-customers-to-please/