Gowalla Leads a Pack of Contenders July 15, 2010 (Vol. 31, No. 13) Similar to Foursquare, Gowalla is a free downloadable smart phone application that enables members to identify where they have been and to recommend locations to friends and win awards. Gowalla is not alone in trying to out-position market leader Foursquare. Booyah, Loopt, Brightkite and Google Buzz are also in the hunt, each pursuing a different angle on location-based services.
Gowalla has its work cut out. Big-kid-on-the-block Foursquare, with 2 million users, is way ahead of Gowalla with 340,000 subscribers. What’s more, Foursquare is growing 75% faster than Gowalla every day, according to market researcher Robert J. Moore, CEO of RJMetrics in Camden, NJ.
Based in Austin, Tex., Gowalla, Inc. has thus far received $10.4 million in venture funding, about half of what Foursquare has received. Indeed, venture capitalists are eying the location-based services space fervidly. In May, 2010, Accel Partners led a $20 million investment in Booyah, maker of an iPhone game called "MyTown” in which players check in to locations and then seek to gain virtual ownership in order to collect rent from other visitors. My Town’s motto: “Location-based gaming meets monopoly.”
Where does this leave smart phone users? Broke, if they’re not careful. In an experiment earlier this year, researchers launched an experiment called Pleaserobme.com to post the whereabouts of people who disclosed their locations on social media applications. The idea: Tell the world you’re not home and your home is fair game for burglars. The website has since been taken down. (
|
