What Gowalla Got Wrong
Last week Gowalla released the newest version of their location-based application, and they ruined it. These aren’t easy words coming from me. I have been an avid user and evangelist of Gowalla for over a year. I would be more precise with that info, but the new Gowalla no longer lets me view my own check-in history. Accumulating those check-ins was one of the primary points of using Gowalla, I was somewhere around 1,220 unique places that I had checked-into since I first started using Gowalla, but now neither the website or iPhone application display this information to me. So where I have been and when, information I have saved one thumb tap at a time at locations both exciting and mundane (mostly the latter) is now lost to me. Why did I bother?
Check-ins vs. Stories
The new Gowalla has abandoned the concept of the ‘check-in’ and replaced it with the ‘story’. Originally conceived as a digital passport, Gowalla’s distinctive stamps could be collected by globetrotters and homebody’s alike. I loved the opportunity to look for trips and featured stamps to collect wherever my travels took me, when such opportunities occurred. Sharing photos and comments with my friends and family on Gowalla was wonderful. But day to day my check-ins were for myself; my neighborhood, the park on the way to work, the grocery store, my office. I’m not so egotistical that I think anyone but myself gave a crap where I was, but I still checked-in, for myself.
But with the new Gowalla I’m not just ‘checking-in’, I’m telling a ‘story’. Guess what Gowalla, the huge majority of my check-ins don’t amount to a good story, I was only interested in knowing how often I’ve been to that grocery store. And it’s not just my own numbers I’m missing. As I look at different spots on Gowalla, I can no longer tell how often anyone has been there. Is this spot popular, or a one-off joke? Gowalla no longer lets me know.
Badges and Items
One of the motivating reasons to bother checking-in to new locations on Gowalla was to earn badges for doing so. Badges were earned for a wide variety of reasons, sometimes just for where you were such as a state badge, or for the type of location you were at such as a coffee shop, or for completing a ‘trip’ or pre-defined collection of locations. In the new Gowalla, all but the state badges are apparently gone. I feel like the medals have been stripped off my chest!
Another distinguishing factor about Gowalla was items, virtual collectible knick-knacks to be gathered, dropped, hunted, swapped and hoarded. Items made Gowalla a virtual treasure hunt, and while I expect many users enjoyed Gowalla without ever understanding or embracing the point of items, many others enjoyed the hunt and the fun of moving items in this quirky virtual world. Well kiss them goodbye. Your hard earned collection of items is gone. Sorry.
Guides
Why did Gowalla seemingly work to take all of the fun out of their app? I believe they are admitting defeat in the battle of the check-in vs. Foursquare, and seeking to re-invent themselves. To me the appeal of Gowalla over Foursquare has always been their superior interface, custom stamps and unique user experience. Gowalla was to Foursquare as Macs are to PC’s, not as widely adopted but WAY cooler. But cool isn’t always enough, numbers count, and Foursquare has the numbers. So Gowalla had to abandon the ‘check-in’ and create a new justification for existing, as a travel guide.
With content provided by major entertainment and travel resources, as well as their own users, Gowalla is well equipped to be a wonderful digital travel guide, suggesting spots for me to ‘check-in’, no wait ‘start a story’ at that I might otherwise have overlooked. But my commuter lot and grocery story aren’t worthy of a travel guide, or a story, and any reason I ever had for checking into them before has been taken away.
I remain hopeful that some of these features that have made Gowalla such a pleasure for me to use will return. I understand that technology companies much strive to innovate, improve, and be profitable. But they should also recognize when they’ve made a mistake and damaged their product or business and attempt to recover. I hope that Gowalla can do so and bring me back, but for right now they have lost me and I’m ‘checking-out’.
, published in May of 1996. I wrote this book mid-way through my eight year career as a Senate staffer, and described how Congress as an institution struggled with and eventually embraced the use of the Internet as a tool for communicating with constituents. For four years after my book was published, I wrote 
(contributed chapter)
