Gowalla Reinvents Itself To Be More Like A ‘Social Lonely Planet'

Gowalla, a location-based social network that has competed head to head with startups like Foursquare and Loopt, is rolling out a radical overhaul that will do away with "check-ins" and aims to transform the application into a social travel guide for cities around the world.

Gowalla's reinvention suggests the company may be having difficulty making inroads against competitors like Foursquare, which boasts 10 million users to Gowalla's 2 million and which allows users to redeem rewards by checking into establishments and events. Gowalla is not alone in rethinking its location strategy: Facebook recently announced that it was phasing out its own check-in tool, Places, which reportedly had little success attracting users.

Gowalla CEO Josh Williams said the change in strategy stemmed from the industrywide move toward combining check-ins with discounts and rewards, an area he said he had little interest in pursuing.

"Our goal was never to go into the local deals space," Williams explained. "It's not a product we want to build moving forward."

"We wanted to go back to our passion, which is inspiring people to visit new places and visit the world through the eyes of someone they trust," he said. "I think the check-in industry is going to be doing interesting things around loyalty rewards and daily deals, but that's something entirely separate from what we're trying to solve."

That may not be all that turned Gowalla off social deals. A considerable number of more established players, including Foursquare, Groupon and Google, are all angling to partner with local businesses to deliver location-based coupons to mobile phones -- competition that could make it problematic for Gowalla to offer a meaningful number of rewards.

The new Gowalla, which a spokesperson said has been "retooled from the ground up," provides guides to cities, campuses, parks and other locales with content from Gowalla's userbase at large, an individual user’s friends and Gowalla's editorial partners, including Disney and National Geographic, whose content will appear with the launch of the new app. Users will be able to access these recommendations without registering for a Gowalla account. Williams noted that Gowalla might eventually charge for access to premium content.

"The question was: How do we create something more akin to a social Lonely Planet that gives people recommendations on where to explore, whether locally or abroad, but with a social aspect layered on top of that," said Williams, referencing the popular Lonely Planet series of travel guides.

Gowalla has not yet announced the launch date for the new app, which will be available for the iPhone and Android phones.

Some of the old features will be available to Gowalla users for a limited period of time following the relaunch. Check in while you can, as Williams noted the new app will not allow for check-ins.

Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Foursquare as having launched after Gowalla. The two companies both launched at SXSW in 2009.
SEE screenshots of the Gowalla app before and after:

Comments

[bluechao]

07:03 AM on 09/13/2011

The fact that this is the first time I've even heard of Gowalla isn't a good sign as I'm fairly tech savvy, though I suppose it's better that I've heard of it now than not at all. Already the relaunch is going better than before, at least from my POV.

[Robert Quigley]

12:19 AM on 09/13/2011

A couple of things:
* I don't believe Gowalla is "doing away" with checkins - it just won't be the main focus anymore. TC story says it won't be the main feature, but will still be there.
* Gowalla and Foursquare launched at the same time (2009 SXSW).
* Gowalla has always been more about exploring an area, not checkins, so this actually stays with its mission. I don't recall Gowalla ever making a push of any kind to be in the deals space.

[britishredcoat]

12:01 PM on 09/13/2011

I agree with your first two points/corrections, but Gowalla did make a push to be in the deal/rewards space around the time of SXSW this year. This interview (http://www.fastcompany.com/1735974/gowalla-3-android-groupon-living-social-rewards-sxsw) with Josh explicitly mentions it. As a user, i don't remember anything coming from it on a national level aside from a National Geographic subscription offer.

As a long-time user, my major concern with Gowalla is their seeming propensity for retcon. We're told this new direction was 'always' the vision of the company. that it was never about check-ins or items or rewards. Well, at times it has been (or tried to be) about all those things. I think the new direction is great; I just don't think there's anything wrong with saying "we tried that and didn't like it. Now we're trying something new."

[Crist Jarrett]

02:06 PM on 09/15/2011

Check out the article on Tech Crunch about the unveiling at Disrupt. ( http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/12/gowalla-reborn/ ) CEO basically says, 'this isn't where we wanted to go, but this is where we are. What do we have to do to get back to where we wanted to go.' The new version of the app kind of links up with the company's idea: Don't tell us what's immediately around us where to go, let us make our own plans and go where we want. Only makes sense to me!

As a "spot owner" for a couple of spots on Gowalla, I know there has never really been a 'deals' type thing. A customized greeting you can insert a deal for anyone who checks-in, but that is just your own text. Facebook places, I know you can (could?) do some sort of deal/coupon thing, but that was too much of a pain to even start.

I dig Gowalla and have been a user since the beginning. I have always liked it MUCH more than foursquare simply because of the passport, travel, story telling aspect of it. This update only makes sense- instead of continuing to pile on to the version you already had and weren't completely happy with, break it down to the foundation, build it up the way you want.

Personally, I'm stoked for Gowalla and I think this will increase the distance between it and foursquare as an over all experience.