What the headline says, basically, according to two sources. That and multiple sources are telling me that a majority of Gowalla investors were cool with the deal being entirely in Facebook shares, because those are likely to be more profitable moving forward — as Facebook approaches IPO.
Other sources are saying that the “Investors vs. Founders” sentiment isn’t a reflection of the majority of Gowalla investors (Jason Calacanis wrote an entire blog post about this) and that the deal was done with full board backing. The team, many of which will not be moving on to Facebook, did not get a significantly better deal than investors I’m hearing. → Read More
Facebook has acquired location-based startup Gowalla, according to a report this evening by Laurie Segall on CNN Money. The terms of the deal haven’t been reported, and Gowalla declined to comment. Facebook says it doesn’t comment on rumor and speculation. Update: We’ve heard from an independent source that Facebook is indeed acquiring Gowalla.
According to CNN’s report, the Gowalla team will be working on Facebook Timeline, with most of the team moving to Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters and some remaining in Gowalla’s hometown of Austin, where Facebook has an office as well.
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A couple weeks ago during TechCrunch Disrupt, Gowalla co-founder and CEO Josh Williams took the stage to preview the latest version of his service. And while it is technically called Gowalla 4.0, as Williams showed, it’s really a total revamp away from the check-in space and towards the travel and location-based story space. But as good as Williams and myself may have been at describing it, you should really try it out for yourself. And now you can.
The Gowalla 4.0 apps for iOS and Android have just gone live in their respective stores. The website has also been completely revamped to focus on the new details of the service. → Read More
The location wars had a number of casualties. Some companies shut down, some sold off their remaining tech and talent. Others are still out there plugging away, but at this point, it seems clear that Foursquare won the all-important battle over the check-in. Even Facebook is slowly backing away from that particular space. Now the fun can really begin.
For a number of months, Gowalla was seen as the main competitor to Foursquare. Both launched at SXSW in 2009 and both got quick traction as check-in services. But Gowalla was always trying to do more. Their experience came from the virtual goods side of things, and they tried to weave that into the location space. But it never really worked. Perhaps they were trying to do too much in the nascent space. → Read More
It was almost exactly one year ago that Facebook launched Places, their location-based offering. Reading the press at the time, you would have thought it was going to be the Foursquare-killer, the Gowalla-strangler, the Loopt-beheader, etc. Nevermind that Facebook partnered with all of them for the launch — those guys were done.
Fast forward to today: Foursquare recently raised a large round of funding valuing them at $600 million. And Facebook is killing off Places.
To be clear, Facebook is not ducking out of the location game itself. In fact, you could say that they’re doubling-down on it. But they are moving away from the game that the “check-in” services have been playing. And a result of that is Places being killed off and being replaced by new “Nearby” area, as Jason outlined along with the bigger privacy changes today. → Read More
Back in the day, the knock on the Foursquare iPhone app used to be that it wasn’t very visually appealing. That was especially true in comparison to rival Gowalla. But much has changed over the past several months. And now that Foursquare has big funding and a larger team to deal with the pains of fast growth, they’ve been putting a lot of emphasis into how things look and feel. And it’s paying off.
Today brings an update to the iPhone app which is brings a new coat of polish. Most notably, you’ll see that pictures are now displayed inline when you’re viewing your check-in activity stream. This matches the functionality that was recently added to the Foursquare website. It not only ups the visual appeal, it makes the service feel more alive and personal.
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Google Realtime Search is nothing new. For months it has existed as its own area within the search engine’s navigation to search for things happening in realtime. But up until now, that has meant mainly Twitter (thanks to Google’s data deal with that company). But earlier today, it appears Google flipped the switch to make Realtime Search a lot more useful. Namely, they’ve added results from services like Quora, Buzz, Gowalla, and yes, even Facebook.
As pointed out in this Quora thread, it looks like Google flipped the switch to include the data from the services listed above (as well as others) this afternoon. The fact that Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo and CFO Marc Bodnick voted up this Quora posting suggests this did in fact just happen today. → Read More
Adding existing features like third-party check-in and better photo support, the Austin based company updates the Android version of their location software today. Gowalla co-founder and CEO Josh Williams told me in a quick phone call that he feels like “we’ve created a better experience for our Android app than we even have for the iPhone version.” Strategically, supporting the best Gowalla experience on the fastest growing Smartphone platform makes sense for the company, as they compete with other Check-in services like Loopt and Foursquare as well as hybrid location-chat services like Yobongo. They need to fish where the fish are, for sure. To me, it looks similar to the iPhone version, based on the screen shots below. I haven’t had a chance to install it yet, so let us know what you think of it. → Read More
We’re now just over two weeks away from this year’s SXSW event in Austin, Texas. And just as is the case every year, there will be several startups jockeying to be the one that is the breakout hit. But one of those previous breakout hits, Foursquare, isn’t standing still either.
In a ridiculously awesome blog post on the matter today, Foursquare hints at their plan for the event this year. Here’s the entire post entitled “OMFG!”: → Read More
A few weeks ago, we noted that with a few subtle changes being made to their service, it seemed as if Gowalla was starting to connect the dots on travel. That is to say, it seems like they’re starting to use all the of location information they have in ways beyond simply sharing where your friends are at any given time. Some changes being made today further connect those dots.
Gowalla has just rolled out a batch of updates to their website today that enhance usability when it comes to finding interesting things about a city. Venue (called “spots”) activity, people view, and photos are all now easier to see. The mapping feature is improved. And it’s easier to share and bookmark spots. But the biggest additions come by way of the Highlights feature. → Read More
It was almost exactly two years ago that Google launched Latitude, their location-based service. Two years may not seem like a long time, but it’s “the equivalent of a decade in location services,” Latitude PM Ken Norton jokes. Most importantly, it was just before Foursquare launched to the world at SXSW in 2009. That changed the entire game, literally, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt likes to say. You see, it brought the idea of the “check-in” into play. And that ended up being the idea that launched a thousand location-based services. Today, finally, Google is getting on board with that idea.
Yes, the check-in is coming to Latitude — finally.
Latitude at its core has always been about sharing your best available location with people on a continuous basis. In other words, it was a service that relied on location updates running constantly in the background. “It has been good for seeing where you are, but not seeing where you ARE,” is now Norton puts it. In other words, you could see that a friend was at a place on a map, but not that they were at a Starbucks. To find that out for sure, you’d still have to send them a text. → Read More
Now that Facebook has entered the space, Google appears to be ready to take it more seriously, and Foursquare is gaining some real traction, the other players in the location field need to start defining their roles. Of the other players, Gowalla has been doing some interesting stuff around check-in aggregation. But their more interesting play may be around travel. And a small change today points to that.
As you can see on place pages for various airports, Gowalla has begun connecting your travels from destination to destination. So if you check it at SFO then five hours later check in at JFK, they know that you were on a cross-country flight and create a new graphic to showcase that, complete with your miles traveled. Below that they tell your friends about your journey. And they’re even able to see if you had a layover at another airport. → Read More
Yesterday morning, Foursquare pushed out a big update to their iPhone app that included the ability to add pictures to check-ins for the first time. This functionality matches the one that rival Gowalla has had for some time now — 9 months, actually. And today, Gowalla hit a milestone with pictures: 1 million. But signs point to Foursquare closing in on that number quickly. Very quickly.
Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley told Business Insider yesterday that they were already approaching one photo per second. I checked back with Crowley today and he says they’re still not there quite yet but to ask him again “in a few days”. And when they hit that rate, that means it will take them about 11 and a half days to hit a million photos. In other words, in two weeks, Foursquare could have a million photos as well. → Read More
Earlier this month, location-based service Gowalla went on the offensive against rival Foursquare — by linking up with them. Yes, they created a way for you to use Gowalla to check-in on Foursquare (and Facebook). Why would they do that? Because they said that users told them they felt the Gowalla experience was better, but many of their friends were already using Foursquare. So what did that Gowalla experience include that Foursquare didn’t? Well, comments and pictures, for starters. Well, you can strike both of those off the list today.
Yes, Foursquare is finally adding both highly requested features to the service. At first, they’ll be available on the iPhone app and the website, but the plan is to quickly get them to Android (next week, we’re told) and BlackBerry (next month). And the service has three other high-profile startups on board at launch to help with the picture element: Instagram, PicPlz, and Foodspotting. → Read More
Editor’s note: As the Web goes mobile, every Web company needs to build mobile products. Author Elad Gil, director of Geo at Twitter, has a lot of experience in that area. Way before selling his company Mixer Labs to Twitter last year, he kickstarted Google’s mobile efforts back in 2004, when Google’s mobile team “consisted of 1/4 of an engineer dedicated to maintaining an old WAP search server on the brink of collapse.” Gil pulled Google’s first mobile team together, recruited the first engineers, started discussions with carriers, and was involved in Google’s early mobile acquisitions which set the stage for Google Mobile Maps and Android. In this guest post, he shares what he learned. Note that Elad works at Twitter but the following piece reflects his view only and does not represent Twitter’s thoughts or strategy.
In the early days of Google’s mobile team, we needed to navigate a series of misunderstandings most people have about consumer mobile app development, and how to build a great consumer mobile team and product. Given the ridiculous growth of mobile today, many companies I know are trying to start their mobile divisions and they are making the same mistakes over and over. Similarly, many mobile consumer startups are making a series of common mistakes. This post draws on my experience building Google’s early mobile team to point out how to overcome the myths people still believe about making super successful mobile applications. → Read More
There is no reason in the world I should have been invited to a dinner with Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. It’s already one of the most written about companies on TechCrunch, and I am the only TechCrunch reporter who has never written a post on them.
That’s in part because I am one of the only TechCrunch reporters who has just never been a big Foursquare fan. I get it, but a mayor badge isn’t enough to make me want to give up my whereabouts. For the record, Crowley sort of agreed with me and said that’s going to change in the video below.
Logic aside, I was invited to said dinner along with Jason Kincaid and a handful of other reporters, and we captured the beauty of the moment on camera, just before Crowley hopped over to Le Web with seemingly the rest of the TechCrunch staff. We bring you the first (and possibly last) installment of TechCrunchTV After Dark.
A few disclaimers: None of us were actually drinking. Jason is swirling grape juice in a wine glass, I just sound tired, and Crowley just likes to steal cameras from reporters and then pretend he’s a morning shock-jock then force them to eat persimmons. Enjoy. → Read More
Much has already been written about how Loopt was perhaps a bit too early to the location game for their own good. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there still trying new things to keep their over 4 million users and entice new ones to join. The latest such effort is Loopt 4.0, their latest mobile app.
The first thing you’ll notice about Loopt 4.0 is that it has been entirely redesigned. More importantly, the app has been significantly simplified, to clean up the user experience. On the main screen you can now quickly jump to five areas: Me, Settings, Places, Friends, and Map. The last three are the most important because that’s where you will check-in and see where your friends are. → Read More
This past March, I came home from SXSW with a problem. The so-called “location war” hadn’t yielded one check-in service to rule them all. In fact, several new ones popped up just at that conference alone. Check-in fatigue set in.
Since then, the problem has only gotten worse. Now Facebook has launched itself right smack dab in the middle of the location space with Places. And others like Yelp are still pushing hard there. It’s getting even more out of control. I’m about ready to declare check-in bankruptcy. Or I was, until Gowalla decided to do something bold.
The location-based service has decided to fundamentally altered their app to allow you to check-in to not only their service, but also into Facebook’s and even Foursquare’s as well. Yes, they’ve just become compatible with their chief rivals. → Read More
The geolocation wars are well underway. If you need any proof of that, simply look at this thread in Quora. A startup posted a question wondering which place database they should use for their new check-in app. The responses? Foursquare: Us. Gowalla: Us. SimpleGeo: Us. Factual: Us. Locationary: Us.
Each of these companies, along with a few other big ones not practicing the art of self-promotion on Quora (Google, Facebook, Skyhook) are all in the midst of what is sure to be a drawn-out battle to become the underlying location layer that lets a thousand other startups bloom on top of it. → Read More
To me, one of the most interesting thing about Foursquare is the History tab. It transforms the service from a “where you are” app, into a “where you were” log. In a way, it’s sort of like a diary. I wish Twitter was better at this idea as well. Because what I tweeted a year ago says something about how I was feeling, or what I was doing back then. In fact, a lot of the web services we use on a daily basis would be perfect for this type of passive diary writing. And that’s exactly what Momento, an iPhone app, makes happen.
At its core, Momento is a straightforward diary app. It allows you to easy write “Moments” (diary entries) to express what you are doing or feeling on any given day. It takes the process a step further by allowing you to tag friends (from you iPhone contact list), places, events, and add photos to these entries. But the real killer feature of the app is that it also allows you to import bits of information from a number of services including Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Digg, and any RSS feed. The result is a brilliant log of almost everything you’re doing online. → Read More
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