Foursquare vs Gowalla – One Location Based Service Will Break From the Pack

I’m rooting for Gowalla!!! Foursquare is aimed at Cities, only half the population of the country. If Gowalla, with a good marketing plan, they could connect with more small towns in Rural America, Route 66 for example, for tourism business and Chamber’s of Commerce, they will then dominate the market. But I still will be using both…
I think their website is also easier to navigate for the average user too… Think they should hire me to help with their marketing…

Nice insights here. I wonder if this is a slightly different world than “Twitter” – where it is possible for the two (or more) to co-exist.

Location is largely a local thing. Yes, I can follow someone who lives in California on Foursquare or Gowalla – but their activities, locations and opinions don't have a huge impact on where I'm going to go eat tonight here in Kingston, Ontario.

So the value of me following “the masses” is largely outweighed by the value of me following the service that is popular where I am.

If Gowalla gets entrenched in Toronto, and Foursquare grabs in NYC – those two pockets will co-exist and each deliver value to their local users. Most people (I would assume), use these tools 90% of the time in their own local area. “Regular folks” aren't travelling to SXSW and other web conferences and using these tools to keep tabs on where Scoble is.

I would think this minimizes the necessity of the “location service” to be the same across all regions, whereas Twitter, in order to eliminate geography as a barrier to communication, had to settle on one common, uniting standard.

I think you make a good point about who gets the mainstream nod , that is who will ultimately win. But I don't think that leaves the others out, necessarily. Gowalla offers some interesting options and you can choose there who you see and who you don't.

LBS is so rich in potential, it kind of amazes me that businesses haven't had an across the board adoption of it. But for people like you and I who already try these things and see the value that seems pretty easy. For those who don't there is much skepticism. And why not? Most people still adhere to the idea that we have privacy rights.

I think back to my own personal fears with brightkite a couple years ago. I wondered if I wanted to have strangers come up to me in a public place. I changed my behaviors, stopped posting pictures of my dinners as frequently, (those were the big conversation getters andI still have no idea why) and then it dawned on me. No one was doing anything more than talking to me online about it. I wasn't being greeted en masse when I arrived somewhere or being stalked in some bizarre way.

That is probably the biggest thing that will determine adoption. When people stop fearing the unknown. With LBS it's not quite the same as with twitter or FB. Those weren't giving out your location. They were just tools people used to communicate. LBS tells people where you are and there is a lot that holds people back from wanting to divulge that little bit of info about themselves. Remember when I was in DC and you asked about it then. You were not sure you thought it a good idea. I was using it prolifically, checking in everywhere and under OTHER circumstances I'd say your reasons for not supercede my own. After all, you're somewhat more of a celebrity than I am and that brings with it it's own issues, but I am a female so I'd say that's at least evens the playing field. It simply doesn't matter to anyone and people do not invite themselves to your party, unless you're the prez

So, having just given you a very long analysis of the perceptions, the winner will be BOTH, and ultimately probably others. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. I do think it will be regional until one or the other pulls themselves out of the game. Until then, we have two. Which do you like if all your friends are accessible BOTH places?

I agree both are early in their life cycle. I use and like both. My basic impression is that Gowalla has, up to now, stronger funding. Foursquare has arguably stronger business ties and savvy. Given the strength of alliance FourSquare has been forging, they look stronger to me.

The gaming aspect of both, while fun for early adopter geeks, is simply not going to drive critical mass in the general population. MyTown, an location service I find simply annoying, has a stronger user base, but seems to have no fit in my world. Whrrl is another up and comer that seems to be picking up steam.

Twitter keeps dancing with LBS, but frankly, they haven't done anything new and innovative since Twttr became Twitter. Ok, they added lists, which got a lot of talk. And Scoble thinks they're valuable. Nobody I know finds them driving behaviors. I think Twitter will do something, and probably not do it well. They haven't proven strong at execution. Twitter is a transport pipe, but not high in the LBS value chain without some serious innovation.

Facebook is the elephant in the room with a monstrous user base and the potential to really make a big play. When they do, two things will happens. They'll piss off users because every change they make does that. And whatever they do will get widely embraced, because that's what happens when the anger over change subsides. They can be the game changer.

Beyond that, the question of location as an attribute of presence to deliver richer information is a focal point for Cisco, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and the players in what we call unified communications space. I think they're going to drive the business adoption that really takes LBS mainstream. I don't think they're going to do anything really big for two years. It will take them that long.

In the meantime, I think FourSquare will stretch their lead over time because they're a bit more solid in multiple platforms. Gowalla and Whrrl will make advances, and all it takes is one key big move to leap to the front.

I see FourSquare as the front runner for the next two years given current paths. Facebook has the potential to overrun the upstarts that are where the real innovation is rooted.