It doesn’t seem like it’s been a year since I started using Gowalla, but the publish date on my Gowallaing post tells me that milestone is coming up soon. A lot of cool features have been added to Gowalla since I wrote that article, but it’s still a surprisingly relevant intro to the game. For a while it seemed like Gowalla was trying to downplay the items element of their service to compete with some of the more utilitarian location-based apps. In the past few weeks though, they’ve really brought items back to the forefront of the Gowalla experience. In the last week alone they released 3 new regular items; Blue TOMS Shoes, White TOMS Shoes & Ash TOMS Shoes as well as 2 prize items; Real AT&T Smartphone & Real TOMS Shoes. For those still think the service is just about checking in and finding your friends, take a look at these screenshots of my last 2 “Your Week with Gowalla” emails. I think they paint a pretty clear picture of why people love to go out with Gowalla.
Your Week with Gowalla – 8/17/2010
Your Week with Gowalla – 8/24/2010
This is just a speck of the small percentage of Gowalla users I’m friends with. I can’t imagine how much their usage shot up last week system-wide, but I’m sure they noticed… and until I find one of those prize items and/or that elusive Ash shoes item, you can bet I’ll still be checking in like crazy.
You still use “balls to the Gowalls”? Was that from our awesome excursion or did you use that before? 😀
Yep. I totally stole that from our Fantastic Fest tour. How could I not still use it?
To those who still think @gowalla is just about checking in and finding your friends: http://jasongraphix.com/journal/your-wee…
RT @jasongraphix: To those who still think @gowalla is just about checking in and finding your friends: http://jasongraphix.com/journal/your-wee…