March 06, 2010

[Tech] Gowalla Vs Foursquare

Ok, first of all before I get into comparing the two apps, I do know of PleaseRobMe.com, and I am not stupid enough to put my home address on either apps. And if I catch anyone who posts our address, so help them, I'll be hitting them with a big stick.

Anyway, back on track with my experience of using the two apps. I first encoutered Foursquare from my friend Rory (he doesn't seem to use it much anymore). What I found annoying was, I didn't have a "smart phone", so I couldn't participate with checking in on places. Once I did get hold of an iPhone off my hubby, I started to check-in, I realise that the search is not that great and it's sort of slow. I did not cheat like that guy who is mayor of both North Pole and Antartic. I came across Gowalla when I was following the live stream from pycon.djangodose.com. The website was very pretty, and I installed the iPhone app, and guess what? It's pretty as well.

First of all, there's no such thing as mayor of something, which is great. My husband was wondering if you can assassinate a mayor of somewhere?!? Heehee, nice idea. With Gowalla, you just get stamps on places you've been to, and you can only check-in within the radius of the venue, unlike Foursquare, you can check-in to places no matter how far off you were (i.e. guy who's mayor of North Pole). It's not a race, you also get to find and/or pick up items after you check-in with Gowalla. You can drop items or swap them as well. One thing missing from Gowalla is the search feature in the iPhone app, they have it on the website though (unless I'm blind). One little problem checking in onsite is say, for example, my last experience was walking through Phoenix Park and it's huge, I couldn't check-in till I'm 4 clicks in to the location of whomever created the check-in point. I like the trips feature of Gowalla as well, i.e. pub crawl. It's overall and enjoyable app to use than FourSquare.

What I like about Gowalla is the fact it remembers your previous settings when you check-in, such as I don't want it to appear on my Twitter or Facebook profile news feed. Guess what, I have to turn both pings off whenever I need to check-in on Foursquare each time.

The only thing about Foursquare is that it's quite popular in Ireland (Dublin, in particular).

For me, it's great to see what tips/advice/reviews people have on certain cafés or restaurants nearby, this applies to both apps. I would recommend Gowalla over Foursquare just because it's much nicer to use, icons are pretty, and you don't have to jump into the madness of trying to outdo each other in becoming a mayor of somewhere.

Posted by whykay at March 6, 2010 08:39 PM