Location-based social networks: Gowalla and Foursquare
Rumors are flying about the potential growth of location-based social networking services this coming year. If you are still in the dark about these services, Mashable has provided a great overview:
Just when you thought you had enough social networks in your life, two hot new ones are vying for your attention. Combine the benefits of sites like Yelp, Twitter, and Google Latitude, add in social gaming and some privacy measures, and you have the recipe that Foursquare, the app that’s been called “next year’s Twitter,” by Mashable’s own Pete Cashmore, and its chief competitor, Gowalla, are cooking. Each has attracted a rapidly growing user base in 2009, and each is rushing madly to beat the other to your smartphone in 2010.
In the chart below, Mashable breaks down the features, and pros and cons of two of the leading services, Gowalla and Foursquare:
Cells shaded in orange indicate a feature that favors Gowalla, those in blue favor Foursquare, while crosshatching indicates a toss-up. However, opinions will vary on this, so please tell us what you think in the comments.
As you can see, Gowalla trumps Foursquare in design and availability, but Foursquare takes the cake when it comes to check-in location accuracy, device support, friend management, and value added features like a city guide, and to-do list. Both apps are equally impressive in the way they dole out in-game and real-life perks and rewards.
You can read more at Mashable.com.
I love these concepts BUT they need some serious saturation for much of America. Foursquare is great if you live in NYC but it’s tougher to get enough people involved in a small town.
Rumors are flying about the potential growth of location-based social networking services this coming year. If you are still in the dark about these services, Mashable has provided a great overview:
you guys need to start using using a bigger font its getting hard to read
Well it’s great to see that you’re using proper grammar.