Before I get into this, let me first say that there is room enough (and users enough) on the magical interwebs for both of these apps. Web apps are not like Highlanders. There can and should be more than one. Like I said yesterday, conclusions had been reached after our great donut / bakery caper. Using both Foursquare and Gowalla side by side for about a week, I feel I’ve got a pretty comprehensive understanding of how they stack up against each other.
Checking In
Checking In: There is no competition here. Gowalla takes it hands down, for one simple reason. Their GPS works. I’m certainly no expert on the backend of how you would implement GPS, but Gowalla just uses it smarter in interaction. When I open the Gowalla app, it was never less than 100% accurate in determining where I was, and if my location was not in the database, it presented the nearby locations in the database in order of closeness. Sounds like a no-brainer? I think so too. Guess what else… it won’t LET you check into a venue that you are not within a reasonable distance from. GOOD WORK, GUYS. Adding venues could not be easier, just a name and a category and confirmation via map (smart…again) and you’re done. One small issue, once you create a venue, you must check in to it separately. I can think that there may be rare occasions where you might not want to check in to a venue you just added, but it’s got to be far and away the exception. I’d either check someone in automatically or offer an opt out.
By contrast, when I open up Foursquare, the list of venues is presented in two sections, “nearby favorites” and “nearby”. I don’t believe there was a single occasion where Foursquare accurately presented my location in either of those options. Routinely, I would have to use the search function to find my current location. This could be made SO MUCH BETTER by showing venues in order of distance OR at minimum including the closest places where I have checked in at the top of the “nearby” list. If I am standing smack dab in the middle of a venue that I have checked in at multiple times, or am even the mayor of, there is NO EXCUSE for why that venue doesn’t show up before other “nearby” locations that I have never even visited. Bad interaction design. This also lends itself to users creating duplicate venues, after not being able to find their current location because they have to go looking too hard for it. At the movies today, I found three different entries for the theater, each named slightly differently. This sort of dovetails into another problematic issue discussed previously where when you click “not in the list” for your current location and then enter the name of the location, if it happens to match something else in the database, EVEN AN HOUR AWAY, that is where you are checked in. It happened to me again this weekend. Again…should not be possible to check into a venue that you are not reasonably close to. Also, just as an added gripe, having to change the city if you are not in one of the small number of “official” cities when you add venues is a pain in the ass. In a social network where a vast database of venues is integral to gameplay, less is not more. More is more. Make it as easy as possible to add venues. You know where I am via GPS, you should pre-populate the city field with that city or don’t pre-populate it at all.
Gameplay: Other than a commonality with unlocking achievements and badges/pins, the two apps have a very different approach, so it really comes down to personal preference.
Stinkin' Badges
Gowalla doesn’t have a user vs. user gameplay, other than bragging rights over pins and stamps. However, every user is out to collect virtual items that they find along their travels. The lower numbered your item is, the more sought after it is. Neat. You can either collect and “vault” the items or you can drop them when you add or are an early visitor to new locations for “founder” status. To this point, I’ve never had enough items to vault any vs. drop them for founder status at new venues, but I’ve found this element to be nothing short of delightful. Add in that you can track the ownership of the items that you pick up (like travel bugs for you geocachers out there) and it’s just awesome. I’m just a little bitter that I left my little beatnik at the pet store in exchange for founder status. He was pretty cute. If I have any complaint, it is that I would like to have more items in my pack, particularly if I’ve been adding and founding a bunch of new venues all over town. Seems like that user behavior should be rewarded a bit more routinely.
Friends: This may be the one category where Foursquare takes it for me. Foursquare can scour your gmail, twitter and facebook friends lists for people you know already on the service. Alerts from those that you choose to add default to on, meaning you will get pings to your phone from any of their checkins, EXCEPT when they are in different cities, which can actually be kind of frustrating. If you have a friend that is in another city, you can’t get updates about where they are or what they are doing, and you just might want that. You can also see who your friends are connected to, which will often lead you to more folks that you might know.
Gowalla can check your twitter and facebook friends, BUT will only show you other users that have signed up AND connected Gowalla to those respective accounts. Also, no gmail check. womp wah. Also…you can’t see who your friends are connected to. This is problematic when you receive a friend request and don’t have the context of their network. If someone is using an unfamiliar name, you may just bounce their request because you can’t see that they are connected to other folks you know, which may tip you off to who *they* are. This could use some definite work.
Conclusion: The overall winner by knockout is gowalla. Since the fundamental functionality of the site hinges on the usability of the check-in process, ya gotta go with gowalla. The gameplay is a bonus. The little things, like automatically capitalizing every word while adding a location name (LOVE YOU GUYS) really set it apart. There is not a pixel on the web or iPhone app that does not look like it had meaningful design. I like my apps like I like my steak, well done.
Remember when I lost an entire weekend to Animal Crossing? I do. Welcome to my Sunday. I might as well have hay in my teeth. I set about clearing all my requests from Facebook today. There were something like 150 of them languishing in my procrastination pile. Among them were a least a few dozen Farmville requests, thus my toiling in overalls all day. 
Two things…
