Nintendo, Gowalla, Facebook Deals, Apple, foursquare

Will Armstrong · Works at ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Join the dark side..
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· 2 hours ago

Julian Hugh · Top Commenter · Founder and CEO at SwagFriends.com teens social network
LOL....yes come to the Dark Side young Sky Walker!
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· 38 minutes ago

Don Mitchell · Ball State University
So what really happened here?

1. Did Facebook buy Gowalla to shut it down in favor of Facebook Places?

2. Did Gowally realize they weren't competitive with Foursquare and sell out while they still had some value?
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· 2 hours ago

Aaron Michael Rowe · Top Commenter · College of Southern Nevada
Guessing its the second one
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· 2 hours ago
Nancy Verbrugghe · SEI-BKR
Number 2, definitely.
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· 2 hours ago
Michael Bauser · Top Commenter · Kent State University
It was definitely the latter. CNN outed Gowalla as desperate for a buyer even before the Facebook story broke:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/30/technology/startup_acquisitions/

Personally, I thought Gowalla's last revamp screaming "looking to be acquired," but I figured they were aiming to sell to a travel-related company. Being bought by another social network surprised me.
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· 2 hours ago

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Derek Green · The University of Oklahoma
What would a person do with exported Gowalla data?
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· 2 hours ago

Tony Rocco
What wouldn't you do?
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· 2 hours ago
Michael Bauser · Top Commenter · Kent State University
Desperately hope that somebody will invent something to import the data into. But that won't happen, because nobody with programming skills is dumb enough to think Gowalla data is valuable.
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· 2 hours ago

Joe Pantuso
TC needs learn what readers actually care about; did investors take a bath on this? Over its lifetime Gowalla raised about 11mil. I would be surprised if FB paid anywhere near that.
Reply · 1 ·
· about an hour ago

Stefano Petri · Top Commenter
Gowalla killed itself.

First they removed the treasure hunt and all the cool and funny objects to collect and swap: "Because a lot of people don't understand them." Well, add a tutorial box or a tooltip...
Then recently they revamped the whole app by making it...something completely different! At the moment is not a proper check-in app anymore but just a city guide.
Old users were enraged after the changes, causing negative feedbacks and uninstalls.
...See More
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· 40 minutes ago

Tine Thygesen · CEO at Everplaces
Everplaces is making an easy import from Gowalla users can keep all their data.

You can sign up on everplaces.com to be notified when you can move the data. We're waiting for Gowalla to confirm the format and data users can extract, the Everplaces will enable it.
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· about a minute ago

Myle Le · UCSD Alum
I think gowalla has some vision n background skill while fb come to core dumb to deal with local location. Fb make a smart collaboration venture. Will see if fb n gowalla is sorting out n make new wave in next couple month.
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· 2 hours ago

Jenn Marcelais · Owner at Soul Oyster Web Studios
I think this is what Facebook needed to be competitive in the social location arena. I'm really interested to see how they integrate it! But I still think Foursquare will stay #1.
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· 51 minutes ago

Thibault Lemaitre · Top Commenter · Paris, France
It's really sad that every time Facebook acquires a startup/service they end up killing it... To me, Gowalla is with Path, the service with the best design around the InterWeb!
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· 2 hours ago

Michael Bauser · Top Commenter · Kent State University
I don't think you can really blame Facebook for killing Gowalla (and one might with Beluga, which was still growing). Gowalla's been dead-in-the-water for a year, with traffic shrinking while its competitors (Foursquare, SCVNGR) are growing.

If somebody hadn't bought Gowalla, it would have shut down on its own. Facebook's purchase may have killed Gowalla, but it was a mercy-killing.
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· 2 hours ago
Thibault Lemaitre · Top Commenter · Paris, France
Michael Bauser: interesting and valid point, but from a design point of view, Gowalla should have simply been rebranded Facebook-style, I'm sure it'd have worked... Hopefully Path doesn't go that way either...
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· 2 hours ago

Muhammad Huzaifa · Top Commenter · Chief executive officer at IKnowl
Company:
Gowalla
Website:
gowalla.com
Funding:
$10.4M Fail or Success?
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· 39 minutes ago

Chris Acky · Top Commenter · Indianapolis, Indiana
@Max, who would of guessed, their new offices are actually next to Beluga's.
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· 12 minutes ago

Blue Moon · Top Commenter · Early adopter
+1 for Foursquare!
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· about an hour ago

David Abraham · Top Commenter · Works at DFMedia Studios
FB is the iBorg.
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· 58 minutes ago

Hakkı Can Pasabeyoglu
vay vay vay