I have now been using both foursquare and Gowalla for a little over a week and I must say, I am torn between the two. Both of them have features I like, both of them would benefit from some aspect of the other. I guess as of now I am a Gosquare fan.Gowalla has more of a travel based theme, with it's passport type stamps, region based pins and the trips component that allows you to design or follow trips as you collect stamps in your passport. However, that clearly will show up as one starts to travel out of town, something I have not done yet and something I do not do as a regular part of my employment or leisure time activity.
foursquare has more of a social theme to it, it seems the interaction with others is more of a driver to it than the travel aspect of Gowalla. The badges are not as pretty to look at as the stamps and pins of Gowalla, but there seems to be more of an aspect of measuring yourself against others as opposed to your self. Just one check of the leader board will give you that feel.
I ran across this blog entry on EverythingEverywhere recently that really goes into some detail and I found it on the mark and a realistic assessment from someone who has tried it more than I. You can read this to get a real appreciation of the differences between the two.
As a result, I also stumbled across check.in, a way of checking into both services simultaneously, which makes it a little easier to manage both and continue the tryouts. Easier, that is, when it works and actually locates the spot I am checking into.
The bottom line is that the tryouts continue for several reasons. Indecision (likely), desire to be fair to the process I have established and allow more time to fully vet my experiences with the two (possibly). Check.in is allowing that to be a little easier.
Or maybe I just like collecting stamps and pins and badges (most likely).
Technorati Tags: foursquare, Gowalla, social media, Check.in, EverythingEverywhere
