The Final Check In

I completed my review of foursquare and Gowalla and reached a decision yesterday. I shut both accounts down. Yes, there was a brief moment when badges (21), stamps (117), mayorships (16) and pins (17) just flew off in all directions, not to be seen on my accounts ever again. I looked these over for about 40 days (a good amount of time for testing and trial) and decided I did not want to go further with either. Both had their merits in my eyes, and both their drawbacks. Foursquare was more socially oriented, but Gowalla more travel oriented. Gowalla had nicer looking pins and stamps than the badges of foursquare, but foursquare seemed way more interactive and goal oriented. But in the end, I came down to this:

• Not many people care where I am at a given moment
• Fewer care to be reminded of it
• I do not care all that much where most people are at a given moment
• If I cannot remember where I have been, I would rather not be reminded that I had forgotten

So, out the door both went yesterday. I deleted them one after the other and I cannot remember which one went first (which sort of underscores the 4th bullet above). It was fun to try them out and collect badges for a while, but one thing became painfully clear, at least in my daily living. It becomes a little depressing to keep checking into the same places. I do not need a reminder of the banality of my life from www.e-rut.com on a daily basis. I mean, other than the occassional foray to try a new restaurant or take a trip, we are creatures of habit. And I am getting too old for the hamster wheel.

I did learn some stuff:

• The GPS-based services on my Droid eat battery like I suck down my wife's baked ziti. Only with less sauce splattering around.
• The location services that are cell phone based only are not always that reliable. There were times when I was standing in front of a place and was told I was 2.2 kilometers away.
• I live not all that far from DFW airport. They must be bouncing radio signals around in the area to keep them away from the planes because I always got some weird results when I was close.
• I can take a flight from Newark to Dallas, log on to GoGo Inflight and check in to O'Hare airport in route and earn a Swarm badge on foursquare. Been there, and did that.

I did try some new stuff as a result of seeing things on foursquare (which is why they seemed way more interactive and goal oriented):

• Waze
• RunKeeper
• Health Month
• GoGo Inflight

Regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

And none at all on trying out or turning this stuff off.

I guess I'll wait for the next thing to come along.

Technorati Tags: Foursquare, Gowalla, Waze, RunKeeper, GoGo Inflight, Health Month

Tryouts Continuing

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

Try Outs (foursquare vs. Gowalla)

The past few days I have begun experimenting with my next avenue of social media. Location based social media. I understand I am way behind the curve here, but gimme a break. I'm a boomer and I am trying. The two I have chosen to play with are foursquare and Gowalla. I have been on foursquare a few days longer so I am more familiar, but after experiencing a bout of overcapacity issues this evening (can you say fail whale?), I decided to test in tandem.

So far, Gowalla seems to have the better graphics; Gowalla artwork on the pins and stamps is much better than the badges of foursquare. But foursquare just has badges (at least I think that is all); Gowalla has pins and stamps and items (which can be swapped some how). Gowalla seems a bit more confusing, but that could be my basic unfamiliarity with Gowalla as of yet.

Time will tell. I cannot see myself staying on both for very long, one has to win out over the other. I do not know which way it will go, but I will try to make it a long enough tryout to make a reasoned determination.

Any thoughts? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Technorati Tags: foursquare, Gowalla, social media