The phenomenal rise of location based social network site Foursquare has put tremendous pressure on its peers.
At one point of time Gowalla, another location based game, was rated higher than Foursquare for its better connections with the real world and with merchants.
Like Foursquare, Gowalla users can check in at different spots with the help of the App on their smartphone or through a mobile browser, though they cannot check in using a standard desktop or laptop browser.
Since Gowalla has tie-ups with different merchants, users stand to gain in terms of promotional rewards, which is not the case with Foursquare.
However, Foursquare allows you to keep your location a secret; Gowalla doesn’t.
Gowalla also apparently suffered for its poor marketing tactics despite Foursquare’s slower roll out.
But Gowalla cannot be ignored although it has one million users compared to Foursquare’s seven million.