Gowalla overhaul swaps mobile check-ins for social travel guides

Location-based mobile social network Gowalla is dramatically revamping its user experience, minimizing check-in activities in favor of social travel guides to cities across the globe. Gowalla 4.0, rolling out this week on iPhone and Android, touts more than 60 social guides created by the Gowalla user community in conjunction with content providers and local experts--the app also features another 20 guides from brands including Disney, National Geographic, and The Austin-American Statesman.

Gowalla adds that each guide evolves daily according to users' individual social interactions, changing in response to the people with whom they most commonly interact and updating recommendations on places to go and things to do. Gowalla users may still check-in at destinations, but the app will emphasize image sharing and storytelling tools clustered around locations and activities.

The revamped Gowalla follows less than a month after the startup stated future iterations of its app would eliminate Items--virtual rewards given when users check-in at designated locations, some of them linked to real-world promotions and prizes--as well as Notes. Gowalla announced the moves days after social networking giant Facebook abandoned its Places mobile check-in solution with the introduction of new privacy and location sharing features. Facebook is removing the Places check-in tool in its mobile applications--users who wish to share their current whereabouts can instead add their city-level location or tag a specific site in any post.

It appears increasingly obvious that Gowalla rival foursquare has won the battle for mobile check-in mindshare. Foursquare now tops 10 million users worldwide, and earlier this summer, the startup completed a new $50 million funding round, boosting its overall value to $600 million.

Serious questions about the viability of the check-in model remain. Earlier this month, a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey found that 28 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers rely on their phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location, but only 5 percent of users leverage geo-social services to check-in at local destinations.

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