There can be only one

I’ve become much more interested in geolocation/check-in apps since I got my Android phone. The two major platforms, Foursquare and Gowalla, don’t really work if your gadget isn’t running the iOS or Android platforms (Foursquare’s texting protocol is particularly underwhelming). I started using these services when I had a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone, but getting either service to work well and consistently was nearly impossible. It wasn’t worth the headache, and I let my accounts lay dormant until I switched to Android.

Once I’d downloaded Android’s dedicated Foursquare and Gowalla apps, it was fun to check into various places. I still forget to every now and then, or sometimes decide that I don’t want to share my location at a particular time, but on the whole I like how these things work. I use other location services, too, such as Yelp, although not as frequently. The only check-in service that I won’t use is Facebook Places, since I think Zuckerberg’s company already knows enough about me.

I end up using Foursquare more often because I like becoming the mayor of places and reading the tips that people leave. I decided that it wasn’t ethical to be the mayor of my job, so I’ve stopped checking in there, except when I visit for non-work purposes. I don’t find it as necessary to check in to Gowalla every time I visit a place, because there are no mayorships, and I don’t care about the badges that I could receive.

Gowalla has a smaller share of the geolocation market, so they’ve stepped up their game with the most recent release of their iOS client. It integrates with Foursquare, and allows you to check into multiple services at once. You can also see the Facebook Places, Gowalla, and Foursquare check-in statuses of your friends as they happen. There are several third-party clients that do this, but it’s pretty major that Gowalla’s official app now has this capability. It will be interesting to see if Foursquare makes any move to block Gowalla from doing this, since this is not a collaboration, but an independent move on Gowalla’s part. Gowalla is using the Foursquare API, which could conceivably be changed at any time.

The new Gowalla for Android client will be available in early 2011, and if it still had this functionality at that point, I would definitely use it to check into both services.