14 DAY TRIAL // Gowalla has long been seen as the main competitor to Foursquare. As the location-based services war kicked into top gear last year, Gowalla never seemed to be able to catch up to Foursquare, in terms of hype and in terms of user numbers.
Foursquare won, but it's not much of a victory since it too is struggling with waning interest and lack of revenue.
So Gowalla set about reinventing itself and has now debuted the new service, with a big focus on travel guides and experience sharing.
Check-ins are still part of the equation, but they've been marginalized. Instead, the focus is on sharing an experience and checking out what your friends are up to.
One focus in the new app is on the so-called Stories. If you're visiting a place, or going to a concert, you can check in along with your friends, or with anyone at the same location, and share photos or just chat.
But the big new feature in the latest version of the app, which bears little resemblance to the previous one, is Guides.
As the name implies, this section contains guides on locations, cities or places, curated by Gowalla, but based on years of check-in data.
For example, a city guide might display fun places to see, as recommended by Gowalla users. Gowalla will feature 60 guides for cities around the world.
But there are also guides for more specific locations, created by partners like Disney, National Geographic and universities.
It's an interesting mix of a location-based service and a travel guide. A mobile travel guide has a lot of potential, but, and not for lack of trying, a clear victor in the space is yet to emerge.
Gowalla has the big advantage over anyone trying to enter the travel guide space of the massive amount of data it gathered from its users for the past couple of years.