Gowalla 3.Whoa!

Check-in at one of the biggest location based services, check-in at them all? The newest version of Gowalla’s iPhone app was released on Thursday, and had some pretty big updates. Gowalla has unified check-ins, allowing users to check-in to Facebook Places, Tumblr, Twitter, and competitor Foursquare when they check-in to Gowalla. Download Gowalla 3.0 here.

Rumor Alert: Google to Buy Groupon?

Rumor has it that Google may buy Groupon for a whopping $6 billion dollars. Groupon is rapidly growing in popularity, and is set to exceed $500 million dollars in revenue this year. Sources say that Google wants to make this purchase to extend their online dominance through local advertising dollars, and to fend off competition like Facebook, who recently announced their own deal service.

One Hangover (Badge), Coming Right Up:

Badges! Foursquare announced new badges this week, including Dog’s Best Friend (“for frequenting dog parks”), Great Outdoors (“for getting out to parks to breathe in some fresh air”), Swimmies (“for the aquatic minded”), 9 to 5 (“for those of us in the weekly grind”), Hangover (“we’re not encouraging hangovers, but are happy to salute people who keep on trucking!”), and Ski Bum (“to commemorate your trips up the mountain”).

Social Networking for Social Good:

This week, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes officially launched Jumo, a social activism social network. You can connect with Jumo via Facebook connect, and then select to follow any of the 3,500 charity organizations (in 200 issue areas) you support.

Netflix To Offer More Streaming Options:

Recently, Netflix began offering a streaming-only subscription, and beginning in 2011, we may have more instant options. This week, Netflix announced a deal with FilmDistrict that will allow first run movies to be streamed. The New York Post also reported that Netflix is in talks with production studios, possibly paying upwards of $100,000 per episode for first-run TV content.

Facebook has done for “deals” what they did for buying ads… They made it super-simple, very logical and with a prowess that makes Foursquare’s process seem silly. Sort of like Apple does to Windows on a regular basis (sorry, baiting a flame war there .

Go claim your location and start dealing!

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Excerpt below from a feature on geolocation apps, popularity and more from Feedback, Inc’s Dean Browell (@dbrowell).

So who’s in your pocket these days – Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places, or other?  Why one over the other?

I’m partial to Foursquare, interested in ShopKick, find Yelp helpful and will try anything.  Just watching the landscape.

So what’s the deal with Facebook Places?  Plan to use it, screw it, or could you care less about those knuckleheads in Palo Alto.

It’s important to not get distracted by just the check-in aspect.  Geo-location and even Facebook Places‘ role in it will be just as important for what it does for any of the 500 million + average users who never check in but nevertheless ends up impacted by the check-in data of others, such as choosing a restaurant or hospital based on who has been there or seeking the testimonial of a friend who they’ve seen has been there.

Who do you hope prevails in the geo wars?

For Foursquare and all the more geo-dedicated apps, there’s a long and storied history of innovating specialists having a place in the discerning consumer’s mind.  Just ask Apple or the entire craft brewing industry.

If you were sitting in the captain’s chair over at Foursquare or Gowalla, what would you say to Zuck?

“You were supposed to just take Microsoft’s money.”

Read the full article here…

Find more Feedback thoughts on Geolocation here…

You should first know that this thing kind of blew my mind at first.

The canned description is that this is Foursquare for the Internets. In other words, a way to “check in” at just any ol’ website as you surf, thereby communicating where you go and tagging you as a “fan” of frequently visited sites and therefore the, “one true fan” of sites you’ve visited more than anyone else (like Foursquare’s, “mayor”). It also has patches/badges for browsing accomplishments and a point system that builds by visiting and sharing pages through Twitter, Facebook and more. It’s easy to lazily make this the web’s analog to Foursquare. It can be a lot more than that.

Step back from the mechanics, which require a downloaded plug-in for your browser, and you can see that in some ways this turns web analytics a bit on its head – in fact it reverses the magnifying glass, showing you the interesting detail beyond your simple history. It really forces you to take a different look at your browsing culture and personal identification.

As Co-Founder Eric Marcoullier (@bpm140) reflected openly in a Twitter conversation with me:

I pretty much always look at who visited the page before I read the article now. The context is fascinating.

During my first week I really stayed open with my browsing. I installed the One True Fan plug-in on my main browser and allowed auto-check-ins on basically every site I visited (in full disclosure I did hide check-ins on exactly three sites, for client sensitivity reasons). Doing this while on the AGLA Hiring Heroes tour was particularly interesting since my check-ins ricocheted between scheduling which tiny town we’d be in from Dallas to Los Angeles and keeping up with news and work from the world outside the bus.

There’s a stat dashboard I don’t visit very often, but does contain some sample activity:

And here’s the bar that subtly appears at the bottom of websites – it’s small at first but when moused-over shows:

I too found myself checking who else had been there, both from a crowd-sense and a breadcrumb sense. It doesn’t just include anyone with a OneTrueFan.com plug-in, but also anyone sharing these sites on Twitter, Facebook and more (lots more, coming soon, they promise). Yes, there are privacy concerns (that can be easily assuaged with just NOT sharing site visits or un-checking “auto check-in”) but it still makes for an interesting personal if not public experiment.

Consider how this lens, of our internet life, combines with other lenses. How our patterns and likes, our real-world favorites and virtual world favorites begin to make up our personal identity. Consider the generational differences and how OneTrueFan.com data could illuminate our perceptions of demographics… The mind blows.

Business, healthcare & higher education institutions… what if you could actually identify who your biggest fans were?

For more on One True Fan, here’s video of Eric from their Disrupt 2010 presentation:

OneTrueFan.com is in private alpha right now…

-Dean (@dbrowell)