Gowalla + Peet’s Coffee & Tea + 97.3 Radio Alice = Hearts for Haiti Feb 3
In the aftermath of Haiti’s worst earthquake in more than 200 years, we are teaming up with Bay Area 97.3 Alice Radio, Peet’s Coffee & Tea and The Counter to create a benefit campaign called “Hearts for Haiti.” On Monday, February 8, we will be having special Gowalla events at two Peet’s Coffee & Tea locations, and for everyone who swings by and checks in on Gowalla, $50 per person will be donated to the American Red Cross, with a goal of reaching $20,000 total. Additionally, Peet’s will be donating 10% of all sales made at the Emeryville and Mill Valley locations during the effort, and The Counter will be donating 10% of all sales made at their Corte Madera location that day.
Some of us from Team Gowalla will be on-hand to say hey and to hand out swag to folks who drop by. Also, Vinnie and Sarah from 97.3 Alice Radio will each be at one of the Peet’s locations, to meet listeners and to encourage further giving to the Red Cross efforts in Haiti. And as a big thanks to everyone who participates in checking in and raising money for Haiti, there will be a special concert by Barenaked Ladies held at Infusion Lounge that evening!
So here are the deets you need, the who/what/when/where:
Hearts for Haiti Check-in Opportunity No. 1
Monday, February 8, 11:30AM to 1:30PM
Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Emeryville (5959 Shellmound Street, Suite 85)
Check in and say hey to Team Gowalla and Vinnie from 97.3 Alice Radio!
RSVP on the Facebook Event Page
Gowalla spot for event
Hearts for Haiti Check-in Opportunity No. 2
Monday, February 8, 2:30PM to 4:30PM
Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Mill Valley (88 Throckmorton Avenue)
Check in and say hey to Sarah from 97.3 Alice Radio!
RSVP on the Facebook Event Page
Gowalla spot for event
Barenaked Ladies Benefit Concert
Monday, February 8 5-7PM
Infusion Lounge, San Francisco (124 Ellis)
RSVP on the Facebook Event Page
Gowalla spot for event
Make plans now to give at least a couple minutes of your Monday to swing by, check in, and do something positive for Haitian relief efforts! We’d love to have you at all three, but if you can only swing a minute at one location, or just want to come by the benefit concert and make a donation, that totally rocks, too! Be sure to spread the word, cos we’re looking to have an overwhelming response of people checking in, and we’re looking forward to giving as much as possible to Red Cross.
See you Monday!
Oh, btw, if you can’t make it to any of the events on Monday, but still want to be involved with some Gowalla-related efforts to give to Haiti, check out the groovy shirt we designed for Storenvy’s super generous Haiti relief campaign:
These tees are only $14, and Storenvy is donating $8 of that per shirt to the American Red Cross efforts for Haiti, so they’re basically giving these shirts away. These are a limited-run, and this is a limited-time offer, so head over to Storenvy today!
New Features: Trips and Bookmarks! Jan 28
Today we’re thrilled to announce the launch of two new features: Trips and Bookmarks. Let’s talk about Trips first.
Until today, all Trips in Gowalla have been curated by the team at Gowalla with a little help from select friends. But our goal has always been that you would help us create these trips. And today you can. Simply login to your Gowalla account on the web, visit a spot page, then click the Add to Trip button. You’ll be able to name your trip, give it a description, add up to 20 spots of your choosing, then publish it to Gowalla. Your published trips will be viewable in the Gowalla app by your friends.
Here’s where it gets fun: We’ll be looking for unique and exciting trips created by our community to feature in Gowalla. Featured trips will be promoted based on the quality and relevancy of the trip, the number of people who have completed the trip, and will be given their own custom pin artwork that will be rewarded to those who have completed the trip.
As of today, you can create as many as 5 trips, each including up to 20 spots. As we improve the feature we’ll allow you to create more trips, order their lists of spots, and categorize them into logical groups like Pub Crawls, Nature Hikes, and the like. Also, for now, you may only complete featured trips and trips created by your friends. This is just the first step in making trips a truly key part of Gowalla’s future. We have lots more to do.
Today you can view nearby, featured and friend-created trips in Gowalla 1.4 on your iPhone by tapping the Browse button in the upper-left of the Trips tab. Our forthcoming Android and WebOS clients currently in development will also support this feature.
I’d also like to tell you a bit about bookmarks as well. Now when you visit any spot page at Gowalla.com you can bookmark that spot. You’ll be able to find all your bookmarks in Gowalla for iPhone by tapping Browse on the Spots tab. This simple feature makes it easy to find your way back to a favorite spot. Soon you’ll be able to add bookmarks from your mobile device as well.
Today’s release of Trips and Bookmarks to our community is simply a first step. There is a lot of depth here to be explored. We’re excited to hear your feedback as we continue to improve these, and other, features. Thanks for going out with Gowalla!
Win the New Incase Item: Perforated Snap Case Jan 26
So a while back, the awesome people at Incase sent us a couple of the above shnazzy cases to test out on some iPhone 3Gs. At that time, the Perforated Snap Case from Incase wasn’t even for sale yet at the Apple Stores, although rumor has it some were found in Cupertino. Like pretty much everything we’ve purchased from Incase over the years, we loved the cases.
Incase has finally released these items for sale this week. You can
find them at Apple Stores in the US, and we have the pleasure of
joining in the new product release by introducing the Incase-branded
*virtual* Perforated Snap Case, this week’s Incase item in Gowalla.
To celebrate the fun new product and virtual item, Incase has sent us a box of these cases to share with you, and here’s how we’re going to pick winners: We know that, just like us, you’re going to run right out and check-in at an Apple Store to grab the new item, right? Well as you know, chances are just about 100% that you’ll get the new Incase item. When you do, why not tweet about it? In fact, we’re going to be looking for tweets with the following phrase:
I just found a virtual @goincase Perforated Snap Case on @gowalla!
Be sure to include the above phrase so we can find your tweets! You can even include a screen cap of the Gowalla item, if you like. We’ll be giving away 2 real Perforated Snap Cases a day through the end of the week, and we’ll be pulling them from these tweets. If you win, we’ll holler at you on Twitter, then contact you for your info and mail you this fabulous new case.
Good luck!
A New & Improved Mobile Web! Jan 19
Today we’re excited to announce the launch of a much improved mobile web interface for Gowalla at m.gowalla.com. This release includes additional features previously found only in the native iPhone app such as items.
Currently Gowalla mobile web supports webkit browsers such as the native Android browser and iPod touch. Previous Android users will also find that the location awareness of this version is improved as well. We aim to add support for newer Blackberry devices on Gowalla mobile web in the next few weeks as well.
That said, I know many of you are looking forward to native clients for your respective phones. Our native Android app will be entering beta soon. We have plans to release native WebOS and Blackberry apps as early as possible in 2010 as well. Finally, iPod touch owners will be thrilled to know that our next iPhone release will also run on iPod touch.
In the meantime, thanks for your patience, and enjoy using the new Gowalla mobile web!
Passport Privacy and the Gowalla API Jan 13
Happy January folks! Many of you have been asking about a Gowalla API for some time, and I have some good news… the first version of the API is nearly complete. We’re looking forward to making an announcement about it in the very near future.
As we look forward to the API release, we’ve rolled out a small update to your settings page called Passport Privacy. By default this setting is off and your check-ins will be included the feeds of the places you check in at. We believe this provides most users the optimum experience on Gowalla.
However, we do recognize that a few folks would rather their check-ins not be made available to the API on at Gowalla.com in this way. If you choose to turn Passport Privacy on, your check-ins will not be credited in the spot feed nor will you appear in Top 10 lists amongst other things. Please check out your settings page for more details since this effects a few features.
At Gowalla, we want you to share all the good stuff about your favorite places, and the community benefits when this information is shared in kind with all. We encourage all of our users to recognize that location-based social networks present unique challenges related to your privacy. Regardless of your Passport settings, we encourage you to use common sense when sharing your personal information.
Finally, some of you may find these new settings to be fairly simple and blunt. And they are. We recognize that most users would prefer more of a gray area where some information is shared with everyone, some information is shared with friends only, and some is kept private. We’ll be working to improve these settings in the weeks and months to come. Thanks for going out with us!
And yeah, look out for that API soon!
Go Out with Gowalla…and Incase! Jan 5
Long before Gowalla (long before iPhones, in fact), we were rocking bags, cases and other gear from Incase. Their motto is “A better experience through good design,” and that fits in perfectly with principles we’ve been embracing since we pushed our first pixel. Incase (if you’ve been living on the island from LOST) is the exceptional maker of fine goods for carrying, protecting, transporting and displaying pretty much anything cool you own, from your laptop and iPod, to your DSLR and skateboard. You can find their goods everywhere, but your local Apple Store is the best place to start. We’ve been rocking their iPod and iPhone cases, using their backpacks and sling bags, drooling over their Paul Rodriguez skateboarding gear, and have been quite pleased with each Incase product that we’ve purchased over the years.
So we are very happy to announce an endeavor we’ve been working on with the cool kids at Incase, a Gowalla/Incase collaboration! Starting today, you will be able to collect Incase virtual items, modeled after actual Incase gear, when you check-in on Gowalla at Apple Stores around the world! We’ll be dropping the first item today, an Incase Slider Case, modeled after one of the several nifty iPhone covers they have in their lineup. There will be six Incase-branded virtual items in all: Collect all six, and you’ll receive the Incase Pin of Glory!
We are really excited about this collaboration, and so is Incase. So much so that they’ve decided to make it extra fun as we kick things off: This week at various Apple Stores around the world, a number of lucky people who check in at an Apple Store and get the virtual Incase Slider are also going to receive an *actual* Incase Slider, courtesy of Incase! Winners will be randomly selected based on Gowalla check-ins at official Apple Stores, and we’ll announce them on Twitter daily. So don’t delay: get out to your Apple Store, grab our first Incase item, and have a chance to win the real-world version.
New San Francisco Featureds: City Lights Booksellers, Moscone Dec 4
We have quite frequently left our hearts in San Francisco, and two of our latest featured Gowalla spots are there in the Bay, including:
City Lights Booksellers, possibly San Francisco’s most iconic bookstore.
Moscone, home of the annual Christmas-in-June for Apple aficionados everywhere.
We also released a hidden custom spot in San Francisco. (Pro-tip: there are several hidden custom stamps worldwide, and by hidden, we just mean that we haven’t elevated them to the level that you’ll find them by searching “Feature Spots,” although each *does* have custom artwork for the icon.) Who will find it first?
Get out and Gowalla, and grab all three stamps!
Loving the Pixel Dec 2
A few weeks ago Sco, Phillip and I flew up to Oklahoma City to hang out with the awesome folks at okcCoCo—who also have a great stamp worth grabbing—where we had been invited to talk a little bit about why and how we built Gowalla. Unfortunately Sco got sick at the last moment, and left me to fend for myself. For those who might be interested in this sort of thing, we’ve posted the video for kicks and grins. Thanks okcCoCo!
Gowalla 1.3 and Twitter Geolocation Dec 1
During the rush of the Thanksgiving holiday last week, Apple released Gowalla 1.3, the latest update to our iPhone client application. While this update provides a number of performance related improvements making it easier to check in while indoors, the core feature improvement is related to our items system.
Simply tap an item on your passport tab to bring up more detail about that item, including it’s issue number and history. Now you can learn where an item first came from and who has carried it along the way. You can also add an item to your vault from this view as well.
We have some other exciting features planned for items in the very near future, but I’ll save those for another post. You’ll just want to be sure you’ve got Gowalla 1.3 on your phone right now.
The Top 10 list is another feature we’ve pushed from the website down to the iPhone app in 1.3. Now you can view the Top 10 visitors at any location from the Spots tab. You can also see how many check-ins you need at a given spot to climb the ladder.
Finally, if you have enabled geotagging in your Twitter settings, we’ll share your location with Twitter when you opt to post your check-in to Twitter. If you use a client that supports Twitter’s geo-api like Tweetie, you’ll be able to see others Twitter location data there as well. Very cool stuff.
So grab that update from the store and go out with Gowalla!
FOWD NYC 2009: Prizes, prizes, prizes!!! Nov 17
If you’ve used Gowalla, or if you’ve been a fan of Alamofire for any length of time, you know we’re big fans of good design (it’s our history, in fact!). Print, multimedia, film, web, you name it, if it’s good, chances are we’re talking about it, hitting the mental ‘Like’ button. Couple good design with web standards and you had us at ‘Hello.’
So it’s only a natural fit for us to sponsor a couple of prize packages at Carsonified’s current event, FOWD (Future of Web Design) NYC 2009. The prize packages are quite nice, and winning is pretty easy:
1. Be in attendance at FOWD NYC.
B. Check-in on Gowalla at the official spot (complete with custom stamp: http://gowalla.com/spots/104566)
We are doing this in conjunction with the Carsonified event staff, so late in the day, they’re going to choose to lucky attendees (must be present to win) who have checked-in on Gowalla, and call out a couple of names. Said lucky souls will win one of two prize packages:
Prize Package 1)Vintage Diana camera kit, Handcrafted CSS by our friend Dan Cedarholm, Helvetica mug from Veer.com, and a load of Gowalla swag, including t-shirt, stickers, limited edition Field Notes memo books
Prize Package 2) Kern jacket from Veer.com, Handcrafted CSS by our friend Dan Cedarholm, a Joshua Davis print from his Big Cartel store, and a load of Gowalla swag, including t-shirt, stickers, limited edition Field Notes memo books
So get out there, and keep on checking-in. May the best designer win!
