Social TV is any application, website or software that allows viewers to interact with television programming and share that interaction with others. Startups in this space hope to combine ubiquitous second-screen technology with well-established audience behavior to drive new value around shows. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Nobody was surprised when Gowalla announced that it would be shutting down after selling to Facebook — after all, almost none of the services it has bought in the past five years have stayed alive. But is this sell up-shut down approach fair on users? Read more »
Gowalla has had a good run in the location-based check-in market, taking on Foursquare before getting lapped by its New York rival. Now, Facebook is confirming it has bought the team behind Austin-based Gowalla to bolster its new Timeline feature. Read more »
More mobile movements from Facebook today: it has bought the check-in social media service Gowalla, according to a report in CNN. Read more at paidContent »
Spending in the mobile advertising space will be approximately $4 billion worldwide this year, so despite perceptions to the contrary, we can safely assume it’s an area to watch in the coming years. To get a clearer picture of mobile advertising’s future, it helps to first explore the current landscape — the key drivers and players involved today. With these as a backdrop, a five-year outlook such as this comes into greater focus and leads to a discussion of the major players to watch as 2016 approaches. Companies mentioned in this report include Foursquare, LivingSocial and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As our demand for data increases, so too do the number of mobile devices and services. Add to that the infrastructure needed to support such connectivity, and a wide, complex picture of the mobile industry emerges. This report examines the various sectors of the mobile landscape and what the future holds for each. Hardware, cloud services, mobile search, advertising, location-based services and the growing ubiquity of the Internet of Things will all play an important role in the concept of mobility as it shifts and evolves over the next several years. With the help of more than a dozen contributors, GigaOM Pro presents a comprehensive analysis of the companies and trends that will lead us into the next era of mobile. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Gowalla, like many other check-in services, has had trouble keeping pace with Foursquare. But the location startup is relaunching its service with an eye toward becoming more of a city travel guide, downplaying the role of check-ins in favor of discovery, travel and storytelling. Read more »
As location-based services grow up, we’re seeing that games are not the appealing part of location and increasingly it seems like start-ups are acknowledging that games are tough to build a business on. Gowalla seemed to acknowledge that by killing its virtual items feature today. Read more »
LocalResponse — a marketing platform that allows advertisers to send out targeted tweets to consumers based on where consumers have checked in or where they say they are on social networks — has found that its targeting work is paying off with significant engagement from consumers. Read more »
Social commerce involves businesses using online collaborative tools — social networks, real-time feeds and user-generated contributions, for example — in order to sell products and services to consumers. The space is now more dynamic than ever: Hundreds of startups like Groupon, Zynga and CrowdStar have emerged, and it’s also attracting the attention — and cash — of online giants like Google, Amazon and Apple. This report examines the factors propelling the sector’s growth, how it will evolve over the next one to three years and what that means for those companies involved. We also examine factors inhibiting the growth of social commerce, and the likelihood of fragmentation as more local markets emerge. Companies mentioned in this report include Groupon, Foursquare, Gowalla, Playfish and LivingSocial. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Gowalla continues to plug along in the location check-in space and has updated its Spot pages for places to make them more browsable and added new Highlights for locations. The improvements, while not ground-breaking, typify the steady progress of Gowalla. But is it enough? Read more »
The always-unpredictable mobile space enters 2011 at a particularly dynamic time. Carriers are now bringing 4G networks online, even as their definitions of “4G” vary. Meanwhile, mobile data consumption is exploding and the FCC trying to settle on policies both to regulate the industry and to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Gowalla, a developer of a location-based social networking app, has adopted a bold strategy: embrace its archenemies and use them to extend reach. In a new version of its app, Gowalla is making it easy to follow friends check-ins to locations on Foursquare and Facebook Places. Read more »
“Local” and “social” go together like bread and butter. Add “mobile” and you’ve a trio of hot technologies that’s attracting capital from investors and big companies alike. For consumers, there are obvious synergistic experiences: mobility is local by definition, as are many social activities like physical-world ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Marketing using location and social networking are like peanut butter and chocolate — they’re a perfect combination. Add mobile and you have a trio of hot technologies attracting capital from investors and big companies alike. Here are the revenue models to watch as these elements collide. Read more »
Originally intended to get shoppers out in full-force to start the holiday shopping season, Black Friday has become a holiday unto itself, where bargain hunters shake off their turkey hangovers to wake up before dawn and chase amazing deals. But as is the case with most ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Black Friday has become a holiday unto itself, where bargain hunters shake off their turkey hangovers to wake up before dawn and chase amazing deals. But as is the case with many activities these days, technology is rapidly changing the way people shop. Read more »
The location wars are heating up just in time for the holidays. Location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVGR, Yelp and others have brought out big-name partners and expanded rewards to help give the check-in services a big push at the end of the year. Read more »
While rival Foursquare just hit 4 million users last week, Austin-based Gowalla is positioning itself to make more money with a handful of new features including business listings, City Pages and Stamp Calendar. It’s another sign that location-based companies are trying to move beyond the check-in. Read more »
Location-based shopping services (LBS) have made many headlines recently, and studies have shown that users actually like receiving ads and offers well-targeted to their interests. Couple that with an influx of Tier 1 venture capital and the show-stopping Facebook Places, with which several startups have already joined forces, and it’s no wonder LBS is suddenly such a hot topic in the mobile sector. That doesn’t necessarily mean LBS shopping apps will be easy to implement. A number of challenges — privacy concerns, scaling issues and check-in integrity among them — provide a potential barrier to widespread adoption. This note examines both the drivers and inhibitors for making location-based shopping services a mainstream phenomenon, and includes focused profiles of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Loopt, Foursquare, BrightKite, Whrrl, Gowalla, Plancast, Groupon, AisleBuyer, Bizness Apps, Offeretti, ShopAlerts, Shopkick, Bakodo, Stickybits, Yelp!, Geodelic Sherpa, WHERE, MyTown, InCrowd, SCVNGR, Waze and Layar. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In the debate over apps versus the web on smartphones, apps are winning, says Gowalla CEO Josh Williams. There’s hope from companies like Opera and Google that the web will surge ahead as HTML 5 becomes more widespread, but Williams has his doubts. Read more »
If your are a consumer geo-location startup, then you have to content with one simple reality — a little company from New York called Foursquare. But life does continue for other apps, including Whrrl, a location centric discovery app developed by Seattle-based Pelago. Read more »
According to a recent survey, fewer than 5 percent of U.S. online users have ever used a location-based application such as Foursquare on a mobile device. And almost 85 percent of those who responded to the survey said that they were not familiar with location-based services. Read more »
The second quarter of 2010 saw social networking companies wrestle with the next phase of their development as well as the fallout from the success they’ve had thus far. Meanwhile, the advance of location-based services, one of the hottest topics in the sector, seemed to pause ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Not sure if you should Foursquare, Gowalla or Brightkite to post your location? A recent survey from uTest ought to help you make that decision, and the results provide useful information for developers in this space, showing that location-based services haven’t changed with the times. Read more »
