Announced just today (Dec 2) on the Gowalla team blog, Gowalla 3.0 for iPhone is now out. Users will find a new UI with loads of new functionality, most notably, additional social connectivity and sharing with the inclusion of foursquare connect, note sharing and highlights – it’s like GoWalla meets Yelp, flickr, and eHarmony all in one! This release boasts quicker check-in, with places you’ve already visited quickly showing up near your location (makes sense) and when checking in you now have the ability to share your check-in with facebook, twitter, tumblr, and foursquare (nice although I’m still trying hard to find a use for Tumblr).
The new GoWalla 3.0 for iPhone
The app has additional photo viewing capabilities with quick viewing of photos from places and by your friends. Bookmarks have been added so you can save your favorite stops. A really cool, new feature enables you to leave notes for friends… imagine, the next time your friend checks in at a place, perhaps at a local bar, you can ping them with a note to call you or to tell them about a great new beer that have to try… that’s cool and very social although you may want to be a little more careful about who you friend as this note leaving potential really could add to the stalker capabilities of such a service! Another cool new feature is the addition of highlights… now you can place your stamp of approval on a place by highlighting something great. Perhaps they have the “best cup” or “best slice” now you can share your opinion with others – awesome and very Yelp-ish!
The image above shows a “highlight” (think tip) about a place and shared on facebook – Cool!
Finally, once you check-in to a place you’re input is validated by being presented with a cool check-out style receipt, similar to what you’d get from a grocery store… quite cool and fun! Finally, if you aren’t on iPhone no worries, the team comments that Gowalla 3 for Android, iPad and Blackberry are coming soon!