It’s official. Gowalla, the location based social app start up, announced in its blog that it has been acquired by Facebook. The acquisition news was first reported by CNN Money last Friday and Gowalla has made it official.
Gowalla is a Austin based Geo-Social startup company founded by Josh Williams and Scott Raymond in 2009, around the same as its once competitor FourSquare. However, in the last three years, FourSquare won the Geo-Social check-in race comfortably. Recently, Gowalla has become more of a social travel guide for exploring different places.
Gowalla, in its blog, announcing the acquisition by Facebook said that the acquistion is more for talent rather than product. Therefore, Gowalla will be shutting down for good by January and Gowalla’s data won’t be used by Facebook. Gowalla founder Josh Williams said that Gowalla team met Facebook team during F8 Facebook developer’s meeting and were impressed by the possibilities of impact it can make with Facebook.
Here is the full blog post by Josh Willams, GoWalla Co-Founder on the Facebook’s acquisition.
Three years ago Gowalla’s journey began when I took a photograph of Lake Tahoe on my iPhone. I had just finished a phone call with my dad, and I wanted nothing more than to share that photo and place with him. Not just in a text message or status update sort of way, but with a bit of weight that said “I wish you were here” and “this moment and place are meaningful to me.”
We created Gowalla to inspire people to go out and share those places, photos and stories. The past three years have been quite the journey, oft-times in a very literal sense!
The Gowalla Passport has become a record of all the places we’ve visited, the people we were with, the photos we took, and the stories we told. Many of you even use Gowalla like a scrapbook of sorts — a place to keep all those memories.
About two months ago, my co-founder Scott and I attended F8. We were blown away by Facebook’s new developments. A few weeks later Facebook called, and it became clear that the way for our team to have the biggest impact was to work together. So we’re excited to announce that we’ll be making the journey to California to join Facebook!
Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.
We know how much many of you loved Gowalla. It’s been the highlight of our lives as we’ve built it with your help over the past two years. As we move forward, we hope some of the inspiration behind Gowalla — a fun and beautiful way to share your journey on the go — will live on at Facebook.
We’re so very grateful for the support of our community, our investors, our families, and, of course, the City of Austin as well. You’ve all played a special role in seeing us to this day.
Posted 6 hours ago by josh-williams
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