At South By Southwest 2010 (SXSW), a strange thing happened on the way to Austin. A community of twitter faithful shifted from sharing everything about everything on only twitter (and maybe Facebook) and changed their habits to rely on learning about what was happening and where things were happening by using Foursquare and Gowalla instead.
In the year since SXSW, a number of my friends became passionate and dependent on using Foursquare and/or Gowalla as the platform to share where they were and what was happening around them. Here at SXSW, this has been taken to a new level. It turns out that if you are spending time around your friends and you have a chance to speak to them almost at will, there is something to be said about only sharing your location information and then having the ability to make decisions of what to do (or where not to go) base on this information.
Based on an unscientific poll of a few people I spoke to yesterday during lunch, a typical comment shared was: “I haven’t been on twitter for 2 days. Not sure when I was on last on Facebook. Instead I just look on Foursquare for what is happening and where it is happening.” These words were shared by almost everyone I spoke with.
In terms of who may be winning the Foursquare / Gowalla popularity contest, all I can say is that at SXSW, members of the Foursquare team have done a great job of making themselves known. To date I have only run into one person from Gowalla and that was on my flight from NYC to Austin.
What does any of this this really mean? I’m not entirely sure. But I do believe SXSW 2010 will be known as the time Foursquare came of age and the place where at least one community’s dependence on twitter has shifted and their use of twitter changed, albeit slightly.
Note: Foursquare and Gowalls are two of the companies that will be seen and heard at the upcoming #140conf NYC taking place April 20-21.
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