Gowalla Drops The Ball?

I feel like a traitor even typing the words in the title of this post, but I can’t help it.  I’ve been so terribly upset by recent events surrounding the Gowalla service that I’ve taken to sniping at people I don’t even know on an internet board. WTF?

I love Gowalla. I really do. I’m a big fan of the application, and I am annoying in my constant iPhone fiddling. Most of my friends don’t have iPhones, and those that do, don’t Gowalla. So, when I’m out at a basketball game, pretending to listen to mindless chatter while fussing with my iPhone so I can check in at the Staples Center, my friends get annoyed. But, it’s looking more and more like my friends aren’t going to have to worry about that anymore. The main attraction of Gowalla for me is the scavenger hunt aspect of it. I like finding items, dropping items, swapping items, vaulting items, creating spots and founding spots. It’s an addiction. One that has caused me to (more than once) drive and Gowalla at the same time while on the hunt for the one item I need for my collection. (Since new items are released every week, there’s always something I’m missing.)

Then came the drought.

As reported here almost 2 weeks ago, Gowalla suddenly stopped dropping Bonus Items. A Bonus Item is a virtual collectible that randomly would pop up in the app when you would check in somewhere. If I had to guess, I’d say that about every 1 in 10 check-in’s would get you a Bonus Item. Since you can only carry 10 items at a time, it was good practice to regularly drop items at places you checked into. Unfortunately, if you had already dropped an item somewhere, you weren’t allowed to drop a second item. If you didn’t regularly add items to your “Vault” and you didn’t regularly visit new places and drop items, you’d end up with a full pack and weren’t able to receive new items.

Sadly, Gowalla apparently decided to deal with this issue by turning the Bonus Item faucet off .. or damn near.

Clearly, this isn’t sitting well with the users that are affected. Since not everyone seems to have the problem, or maybe not everyone has noticed, Gowalla didn’t seem to feel the issue was all that important. In fact, the first response from a Gowalla rep to the complaint was that this was *not* actually a problem. (Seriously – go look at the link if you think I’m kidding.)

I pretty much stayed out of the fray for a few days, but I finally got a bit miffed at the situation not being addressed and began chiming in. Yes, as days went on, I grew more and more frustrated .. and it showed.

The tipping point for me was a trip out of the country. I went to Canada for a day. I had 24-hours to Gowalla outside the U.S., and I was excited about it. I knew from past experience that AT&T charges an arm and a leg for International Roaming, so I bumped up my plan to allow for 50MB of data to the tune of $60.00. Cheaper than what I’d have to pay without a plan, by a long shot. But, here’s the thing. I landed in Vancouver and checked in to a few of the spots at the airport. I received some virtual peanuts and thought “Great! It’s fixed!”

I spent the rest of my very brief visit checking in to places like MAD trying to acquire virtual items from Vancouver so I could bring them back to L.A. with me and pepper them around town. Over 150 check-in’s and I didn’t receive a single, solitary item. Totally unacceptable.

Meanwhile, more and more complaints were hitting the message board, and no one from the development team was responding or even acknowledging this was a problem. The thread continues to be tagged as “solved”. Then, a new version of the app was issued in the iTunes store. Ok. Maybe this will solve the problem? Nope. No go. Still no response from the makers. And just to rub salt in the wound, the new app seemed to de-emphasize the virtual items, leaving users fearful that the very thing that makes Gowalla superior to other similar apps (like Foursquare) was going to be phased out.

More and more grumbling on the board, and still no response. One poster rightly points out that the users are the ones that input the data into the app, and so this is what makes us .. the users .. feel like we have some investment in the product. Gowalla even has users that they have deemed to be “Elite” members who have the responsibility of fixing spots, tags, etc., when users report errors. These “Elite” members aren’t compensated for their work (as far as I know).

Finally, yesterday I had had it. I posted a very terse message about how the complaints were being ignored, no one was responding and I was just plain fed up.

Shortly after that comment, a Rep did leave a post saying that they ‘hear’ us and they are ‘making various types of item tweaks’. This meant nothing to me. WTF? Is that an answer? I don’t think so. However, I let it go, some others asked more questions. The same Rep came back in and said: “We’re still looking into the issue and still making tweaks. Take that as you will. Of course we want the items feature to “work” as it should, and work well. Why wouldn’t we be seriously looking into it? Thanks in advance for your patience.” The “take that as you will” really pissed me off. I mean .. really.

Later, the same Rep came in and said some ‘tweaks’ had been made the night before and that more would be made that day. Really? What’s a “Tweak”? What does that mean? What was the issue? Have you found the source of the problem?

What I found to be almost unbelievable was the number of people these vague answers seemed to satisfy. Really? Wow. I wish it was that easy in my job to shut people up. Just give some vague DoubleSpeak non-answer and have people go “Oh, okay.” Shit. My life would be a fucking cake-walk if that flew in this business.

Anyway .. Since we had been told the system had been ‘tweaked’ (ugh), I tried a few check-in’s. Know what? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Donut. So, yeah, I left a smart-assed comment about it. I let my frustration out. I complained about being brushed off, I complained about the shitty updates and I complained about the appearance that the developers were more worried about getting new users via SXSW than fixing a problem for the people that have been using (and helping to populate) the system since it began.

Well, one of those fellow users who was so complacent with the non-answers chastised me.

Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Please. Go the fuck away. I should give them a break? REALLY? I should just sit back and enjoy the smoke enema they are dishing out? Fuck you.

Alrightee then .. anywhooo .. later. The Rep with the great communication skills and fantastic customer service repertoire came back to tell a user: “We’ve stated that we’re on it. Patience while we work (really hard) on your free app, please! “ Oh, yeah. that little smiley face totally makes up for the fact that you just tried to belittle this guy for pointing out your service sucks right now. I mean, it’s not as if the Gowalla database is made up of 650,000 locations that were input BY THE USERS. It’s not like that isn’t some sort of invested interest on their part. Noooooo. And it’s not as if Gowalla isn’t actively working for product integration and tie-ins with a bunch of businesses. Nope.

Apparently .. we should all be GRATEFUL that the fine folks at Gowalla have blessed us all with their genius app that isn’t working and looks like ass now.

And here’s the really sad fact. If they get it fixed, I’ll be right back at it, because I enjoy it .. and .. quite honestly .. I’m over-invested at this point. (Plus .. they still owe me an Incase Slider Case that I won last month.)

1278 Stamps

5 States

2 Countries (altho I didn’t get a Canada stamp when I went there .. what’s up with that?)

115 items vaulted

1 really unhappy Gowallaer right now