Facebook Acquires Gowalla
After playing coy through the weekend Facebook finally confirmed it’s acquisition of Gowalla
Facebook says it isn’t buying the brand’s service or location-based technology but will instead absorb the management team behind the company.
“While Facebook isn’t acquiring the Gowalla service or technology, we’re sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time,” reads a statement issued by Facebook. Gowalla’s team, including CEO Josh Williams and co-founder Scott Raymond will move from the company’s Austin, Texas, headquarters to Facebook home base in California.
In a blog entry, Gowalla CEO Josh Williams detailed his decision to take Facebook’s offer. “About two months ago, my co-founder Scott [Raymonds] and I attended F8,” Williams wrote. “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.”
Facebook’s statement was along the same lines: “In talking with the Gowalla team, we realized that we share many of the same goals: building great products that reach millions of people, making a big impact quickly, and creating new ways for people to connect and share what’s going on in their lives.”
Williams wrote that Gowalla will be winding down at the end of January and “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.” Williams added that “Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.”
Meanwhile, Gowalla’s chief rival, Foursquare, released a statement on Friday about the move: “Congrats to Josh and the team in Austin. Here at Foursquare, we continue to focus on building an amazing product and growing our 15,000,000-strong community.”
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