How 'underdog' Whrrl plans to unseat Foursquare, Gowalla |
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How 'underdog' Whrrl plans to unseat Foursquare, Gowalla
Last night, I reported on how Pelago -- maker of the Whrrl social networking iPhone application -- was positioning to take on Foursquare and Gowalla with its latest release. I noted that the competitive landscape is kind of stacked against Whrrl, something that Pelago director of marketing Heather Meeker acknowledges.
"We are the underdog," said Meeker. But she offered two reasons why she thinks Whrrl can rise above Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and all of the other location-based "check-in" services.
Here's the first, according to Meeker.
"Over the past year, we have experimented with a number of viral techniques and learning how to grow the base (such as adding people to a story, broadcast loop, Facebook notifications, etc). We believe that we’ve figured out some key techniques that have the potential to explosively grow the base that center around Societies and rich media. As we roll out Whrrl 3, we will apply them to test their effectiveness."
And, here's the second reason:
"We have been working hard on a few very meaty partnerships that could quickly drive awareness and adoption. We hope to announce them soon. "
I am not sure what partnerships Meeker is referring to, but one could imagine that Web publishers (online newspapers for example) could be interested in a partnership. Also, Pelago showed its hand a bit earlier this month when it announced a partnership with the Experience Music Project in Seattle and Max's Kansas City.
There's certainly power in the idea of helping to connect the physical world with the online world. And I am sure we'll see more dollars flowing in this direction in the coming years.
What do you think? Is there still room for Whrrl to rise up in this category or is it already game over?
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