Gowalla Gets Branded Goods, More Platforms

Gowalla's had a busy week, rolling out official clients for its location-based social game to two new mobile platforms along with a branded virtual goods sponsorship deal. An official Gowalla client is now available for the Android platform as well as Palm's webOS. Gowalla had made a beta build of its Android client available previously, but the official client supports all of Gowalla's standard features including virtual goods. Gowalla is also available for the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms. 

The company's branded virtual goods deal will involve the Travel Channel show Food Wars. The series spotlights chefs in various cities, challenging rivals to make the best version of popular local dishes. Gowalla users will be able to get special passport badges and specific themed virtual items by visiting locations spotlighted in episodes of Food Wars. Along with the items, users will get information about episodes filmed at the location and featured dishes. 

The new Gowalla rollouts are part of increasingly heated competition with primary competitor Foursquare, though the MyTown location-based social game is also doing extremely well. Gowalla has also recently rolled out user-created virtual goods and a platform API. Gowalla's recent growth spurt may be funded by $8.4 million in venture capital the company picked up in December from Greylock Partners and Reid Hoffman. 

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