Friday, October 22, 2010

Gowalla, Foursquare Battle Over NASA Ties

NASA has tied into location-based networking, in a big way, and now had inked deals with both local location-based checkin firm Gowalla, based in Austin, as well as competitor Foursquare. The latest development in the location-based check-in war is the news today that Foursquare has just gotten its first check-in from space, by International Space Station astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock, who just received the "NASA Explorer" badge by checking in on the ISS. The check-in one-ups Gowalla, which just last week inked a deal to divvy out "Moon Rock" badges to visitors to NASA sites, museums, and other locations with actual moon rocks. Gowalla has yet to create a spaceborne badge, but does have plans for its own astronaut, Mike Massimino, dropping badge prizes around the nation related to NASA via Gowalla and Twitter.