Thursday, November 18, 2010

Disney Parks Checks In With Gowalla

Burbank-based Walt Disney's amusement park arm, Disney Parks, is getting on board with the location based check-in trend, and has inked a deal with Gowalla, one of a number of location-based check-in firms. Gowalla--which competes with such services as Foursquare and Whrrl--said today that it has signed a deal with Disney to feature official badges for check-ins to Disney locations, including amusement park rides and other park features at Disneyland and Disney World. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, however, Gowalla is now hosting a Disney Parks On Gowalla page with different badges and information on locations, as well as special "insider trips" that users can earn for visiting multiple locations in Disney's parks.

Gowalla is based in Austin, and Foursquare is based in New York. Southern California's closest competitor in the sector is Geodelic, the Clearstone- and Shasta backed startup headed by Rahul Sonnad. Geodelic has its own amusement park deal, providing location-based information to Universal Studios Hollywood, but does not use the same game-based mechanics and badges of Gowalla and Foursquare.

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