Go as in AWAY from Gowalla

For those of you that don’t know I have been an avid user of Gowalla (and Foursquare) for well over a year. I first started with checkin apps when I discovered Foursquare, I loved the concept of being able to track where I had gone for my personal benefit but also I enjoyed sharing cool places I went to with others that I socialized with. When I discovered Gowalla I was impressed and felt they took the Foursquare concept to the next level with the addition of pins and really nice looking stamps and badges that you could collect for your Gowalla page. Sure these weren’t real tangible but I still thought it was neat. For a months I would check in on both Gowalla and Foursquare. Then Gowalla came out with what I thought was the killer app they incorporated a way to checkin to both them and other sites at the same time, I no longer had to spend time checking into two applications. Since then I’ve been almost exclusively a Gowalla user (except when I checked on Foursquare to make sure I got checked in).

Unfortunately today my use of Gowalla ends. It appears with the next version of Gowalla 4.0 they have transitioned their business away from the checkin application and decided to become a travel guide. Now when I log into Gowalla and attempt to checkin to where I am the first list of 20 or so places I see are “Recommended places”. Which is Gowalla speak for places that have paid us money to make sure you see them instead of where you actually are. That’s great Gowalla, good for you! You have discovered a business model that has completely alienated they majority of your userbase, the locals. If I wanted to use Gowalla as a travel guide I shouldn’t be forced to use it that way because although I love Disneyland I don’t need to see every Disneyland location near me instead of the places I am actually next to.

Why did you fuck up so bad? Because you didn’t actually try it out with your CORE users before you screwed it all up. Changes like this are something you test out with users that are willing to try out new things, you don’t just change it and tell your users to deal with it. Wait that isn’t exactly what you said. You told the users reading your blog that there has been a “Fabulous response”, I don’t think you are reading the same response I’m reading, because the majority of the responses on your blog have been negative. You have completely alienated the userbase that created the database you now use as your travelguide. More power to you for taking advantage to our two years of patronage to create yourself a business model that will be the end of you.

Bye Gowalla.

Related articles

• Gowalla Updated To Version 4.0 – Removes Features, Adds Force Closes (androidpolice.com)
• Gowalla 4.0, Their Bold Revamp Towards Travel And Stories Goes Live (techcrunch.com)
• Gowalla flips its check-in service to be a social atlas for the world (thenextweb.com)
• Gowalla removes its defining features: Items and Notes (thenextweb.com)

Matt Kemp Kills Baseballs!

Hey!  It’s Dan of the Garion clan.  How about that Matt Kemp?  He’s been killing the ball.  So my wife Kelly said my blog has been boring since all I post nowadays are links…  Is that true?  Are my links boring, would you rather hear me talk about the Next Great Dancing Crew?  I mean I know I can be funny when I don’t try at all, but can I be entertaining, especially in a world where people watch crap like Pregnant in Heels, Glamour Bells, and Playdates (yes these are all really TV shows, on REAL TV).  WHO THE HELL WATCHES THIS STUFF.  I mean it’s one thing to make fun of it, which is why I religiously watch The Soup (well and that Joel McHale is awesome), but really who watches this type of shit? This will be the only blog that someone says the word shit and then starts talking about Easter.

It’s Easter this Sunday, and I for one welcome our Zombie Jesus overlords.  I’m happy I can get back to swigging soda and chowing down on chocolate now that Kelly no longer has the obligation to give up something she likes for Lent.  Other than that there really isn’t much going on.  The onions in the back yard are just about ready to get cured, we got a citrus tree that seems to be doing well, I fixed the grout in the master bathroom and Kelly is just about done with painting the shelf that our awesome neighbor made for us in the spare bedroom.  Next up we are getting the HUGE birds of paradise plants in the front yard removed and we might be getting sprinklers installed in the front yard as well.

Lastly for those that really know us, be on the lookout for information about our 3rd Annual Fourth of July Party!  Now it’s time for! DUN DUN DUN!

These are the cool things I found around the web for April 20th through April 22nd:

• The Geek Zodiak [PIC] Geek Zodiak – Geeks are Sexy Technology News -
• Owners, union discuss playoff expansion options – ESPN – NO NO NO! Please no, do not expand the MLB playoffs! Don’t dilute the playoffs to shit.
• Bristol riot over new Tesco store leaves eight police officers injured | UK news | guardian.co.uk – Peaceful… huh? What idiots.
  
  For those that don’t know Tesco is a like a grocery story… Way to get worked up about something completely unimportant Brits.

• AT&T: Filing Admits Network Wasn’t Ready For The iPhone – HAHA!
• petewarden/iPhoneTracker @ GitHub – Little did you know, Apple has been tracking you all along. This can’t be, Apple is not at all evil…
• SEX! « OkCupid – More research from OkCupid, this time about SEX!

During the last couple weeks we’ve been doing a bunch of yard work, getting the yards in as good a shape as we can this year.  Other than that, we haven’t really done much.  So I guess I will just post the links…

Cool Music
I can’t remember if I shared this band yet on here, but Rock Sugar is an awesome band.  The lead singer was the guy that did the voice of Wacko on Animaniacs.

Food Stuff
Four articles from Serious Eats that I thought were great to share.  How to Salt Food, 6 Things Every Griller Needs, Top 10 Tips For Making Better Burgers, and  Mastering the Art of Burger Blending.  I’m very interested in getting a grinder for our KitchenAid Mixer and blending my own meat!  If you are interested in finding a local fruit and veggie or even meat CSA you will want to check out both Local Harvest and Eat Wild.  Too bad there aren’t really any close by meat CSAs in SoCal.  I did recently discover that we have a local grass fed beef rancher 5 Bar Beef, we are going to try some of their ground beef tonight for burgers.  If you want to know more about beef cuts, this poster is great.

Beer Stuff
Make had this cool weekend project for a portable homebrew cooler dispenser, that I might give a try when we have a party.  Talking about beer, Floating Sheep has some maps about bars and areas where there are more bars than grocery stores.

Funny Stuff
When you are buying a home, the most overlooked requirement is Zombie Protection!  Well OC Reader has you covered if you are looking for a home in Orange County.

Cool Sports
If you are looking to buy some tickets for a game or even a concert, Seat Geek has you covered in helping you find things for the best price available.  They forecast if it’s a smart time to buy of if the price will be going down and suggest you to wait if you are buying the tickets on sites like StubHub, Tickets Now, or Ticket Network.  Plus they will graph out the ticket locations for you.

Cool Sites
CNN Money’s 20 best Money Sites.  Mensa’s 50 top websites.  Groundspeak, the team behind Geocaching.org are slowly making their way into the geolocation game with Whibbit, looking forward to see how it compares to Foursquare and GoWalla.

More Cool Stuff
Probably should have been in the food section but I love that this site will locate Where is My Milk From.  Science has discovered that as the use of porn goes up the amount of sex crimes goes down!  Take that feminists!  After you are done watching some porn, check out these awesome airports, I’m not sure if I want to land at any of those…

And last but not least, videos.
I think I will show this one during my Defensive Driving training classes I do.

Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill, it’s amazing what photoshop can do nowadays.

Sir Mix a Lot like But-terfingers

Awesome TV Theme duet

So my friend Ned over at A Futile Mistake challenged those that read his blog to come up with their top 25 albums of all time list.  I made a couple rules for my list so I didn’t pull out too much hair.

So they killed off Bill Buchanan on 24!!!!  One of my favorite characters of all time besides Jack Bauer, very sad too see Bill is never going to be on the show again, but love that they killed him off as a hero dying for his country.

We are growing a vegatable garden in the backyard, I’ve planted 8 tomato plants and 2 types of peppers, will be interesting to see how that works out, I’ll take some pictures tonight and post them.

Also on top of all this we got a PS3 and along with it I bought MLB ’09 the Show, pretty fun game!

Oh and they came out with a Jimmy Eat World, Rockband 2 trackpack!  Three more Jimmy Eat World songs to play on my Xbox 360!

I jailbroke my iPhone last night and it’s working flawlessly so far, made a couple little cosmetic tweaks to the interface but the good programs aren’t online yet.  I also found a CTU ringtone for my phone!

A great essay about the baseball card industry « Wax Heaven
A great essay about the baseball card industry
Posted April 25, 2008

Wax Heaven reader and fellow collector Jason loves all things that are free and recently saw a contest that was giving away a Hobby box of 2008 Topps to the person who could write the best essay about why kids should start collecting baseball cards. His essay was pure genius, funny but to the point. I invite Jason to start his own blog or at the very least become a guest contributor to Waxheaven.com. We could use more writer/collectors like him. I am certain he could give Ben Henry a run for his money!

Below is the essay as submitted by Jason to http://www.sportscardfun.com:

“As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t anticipate winning the box of 2008 Topps. It’s not that I can’t effectively and articulately pen a response to the question at hand. I can. It’s not that I don’t want the box. Trust me, I do. It’s that my answer is controversial and may not be exactly what you’re looking for.

Kids shouldn’t start collecting baseball cards. They currently do not have a single reason to. And I don’t think it has as much to do with the competition for their attention as some might think. The Sports Card industry has become a convoluted mess of inserts, game used memorabilia, and endless variations. It is no longer a hobby for children in much the same way that video games are no longer made for 8 year olds.

The “targeted demographic” for sports collectibles are those guys that started out buying up Donruss with their allowance. Those that can afford the price structure that the hobby has evolved into. Who’s purchasing the new ultra violent PS3 games? Guys that used to play Super Mario while listening to New Kids on the Block. The kids that made these industries boom are all grown up now.

This creates another question. What made ME start collecting baseball cards as a kid? I have to answer that by saying that I know what made me, until recently, stop collecting. Price. Undecipherable variations. Bloated sets that made it impossible to “collect”. Professional grading. The magic has been lost in the marketing.

I am 28 years old with extensive computer knowledge. I have subscriptions to all of the major price guides to include Beckett’s Online Database. Yet, I have wrestled for over 6 months to figure out which variation I have of a 2007 Topps Co-Signers Hanley Ramirez. I pulled a Babe Ruth 2007 Goudey Immortals Jersey out of a retail box. My wife didn’t want me touching the jersey. When did the monetary value become more important than running my finger across a jersey worn by the Bambino? I attempted to copy and paste a list of all the Manny Ramirez cards in existence from Beckett into a spreadsheet. My computer crashed four times before I gave up. How could I even begin to create a master set of all of Manny’s stuff when 25% or more are all “One-of-Ones”

Why is there only one 2007 Upper Deck First Edition, yet you have Elements, Future Stars, Premier, Sp Rookie, Spectrum, UD Masterpieces, UD Black, etc. Tell me who that’s geared towards? Look at the pricing for these packs and then show me a kid that wants to spend their only $10 bucks for the week to get 4 cards. Card Manufacturers need to change their intent, not their strategy.

Finally, what made me start back? Almost a year ago, I opened my old shoe boxes to see what I could sell on eBay. As I sorted through the cards “one last time” I was amazed that I could identify the players on each card before I ever saw the name. Guys like Hensley Meulens, Bo Diaz, Luis Polonia, Jeff Blauser, Phil Plantier, etc. That is what made me come back home.

I don’t know that the industry, based on the question, can be fixed. I do know however, a 4 year old t-ball star sleeping soundly in his bed right now that is going to help me put together a hand collated set of ragged 1990 Topps sometime in the near future. I won’t have to market anything. I won’t have a strategy for convincing him of how fun it can be. I do have faith that he’ll understand the enthusiasm and the magic in my eyes. I trust that my son will hear the faint whisper of a hobby tradition long gone.”