There are a bunch of  social location apps out there.  Here are some of the ones I have on my iPhone right now: Rummble, Loopt, Brightkite, MyTown, Whrrl, Stalqer, Buzzd, AroundMe, Flook, iSpy, MeetMe, and DoubleDutch (a project that my company is working on).

But as of right now, New York based Foursquare and Austin based Gowalla seem to be putting together the most compelling combination of momentum and functionality.

Both have early adopter buzz, both are well backed, and both seem to be in rapid growth mode.

I thought it might be fun to compare the two apps head to head based on the following criteria: Data, Utility, Gameplay, UI, Traction, Resources, and Press / Distribution.

Disclaimers: not all criteria are weighted equally and much of my analysis, such as which gameplay is better, is subjective.

Let’s have at it.

Data

After a slow start, Foursquare has been furiously expanding its data coverage to include new cities.  Word has it they are expanding to “everywhere” this month. (UPDATE: A couple of hours after we posted this, Foursquare has opened to include any location worldwide.)

But Foursquare’s 100 cities are no match for Gowalla’s 7,500.  And Gowalla’s data claims don’t seem to be an exaggeration.  On a recent train ride along the East Coast, I made a point of checking nearby locations for both Foursquare and Gowalla.  Foursquare was fine in the big cities, but had nothing in the burbs.  Gowalla was data rich everywhere.

Nod: Gowalla

Utility

Both apps are great for keeping track of where your friends are, and both apps allow you to snoop as to see who else might be in – or might frequent – the same place(s) as you.

On the rewards / selfish interest side, some merchants are starting to give perks to Foursquare mayors, but it’s not widespread enough yet to pay off for most users.

Foursquare earns a slight nod on the basis of its “Tips” – it’s neat seeing comments from people that you know about the places you go.

Nod: Foursquare

Gameplay

While the passport metaphor is clever, the gentle, artsy approach of Gowalla doesn’t resonate with me as much as the competitive, in your face, “I’m the Mayor and You’re Not” gameplay of Foursquare.  It also took me a bit longer to grasp the game elements of Gowalla – Foursquare’s system of badges, points, and Mayors is pretty self explanatory.

Nod: Foursquare

UI

Foursquare’s UI is fine.  It’s clean, easy to navigate, and well laid out.  It just leaves me a little cold.

Gowalla’s UI is shockingly good.  They are able to present more data (e.g. seven lines of nearby business data to Foursquare’s five on the iPhone), and in a more creative way.  And anyone who has used Gowalla knows that the genius is in the little details: the success messages, the Facebook integration, and of course, the impossible number of gorgeous icons they have, for seemingly everything.

Nod: Gowalla

Traction

For lack of a better term, regular people join social media services because their friends are on them.  Foursquare reports more users than Gowalla, and my own experiences support this – I have about 3x as many friends on Foursquare that I do on Gowalla, and the activity feed of each service reflects this.

Nod: Foursquare

Resources

While Gowalla raised more money, Foursquare has top notch investors who would almost certainly be thrilled to drop more cash into the company.  New York is a bigger market, and thus perhaps a more strategic home base than Austin, but Austin is a tech powerhouse in its own right.  Both companies are well connected in Silicon Valley.

Nod: Even

Press / Distribution

Foursquare is a juggernaut when it comes to PR.  A quick search on Google News shows 2,670 news mentions during 2009.  Gowalla shows 43 mentions during the same period.  In the blogosphere, it’s 4819 links for Foursquare, and 1969 for Gowalla.

Nod: Foursquare

Conclusion

So there you have it.  Foursquare gets the not in four of these arbitrary criteria, and Gowalla gets the nod in two.  I see them as even in resources.  Furthermore, Gowalla’s data advantage should be short lived – local business data is available if you have cash, and no doubt Foursquare is racing to drop a ton of new listings into its database.

However, all criteria are not created equally.  As a heavy user of both apps, I strongly feel that Gowalla is a better experience right now, at least on the iPhone.  It’s a little easier to find the place where you want to check in, the Facebook stories look a little nicer, and the UI is just generally more pleasing.  Unlike Gowalla’s data advantage, their UI advantage will not be trivial for Foursquare to match.  It’s hard to make an exceptional UI, and Gowalla seems to have pulled it off, not to mention the icon advantage they have.

So where does that leave us?  It would seem that it’s still anybody’s ballgame.

A few months ago, I believed that Foursquare was on its way to a Twitter like dominance of the social checkin space.  Their momentum and critical mass seemed like it would be enough to overcome Gowalla’s superior experience.  People go where there friends are, and who cares how good an app is if nobody’s on it.  Yet somehow, Gowalla was able to survive Foursquare’s initial burst and build up a large enough user base to create the activity to support the app, and raise a big chunk of funding.

My opinion is that it was Foursquare’s lack of data that gave Gowalla just enough oxygen to make this a battle.  Had Foursquare come out of the gate with global data, this race could have been over.

But they didn’t.  And now Gowalla and Foursquare look to be pretty evenly matched.

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