Why I’m Keeping Foursquare/Gowalla Even Though Facebook Now Does Location

So, the main story people are talking about is how Facebeook’s new location rollout leverages Foursquare and Gowalla, but the real story is that you can now use Facebook instead of using Foursquare or Gowalla.

As a result, many are saying that Foursquare and Gowalla have a limited lifespan at this point, since everyone is going to cut out the middle tier. For me, at least, this isn’t true–for a simple reason:

My Facebook and Foursquare contacts are different types of contacts, not just different places for storing them. Facebook friends are those I share strong things in common with and/or know personally, whereas I follow many people on Foursquare just because I like to see where they’re eating or grabbing tea in order to find new, interesting places in San Francisco.

They’re totally different use cases.

So, for users like me who have different purposes for the services, the dedicated location services probably won’t get set to the side. But for those who simply had the same people in both services–and only used Foursquare/Gowalla because Facebook didn’t have location–they’re probably going to dump the dedicated plays rather quickly.

Which group do you fall into? ::