Gowalla relaunches as 'a social atlas for the world'

Two million users later, service pivots to be less like Foursquare and more like a social Lonely Planet.

Social location service Gowalla has relaunched its iPhone and Android apps with a new focus on social city guides.

The company launched its original app at the same time as Foursquare, with a similar focus on check-ins and gamification. It hasn't caught on to the extent of its rival, although according to founder Josh Williams, it has found a fair few fans.

"Almost two million of you have joined us for this journey. You’ve visited almost every place of note in the world with Gowalla. You’ve photographed it, highlighted it and shared it, many of you checking in with reckless abandon," he writes on the company's blog.

The revamped Gowalla aims to capitalise on that, creating 60 'social guides' to cities around the world, based on content from users as well as partners Disney, National Geographic and others.

"60 cities are a fine start, but we plan to crack 100 in short order with hundreds more to follow after that," writes Williams, encouraging Gowalla users to help by contributing their photos and thoughts.