As some things are born at SXSWi, so too some things must die. Like Gowalla. And possibly geolocation.

When we started hosting the show that would become Marketplace Tech Report almost two years ago, the buzz around tech was that geolocation would become the next big thing. Well, it turns out that instead of mirroring Will Ferrell’s film career, geolocation more closely resembled the career of, like, David Spade. Or Chris Kattan.

Gowalla, which, along with Foursquare, debuted three years ago at SXSWi, has issued it’s dying gasp. This comes three months after the company was acquired by Facebook, which has been using geolocation services for a while now itself. But Facebook has begun moving away from the concept of the immediate check-in, the in-the-moment life of the user, in favor of the holistic view of the user’s Timeline. Doesn’t matter so much where you are, matters where you’ve been.
RIP Gowalla. See you at the crossroads. Hit it, Sarah McLachlan.