Gowalla anounces check-in API with guidelines

Gowalla has released API to check-in users, back in February they had released APIs for all but the check-in API. Developers could only pull venue and user information but did not have the ability to do actual check-in. Gowalla’s main concern was that people could do fake check-ins using APIs, foursquare on the other hand released full APIs this lead to creation on many third party apps with foursquare check-in integrated (many are available here Foursquare App Gallery), this also increased the adoption of foursquare over Gowalla. Gowalla has finally decided to give access to check-in API to users with some rigid guidelines and terms, here are the guidelines for Gowalla Check-in API use:

• Encourage users of your application to check in at places they are actually located.
• Avoid incentives or game mechanics that reward checking in from distant locations.
• Never “auto check-in” a person without their explicit permission. This is seriously uncool.
• Encourage social interaction over bot-like behavior.
• Rapid, repeated check-ins with the intent to automate the location and swapping of items will not be tolerated.
• Go easy on the API. Cache data where you can, respond to error messages, and be thoughtful about your user experience.

Gowalla check-in API uses Oauth 2.0 for secure authentication, more information and examples are available here.