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    checking in with gowalla

    Gowalla heads to Palo Alto: What's next and what to expect as the tech teamintegrates with Facebook

    Samantha Pitchel
    Dec 6, 2011 | 9:15 am

    The news broke late last week: geolocation-based mobile app Gowalla, one of Texas' most creative tech start-ups, has been acquired by Facebook.

    Gowalla has many memories from its time based in Austin; the app, which awards badges for virtual “check-ins,” carried out a heated but outwardly good-natured rivalry with app Foursquare after both launched on the same day: March 13, 2009, during SXSW. The next year, at SXSW 2010, both benefited from the “feud” by staging “The Geosocial Showdown,” an honest-to-God boxing match between Foursquare founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai and Gowalla’s Josh Williams (a Dallas native).

    And for the past few years, Gowalla has been active in Austin’s small-business scene, sponsoring events and aligning itself with innovative organizations.

    Facebook opened an office in Austin earlier this year, and already doubled their office space there, opening a second office at 300 West Sixth St. Facebook is still hiring locally, which is great news for that city’s scores of savvy developers.

     

      Why not just fold the new acquisition into the existing (and flourishing) Austin offices? Mainly because Facebook isn’t just adding Gowalla to their roster of app offerings; they’re working with the team on the new Timeline feature 

    The Gowalla team, however, won’t be sharing that space. Last week, CNN reported: “Most of Gowalla's employees, including founder Josh Williams, will move to Facebook's offices in Palo Alto.”

    Why not just fold the new acquisition into the existing (and flourishing) Austin offices? Mainly because Facebook isn’t just adding Gowalla to its roster of app offerings; it's working with the team on the new Timeline feature, a complete overhaul of the profile and feed architecture that launched earlier this year and will be available to all users over the next few months.

    Timeline completely changes the way we interact with and view Facebook. Instead of displaying a single stream of updates on your personal page, Timeline organizes all your activities into a more easily navigable, well, timeline that lets friends and potential stalkers view your photos, statuses, social connections and more by month and year. The page is generally sleeker, and you can also add your own custom banner image.

    Many of the changes Timeline brings to your Facebook page are architecture-related; that is, changing the way your page is structured. While Gowalla is a well-designed app, it’s unlikely Facebook spent so much money on such a specialized team just for design feedback. What are they planning with Gowalla?

    In a 2010 article for Wired UK, writer Neal Pollack profiled the Gowalla/Foursquare explosion, noting: “For a decade or more, the concept of ‘life as a game’ has been bandied about nerd theorist circles, but now it is coming to fruition. All over the web, reward-based achievement games have begun to blossom as a means of encouraging specific behavior.”

     

      Mashable CEO Pete Chasmore points out while it seems natural that Facebook is hoping to strengthen their geolocation integration (after the marked failure of their Places feature earlier this year), Gowalla’s reach and abilities extend beyond just check-ins. 

    This is certainly in line with Facebook’s goal of creating an interactive space that influences and enhances our social lives, instead of just documenting it. From the introduction of the “Like” button to its own contentious take on geolocation integration, the social network is trying to encourage more two-way dialogue.

     Monday on CNN, Pete Cashmore, CEO of the tech blog Mashable, speculated on the impending merger. He noted that Facebook now owns all the personal data you’ve kept on Gowalla, an important point for those worried about privacy. But most importantly, he pointed out that, while it seems natural that Facebook is hoping to strengthen its geolocation integration (after the marked failure of their Places feature earlier this year), Gowalla’s reach and abilities extend beyond just check-ins.

    “[D]on't expect Facebook to suddenly launch a wave of new location-based features. I think the fusion of the companies will be less visible than that,” Cashmore concluded.

    Facebook has yet to release an official comment, and Gowalla employees are still working out exactly what this means for the Austin team.

    Monday morning, (former) CEO Josh Williams posted to the company’s blog:

    “The Gowalla Passport has become a record of all the places we’ve visited, the people we were with, the photos we took, and the stories we told. Many of you even use Gowalla like a scrapbook of sorts — a place to keep all those memories,” Williams says. “About two months ago, my co-founder Scott and I attended F8. We were blown away by Facebook’s new developments. A few weeks later Facebook called, and it became clear that the way for our team to have the biggest impact was to work together.”

    While we’ll miss their energetic presence here in Texas, we look forward to seeing what the creative and passionate Gowalla team brings to Facebook.

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    the future of surgery

    Houston hospital performs first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S.

    Laura Furr Mericas, InnovationMap
    Jul 3, 2025 | 9:30 am
    Baylor College of Medicine Robotic Heart Transplant
    Courtesy of Baylor College of Medicine
    Dr. Kenneth Liao and a team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center used a surgical robot to implant a new heart in a patient.

    A team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, led by Dr. Kenneth Liao, successfully performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the United States earlier this year, the Houston hospital recently shared.

    Liao, a professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, used a surgical robot to implant a new heart in a 45-year-old male patient through preperitoneal space in the abdomen by making small incisions.

    The robotic technology allowed the medical team to avoid opening the chest and breaking the breast bone, which reduces the risk of infection, blood transfusions and excessive bleeding. It also leads to an easier recovery, according to Liao.

    "Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants," Liao said in a news release. "With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery."

    The patient received the heart transplant in March, after spending about four months in the hospital due to advanced heart failure. According to Baylor, he was discharged home after recovering from the surgery in the hospital for a month without complications.

    "This transplant shows what is possible when innovation and surgical experience come together to improve patient care," Liao added in the release. "Our goal is to offer patients the safest, most effective and least invasive procedures, and robotic technology allows us to do that in extraordinary ways."

    ---

    This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

    medical researchbaylor college of medicine
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