Last week Gowalla announced the release of their API. This is a huge step in making sure they stay on pace and within reach of current check in rival Foursquare. Beyond having a solid product that gains user adoption, the next most important aspect of any new web service nowadays is to release an API. Twitter is a prime example of this as many have pointed to their API as being the catalyst that created the huge marketplace for 3rd party apps and integration. Once developers start to release innovative ways to tap a core service via its API and further attract users a snowball effect is created. That’s primarily why Twitter beat out so many comparable, if not better, micro-blogging platforms that launched to compete against it.

Foursquare only announced their API a few months back in November of 2009 and I haven’t seen too many implementations out there that are compelling. This bodes well for Gowalla which now is in a position to watch if developers can help catapult their service to the next level. On the Gowalla blog they made sure to plant a seed with ideas for how others could start building apps around their API.

Here are those ideas:

• The Gowalla API enables tons of fun stuff. Here are a few free ideas:
• Indiana Jones Map — Convert your road trip into an animated, epic adventure.
• Sidebar Badge — Show off your top ten spots with a sidebar badge for your blog.
• Conference Games — Encourage conference attendees to explore the city and get to know each other by tracking their check-ins and rewarding those who get off the beaten path.
• LunchVote — Can’t agree with your co-workers on a lunch spot? Stuck in a rut with the same five restaurants? Use LunchVote to decide on a nearby restaurant and track your history.
• Gowallahashing — Inspired by XKCD’s Geohashing, algorithmically pick a random spot every day for a given area, to encourage serendipitous challenges and meetups.

You can read the rest of the announcement via the Gowalla blog.