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"Accompanying the release of Money magazine's annual \"100 Best Places to Live in America,\" Gowalla has launched a series of features to help users explore the highest-ranking places on the list.\nGowalla users can now take curated Trips through the top five small cities (Eden Prairie, MN, Columbia/Ellicott City, MD, Newton, MA, Bellevue, WA and McKinney, TX), which are detailed at gowalla.com/bestplaces. Users who visit all of the listed spots in one city will receive a special stamp for their Gowalla Passport.\nMoney determined its rankings by lining up various public data, including median family incomes, auto insurance premiums, the number of entertainment venues and air quality index ratings. Like most ranking systems that try to quantify what's essentially a very subjective topic, the results aren't necessarily very accurate; few would agree, we expect, that this year's winner \u2014 little Eden Prairie, MN, whose low unemployment rate is due to the robust success of businesses like hearing-aid maker Starkey Labs \u2014 is actually the best place to live in the U.S.\nNevertheless, the feature has provided great exposure for Gowalla. Money magazine's website, CNNMoney.com, has posted the entire feature with links to what's trending on Gowalla in the top 25 towns, prominently displayed next to Gowalla's logo. CNN Money, in turn, will buff up its presence on the Gowalla network with dozens of new followers.\nSo far, partnerships between prominent brands and location-based social networks have primarily targeted users in major cities, like Gowalla's campaigns with The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), The Courier Journal (Louisville, KY) and USA Today (major U.S. airports), as well as Foursquare's deals with The Wall Street Journal (New York, NY) and the History Channel (major U.S. cities). The campaign may help Gowalla gain traction in smaller towns ahead of its competitors.\nWhat do you think of the partnership? Do you think location-based social networking has become popular enough to really take off in smaller cities like Eden Prairie, MN and McKinney, TX?\n[img credit: trawin]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/07/12/gowalla-100-best-places-to-live/>