At Gowalla, many team members are passionate about politics and several of our fondest memories are centered around meeting our favorite politicians at their events. Looking ahead at 2012, we knew we needed to start building tools for politicians and people to more closely connect around the issues that are important to them. This is why today we are announcing several exciting tools.

Today, Gowalla is opening up the Events feature to politicians, providing an innovative way for candidates to educate voters and stay connected. You will now be able to follow some of your favorite politicians on Gowalla to learn where they are while on the campaign trail and what images/comments people are sharing. Plus, if you attend an event from one of the politicians using Gowalla, you will receive a custom Gowalla Passport Stamp. Initially, we are launching this with three politicians (and more are to come): Charlie Crist (I-FL), Rick Perry (R-TX) and Jim Ward (R-AZ). CNN ran a nice piece on this new feature, which you can read here.

We’ve also created a new political category within Gowalla so all Gowalla Passport holders will be able to set-up their own political Events. While some of the categories are currently U.S. focused, others can be used anywhere and we plan to add more international Stamps in the future.

Next up, the ACLU Florida is now using Gowalla to draw attention to a redistricting ballot initiative in Florida. In a creative use of the Gowalla service, ACLU Florida has developed a number of custom Trips providing interested parties an easy way to get involved, volunteer or learn more about the initiative. You can find out more about how they are using Gowalla at http://gowalla.com/acluflorida.

We are excited about starting to roll out tools that will be important as we approach the 2010 election cycle. We look forward to what is next and are happy to have you along for the ride!