Not only is the contest between the scores of location-based social apps heating up, but the very moves their respective developers are making appear to be mirroring each other.

This week one of the frontrunners, Foursquare, relaunched on the App Store with an extensive update. The new UI is reportedly far more user friendly and has a renewed emphasis on the app's community aspects.

Check-in crazy

As a result, Foursquare yesterday reported that it enjoyed its highest ever one day check-in rate. 275,000 check-ins had been registered mid-way through the day, the company stating it was "just shy of breaking 300,000" by the end of the night.

But one of its biggest rivals, Gowalla, has also updated its presence on the App Store. This followed an acceleration in the app's expansion, launching on both Android and webOS in quick succession earlier this week.

Community spirit

The two are now going toe-to-toe at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film and music festival in Austin.

Foursquare hopes its range of 16 new badges for visitors at the event will up its check-in rate even further, while Gowalla is giving away both VIP tickets to its own 'Tiki Room' at SXSW, and Pre and Pixi Plus handsets as of a result of a deal with Palm.

Both apps actually launched at SXSW last year, meaning this particular battle is a rather personal one.

Early check-in data obtained by SimpleGeo's real-time location-based stream Vicarious.ly – which is monitoring scores of apps at Austin this week, the intention being to roll out across the US at a later date – suggests this could be a tight race, however.

As such, TechCrunch claims Vicarious.ly's stats confirm that both Foursquare and Gowalla are "absolutely on fire right now".