GigaOM » location-based apps

Fondu builds a mobile social network for bite-sized places reviews

Ryan Kim — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:00:36 +0000

Is there room for another app for finding places? That’s a question Fondu, a New York startup is trying to find out. The app, which launches Tuesday on iOS, is a purpose-built mobile social network designed specifically for discovering places through friends. It mixes some of Yelp’s structure with Foursquare’s tips and Twitter’s short messages.

Fondu traces its roots back to another app called SpotOn, a location recommendation service that debuted in the spring. But instead of providing recommendations based on a user’s ratings of places, Fondu is trying to build a tool that allows users to follow friends and experts and get ideas on restaurants that are personal to them.

“We know that people have opinions about food and many feel they have good taste but they don’t feel compelled to share on Yelp because it seems like a lot of work and they’re not telling their friends, they’re contributing to the larger community. We want to be a platform to make bite-sized reviews and unlock people’s inner food critic,” said CEO and Co-Founder Gauri Manglik.

Making place-discovery social

Users who log-in are able to follow friends from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or their address book, or they can follow other users on Fondu who put out reviews they like. Users can start by reviewing past places pulled in from their Foursquare history. Reviews are limited to 175 characters to encourage quick sharing. They can also rate a place with up to four flower petals, something brought over from SpotOn. Fondu organizes activity into a Feed, which allows users to see recent activity from people they follow and nearby activity. There’s also a Popular tab for discovering things that have received a lot of “cheers,” Fondu’s equivalent of “likes.” And there’s a News tab that alerts users when friends post a review or other people follow them.

As I mentioned earlier, there are features that compete against other existing services. Yelp is a big directory of place reviews that has added social features for following others. Foursquare has tips that are quick suggestions about what to get or do at a place. Foodspotting is also a popular place for sharing dishes and places with people. And Twitter has a similar short-message style and follow system.

But Fondu is still appealing, I think, because it’s designed from the ground up to be a very social and light way to discover places from people that matter to you. Yelp often has a lot of long-winded reviews along with short quick tips, but the place is more of a large resource for finding places and less about following individual users whose tastes align with yours. Foursquare’s tips are helpful, but the service isn’t built around that function. Fondu is more of a Twitter-style network designed to surface quick tips and short reviews of places. That makes some sense to me, because on mobile, I don’t have much time, and I just want to get to pithy reviews about what makes a place good.

Recommendation business didn’t work

Manglik came up with the idea of SpotOn last year while studying computer science at NYU. She originally wanted to bring the recommendation experience of Netflix to places. But she found SpotOn users weren’t as motivated to rate places to get recommendations, something Bizzy also realized the hard way. But people did respond to the idea of sharing directly with friends. She said Fondu is really set up to make that process easy and frictionless while encouraging the kind of personal and casual communication that comes through on Twitter.

Fondu faces plenty of competition, not just from the previously mentioned apps. Newcomers such as Stamped, Oink and Wiket have all recently launched offerings to help users get recommendations or ratings about things from people. Fondu will face an uphill battle in gaining adoption with many people who are already used to turning to Yelp or other existing services for places reviews. The iOS app is available Tuesday, and the web version will come next followed by an Android app soon.

I’d like to think there’s room for Fondu, which I’ve been playing with for the last couple of days. I love perusing tips on Foursquare, looking for that one dish I shouldn’t miss on the menu. That to me is a real value, because it cuts to the heart of what makes a place great and serves it up in a short note. I wish Fondu made it a little easier to see all my friends immediately from the home screen, something Manglik said she’s working on. But overall, I like Fondu from what I’ve seen. A lot of its success will depend on building up a real network and community, and that will take some work. But I think there’s a place for it in this crowded market for reviews and ratings apps.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

IAC’s Crowded Room location app asks where you might go

Ryan Kim — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:00:21 +0000

Do we need another location-based check-in app? I would argue no, if it’s another Foursquare competitor. But Crowded Room, the first location-based app from IAC, isn’t just about your current check-in or about even the future check-in, something Ditto and other apps are trying to pursue. Crowded Room is introducing the idea of the ‘Might Go,’ a casual pre-check-in action that suggests where people might be interested in going that night, something that can create connections to friends and strangers based on shared places and interests.

At its heart, Crowded Room, which is available for free on iOS and Android, is trying to help users meet new people. The key is that in addition to the traditional check-in, which can be integrated with Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter, it invites people to say where they might go later that day. Users can indicate they might go to any number of places, which can then prompt others to head out with them. But the bigger goal is to help connect people that might have a shared affinity for certain places and other common interests.

Connecting users by place and interests

After a user indicates where they might go to, they can hit a People tab and see the other users who are currently at or plan to go the places a user might go to. With a Suggested button, they can see the profiles of people that Crowded Room thinks has something in common with a user, which could be a similar interest in places, common friends or other things. Crowded Room gets smarter with its recommendations as it learns more about a user.

Users can also drill down with a Places tab to get recommendations about places to hit. And they can see a map that shows where people are headed later that day, kind of like a heat map of intent. Specific places will show who might go there later that day or who is currently there. All the Might Go check-ins expire after one day so every action only refers to sometime later on the same day.

One of the more intriguing ideas is a Shortlist feature, which allows any user to privately show interest in another user that they’d like to meet. If another user also puts the original person on their shortlist, Crowded Room will notify both parties. Crowded Room offers a messaging feature to reach out directly to another user. Or it can be used to chat up someone at a location, which can be used to get a conversation started or just to get some information about that specific place.

Helping users find their kind of people

This has some similar aspects to other location-based apps. I mentioned Ditto, which helps friends coordinate for future check-ins. There seems to be an element of Sonar, which alerts users who check into a location about other people who are connected to them at that location. And there’s some Foursquare in there with recommendations about places to go. But Crowded Room is trying to be different, said Michael Kestenbaum, CEO of Crowded Room, who was formerly vice president of mergers and acquisitions for IAC.

He said the app isn’t really meant to coordinate evening plans with friends, something GroupMe and other messaging apps can do. And it’s not simply about building connections around a current location. And it’s more than just dating, something IAC already tackles with Match.com. It’s about helping users meet interesting people out and about.

“Where you go and what you do says a lot about the people you want to meet,” said Kestenbaum. “Crowded Room helps you find your kind of people at your kind of place by using the best aspects of social media to help create connections in the real world.”

Users have broad privacy controls and can decide who sees each check-in. They can also indicate what kind of people, male or female, that they’re interested in meeting.

Will the ‘Might Go’ work?

I’m curious about how this will work. I can see young, hip city dwellers potentially using this to see what’s happening in their city. If enough people use it, it can give you a good sense of what’s hot and where people might be headed. Now whether enough people use it to meet others, that’s harder to tell. Some people are avid users of location-based services but they’re not eager to leverage location to meet people. Some might find it a little bit much, or potentially a back-door dating service.

But for people who are open to meeting others, this could be interesting. The Might Go check-ins are a way to generate a lot more signals about someone beyond where they actually go. The fact that you short-list someone opens up a low-risk way to connect with another person. But again, you have to have people avidly using this to make it work. I wonder how many people will use this consistently. If I was dating, yeah, I might, but I’m not so I’m not sure I would make that much of an effort.

Advertising opportunity

If Crowded Room can get people to show potential intent to go to places, this could also be a way for local businesses to advertise. If a person is interested in coming to my bar tonight, maybe a discount will seal the deal. And if you can see that people are interested in heading out to a certain kind of restaurant tonight, that might be an opportunity for a restaurant owner to target them with an offer. It’s too early to say how Crowded Room will make money, but this could be one way.

Either way, it’s another sign that companies are still very intent on innovating on the check-in. It’s still a very important signal and if location-based companies can show there’s value for a user in exposing their location or their future whereabouts, it’s another opportunity to provide services and potentially make some money too.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Foursquare guns for Yelp, one feature at a time

Colleen Taylor — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:54:07 +0000

Foursquare has launched a new feature that allows users to create distinct lists of the places they’ve checked into or plan to visit in the future. This new functionality brings the New York City-based Foursquare more into the realm of user-generated recommendations long-dominated by review sites such as Yelp.

Previously, Foursquare allowed users to create “tips,” or recommendations of certain places, but they would all be together in one unsorted list. The new feature allows you to create specific groupings of places like the top 10 happy hour spots in your neighborhood, or the five best baseball stadiums you’ve ever been to. Lists can also track the places you want to go in the future, such as a list of 10 places you plan to see on your upcoming trip to Tokyo.

The new feature also has social capabilities such as the ability to create group-edited lists. Lists can also be shared with people who aren’t on Foursquare through email, Facebook or Twitter.

Foursquare’s lists feature is similar to Yelp’s lists, which allows users to collate reviews of places they’ve been or services they’ve experienced. But it bears mentioning that the imitation goes both ways: Last year, Yelp launched the ability to check-in to places using the site, essentially copying Foursquare’s signature check-in feature. Then Foursquare announced a partnership with restaurant review stalwart Zagat to allow its users to view in-depth reviews and recommendations. Though Foursquare and Yelp both started out in two very different realms — location-based check-ins and user reviews, respectively — the two companies are closing in on very similar turf with each new feature upgrade.

The new feature was launched Monday with public lists created by a number of Foursquare’s partners, which are brands including People Magazine, Lucky Magazine and Zagat. Here is a screenshot of a new Foursquare list by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck (click to enlarge):

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Found: A useful location app for task management

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:55:20 +0000

I’ve used a number of mobile task applications over the past 10 years, but only recently have these apps started to embrace the use of location. Instead, most task lists are time-sensitive with due dates, interval reminders and alerts. There’s nothing wrong with that; most tasks have to be done by a particular time. As the population becomes more mobile, however, time-based efforts should be supplemented with the context of location; especially since most smartphones support GPS technology.

Location Aware, a free app for Android, is a software title that combines task management with location. It’s neither the newest nor the only app in this class, but it’s simple, and it works. I read about Location Aware on Amit Agarwal’s useful Digital Inspiration blog a few days ago, and the app is already a daily staple on my Nexus One smartphone. I nearly forgot to grab some half & half — I can’t drink my coffee without it — while on the road this morning, but since I had set up a reminder in Location Alert, I was reminded to stop at the supermarket when I was driving nearby.

Setting task reminders is pretty simple in Location Alert; you can enter addresses directly, or use the integrated map functionality. Task alerts can be configured for certain date ranges or can be recurring on a weekly basis. There are also four distance options to choose from, which tell the app how near or far you have to be to a task location before sounding the alert. There’s also a deadline setting that will sound an alert reminder even if you’re not near a task location, so the app could be useful for basic, time-sensitive tasks, although it’s not really geared for such.

If you use iOS and like the idea of Location Alert, you could try the similar Task Ave. for $2.99, which we reviewed in January. Or you can simply wait for iOS 5 to arrive next month, which will include a native Reminders app that supports location-based task alerts.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Towerstream turns NYC Wi-Fi network into app distribution platform

Ryan Kim — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:00:20 +0000

Wi-Fi provider Towerstream is turning its superfast Manhattan Wi-Fi zone into a distribution platform for daily deal apps in a bid to monetize its wireless network, the largest in Manhattan. The company is partnering with BlisMobile, which will handle the app distribution through its AppZone service.

Users who want to gain free Wi-Fi access will now be able to pick from a list of sponsors, whose apps must be downloaded in order to gain four hours of free Wi-Fi. If a user already has an app, they’ll need to view an ad to access the network. Daily deal providers will make up some of the major sponsors on the network, who will rent out a channel on Towerstream’s network of almost 1,500 access points. Users will be able to see daily deals that are targeted for their location in Manhattan.

The deal represents a new money-making opportunity for Towerstream, which has been looking primarily at being an offload solution for carriers. Jeff Thompson, CEO of Towerstream, said app distribution and advertising could ultimately be a bigger revenue driver than the offload business.

“We believe that connecting consumers with products that are in their proximity is invaluable. Our distribution network for daily deals not only drives downloads to mobile apps; it significantly expands the reach of daily deal sites and all mobile app providers by offering untapped users, a key ingredient for all parties,” Thompson said.

It’s an interesting way to use Wi-Fi networks to distribute apps and target specific local users. With daily deal sites competing fiercely for consumers, this is a way to get their discounts in front of people who can take advantage of them. This could also prove appealing for any large brand looking to drive downloads of their apps. BlisMobile counts Amazon, Google, and eBay among its customers.

This shows the power of wireless and how it can be monetized in different ways. Especially as consumers face more data caps, free Wi-Fi access will be more appealing. Towerstream last year recorded days of more than 1 terabyte in usage and 21 million connections in a single quarter on its New York City network.

Also, for brands and companies, being able to target a location helps deliver very personalized and relevant messages. Towerstream isn’t segmenting its targeting by more than large neighborhoods, but it could theoretically break down offers to individual access points if it wanted to. The daily deals distribution service will likely be a big part of Towerstream’s business as it expands further in its 12 markets, starting next with San Francisco and Chicago.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Hooch.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Instagram tops 10,000 developers using Foursquare API

Colleen Taylor — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 23:39:01 +0000

More than 10,000 developers behind some of the hottest apps on the iPhone, iPod Touch and AndroidOS-based smartphones are using Foursquare’s application programming interface to tap into its location and places database, the company says. Foursquare launched its API in November 2009.

In a post published Friday on the Foursquare engineering blog, platform evangelist Akshay Patil writes:

We’ve seen some amazing apps and services built on our platform, which can power everything from simple web/SMS mash-ups hacked over a weekend, to month-long sweepstakes sending someone to space, to an innovative loyalty integration with American Express (which included seamless coupon redemption). Apps like Instagram, Foodspotting, and Venmo are using foursquare as their location layer. We’ve seen dogfood-distributing billboards,World of Fourcraft, and a New Year’s Eve party you could only get into by checking in. 10,000 incredible developers, all doing interesting things. That’s why we built this. And we can’t wait to see what else you come up with!

So what are these apps, and which ones are the most popular? According to a Foursquare spokesperson, the most popular third party app that uses Foursquare API for location-based check-ins is Instagram, followed by Tweetdeck, which was recently acquired by Twitter. Other top check-in apps include the likes of Sonar, Hootsuite, GetGlue. and ironically, one-time Foursquare rival Gowalla.

The most popular unofficial versions of the Foursquare apps (aka not developed by Foursquare itself) are Foursquare for WebOS, 4th & Mayor, Foursquare for Nokia S40, Foursquare for Nokia’s Socially, and Foursquare for WP7, which recently underwent a total rebuild.

Foursquare reaching the 10,000 developer mark is just the latest in a series of positive news out of the New York City-based startup. Foursquare closed on $50 million in new funding in late June, and last week the company celebrated the opening of a new outpost in downtown San Francisco. The company is seeing heady growth both in the US and abroad — nearly 50 percent of Foursquare usage is in countries outside the US, CEO Dennis Crowley recently told GigaOM. With a solid API strategy and an evidently devoted third-party developer base, Foursquare’s growth is currently showing no signs of slowing down.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Foursquare checks in to $50M in fresh funding

Colleen Taylor — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:06:09 +0000

Foursquare has raised $50 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, the company announced Friday. This latest batch of funding brings Foursquare’s total venture capital investment to just over $70 million.

The New York City-based startup, which provides a service that allows users to share their current location with friends, plans to put the money toward hiring more engineers, developing more offerings for merchants, and expanding internationally, co-founders Dennis Crowley (pictured here) and Naveen Selvadurai wrote in a company blog post announcing the new funding. The blog post reads: “The opportunity to build something meaningful in the location space is HUGE [emphasis theirs], and we feel well-positioned to capitalize on it.”

Foursquare has grown by leaps and bounds since its launch in March 2009. The company, which is set to open a new San Francisco office this month, says it currently has more than 10 million users and more than 70 employees. With a growing list of solid competitors in the location-based social networking space — think Facebook and Google, as well as an ever-expanding list of smaller apps such as Trover — the new backing will certainly come in handy as Foursquare works to keep its edge.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Researcher: iPhone Location Data Already Used By Cops

Bobbie Johnson — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:30:06 +0000

When British programmers Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden took the stage at the Where 2.0 conference to unveil their work on iPhone location tracking, it was clear they had some big news on their hands. The duo outlined what they called “the discovery that your iPhone and 3G iPad [are] regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file”. Their findings started a firestorm of media coverage.

But as the details came to light, one researcher was left scratching his head — because he’d already made the same discovery last year.

Alex Levinson, 21, works at the Rochester Institute of Technology in western New York, and he’s been studying forensic computing and working with Katana Forensics, which makes tools for interrogating iOS devices.

In a post on his blog, he explains that the existence of the location database — which tracks the cellphone towers your phone has connected to — has been public in security circles for some time. While it’s not widely known, that’s not the same as not being known at all. In fact, he has written and presented several papers on the subject and even contributed a chapter on the location data in a book that covers forensic analysis of the iPhone.

(One blogger reviewing the book in January mentioned the cell tower data and says “more and more you realize how much information Apple’s mobile devices could contain and how valuable this could be for your investigation”).

In his post, it’s clear Levinson takes issue with the claim of “discovery”. In fact, he told me by email that Allan and Warden had apparently missed out a whole area of existing research conducted by forensic analysts.

“It was a shock to me when this came out labeled as a ‘discovery’,” he explains. “I watched the video and they don’t appear to be interested in the forensic side of this, which is honestly where the research lies.”

Part of it seems to be a failure of researchers across different disciplines to plug into each others’ work. As Levinson put it, “They basically built a bridge without turning to the civil engineers — I’m not the only one familiar with this stuff”.

However, it’s not just bad communication among researchers to blame. He adds that the press missed the story first time around, and now seems more focussed on the horror of data storage than the reality (there, for example, is no evidence that the data is sent back to Apple at the moment).

“I do blame the press somewhat for sensationalizing them without recourse,” he says. “I emailed 20 of the top media outlets who covered this, linking them to my side — none of them replied, except a famous blogger who cursed me.”

Sometimes this is the case with research, and just because it’s not new to you, doesn’t mean it’s not news. Sometimes the people credited with breakthroughs are the ones who have been able to communicate their ideas to the right people. And clearly Allan and Warden’s presentation is having a lot of impact, not least because they have released the tools to make the data obvious to users.

The truth is, there may be more important things to consider than the issue of who discovered what. Levinson’s revelations are more important than that, because he explains that the location data is already being put to use. In his blog post he says (my emphasis):

This hidden file is nether new nor secret. It’s just moved. Location services have been available to the Apple device for some time. Understand what this file is — log generated by the various radios and sensors located within the device. This file is utilized by several operations on the device that actually is what makes this device pretty “smart”.

Through my work with various law enforcement agencies, we’ve used h-cells.plist on devices older than iOS 4 to harvest geolocational evidence from iOS devices.

That’s very interesting. It’s not that the location data was only already known about in some circles, but it’s actively being used by law enforcement agencies as part of their investigations. Levinson declined to divulge the names of those agencies, but told me that he had worked with “multiple state and federal agencies both in the U.S. and internationally”.

So when Allan and Warden say “Don’t panic… there’s no immediate harm that would seem to come from the availability of this data,” you have to ask whether that’s the case. There are no court orders needed to track your location history via an iPhone, since the devices are relatively open. All the investigator needs is the device itself.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Location Services Look to Future Check-Ins… With Friends

Ryan Kim — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:10:36 +0000

Earlier this week, I wrote about RedRover, a geo-social mobile network that allowed parents to connect, plan play dates and find places to go. Today Ditto, a new app from Jaiku founder Jyri Engestrom, is coming out of the gates with the premise of helping users get recommendations on the fly as they figure where to go next and who might want to join them.

In both cases, the emphasis isn’t where you are now or where you’ve been, but it’s about looking ahead to where you’ll be. That’s increasingly part of a larger shift in the location game as start-ups look to help users figure out where to go with personalized recommendations. Ditto is more weighted toward real-time recommendations from your current friends. It allows you to send out a query with a single click about where to go, what to eat or what movie to see, and it’s looking at expanding to books and music and other content. Users can send back suggestions or respond with a “ditto.”

What I think is interesting about RedRover and Ditto is that it’s not just about recommendations, but about creating future meetups. It’s throwing out an idea about what you might want to do or are planning on doing and seeing who responds. With Ditto, which is backed by True Ventures (see disclosure below) and Betaworks, you can say where you want to go and see who else wants to join. RedRover has a scrolling timeline where you can see not just where you’ve been but what events friends are casually posting in the future. They’re both giving us a lightweight and mobile way to schedule casual events.

There are already mechanisms for getting together, of course: People post things on Twitter or Facebook, but they can get lost in the stream at times. Group messaging apps can also serve this role on some level, but they’re more designed for real-time communication. Breaking this out into its own action makes sense because it’s designed to facilitate future check-ins with friends. Instead of sharing about where you’ve been, you’re figuring out where you and your friends can go together.

Location service WHERE also recently did something along these lines when it integrated its mobile app with Facebook Connect. When you click on a friend’s profile now, you can get place recommendations not just for you but both you and your friend together. The idea is that you’re finding another way to use location to be social in real life, to facilitate more real-world interaction.

I like that shift, and I think this is what we need more of. We’re not talking about formal Evites to people but simple location-aware apps and features dedicated to what people can do next together. It won’t be hard for the current location apps to incorporate this, and I think they should, just as many of them are doing with recommendations. What good is a check-in if not spent with friends?

Disclosure: True Ventures is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Why Nokia’s NAVTEQ Bought Hit Traffic App Trapster

Om Malik — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:11:30 +0000

Pete Tenereillo, the man behind the hit mobile traffic app Trapster is about to have a very holly-jolly Christmas. NAVTEQ – a Chicago-based mapping company that’s a division of Nokia — is rumored to have acquired Tenereillo’s company, according to AutoBlog. The auto-industry blog said there were about five companies in the running, and there was a bidding war for the company. The terms of the deal are not available. We’re waiting to hear back from Nokia and Trapster.

Trapster is a multi-platform application, which allows folks to report and get information about speed traps and road hazards. On a map, Trapster shows user-reported speed traps, red-light cameras, and speed cameras (the ones that actually issue tickets) that are close to you. It has been downloaded nearly 9 million times and has been one of the top location-based apps for a while. It is certainly a GigaOM favorite and a good example of crowdsourcing at work.

The crowd-sourced data is precisely why NAVTEQ bought the upstart company. As mapping data become commoditized, companies like NAVTEQ have to offer additional experiences on top of the raw mapping data. Practical information such as traffic conditions and speed traps are only some of the location-built experiences.

In a conversation, Nokia EVP Tero Ojanpera earlier this year said, ““We want maps to be part of everyday life, and as a result, we are working on building a richer experience on top of the map…I think it is going to become obvious that companies with mapping assets are at an advantage.” The company has been slowly building upon the idea of map-based experiences.

The acquisition of Trapster makes perfect sense and is a good move, as Trapster can only help enhance the value of NAVTEQ’s mapping information. When I first communicated with Tenereillo back in 2008, he told me his plan was to make the app available on all platforms, and he bootstrapped his company. It currently works on most major smartphone platforms and also with popular devices such as Garmin and Tom Tom.

Tenereillo has been working on the company he founded since 2003, but it wasn’t until the arrival of iPhones and the app store that Trapster found the momentum it needed to become a big smash. It’s now the number two most downloaded free navigation app in the iTunes app store.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):