A unique spin on location-based social networking and gaming with a healthy dose of algorithmic utility
Originally published on the MomentFeed Location Blog.
Whrrl offers the standard check-in feature made popular by Foursquare. It also offers the ability to upload photos around places (so does Gowalla). And it deeply integrates gaming mechanics (so does SCVNGR). The best features, however, are entirely unique to Whrrl.
Whrrl’s parent company, Pelago, has been around since 2006. Its founders have deep experience in the areas of online consumer behavior and recommendations through years spent at companies like Amazon, Overture, and Yahoo!. This is evident in Whrrl’s design, mission, and user experience as they apply many of these same principles to the physical world.
When you check-in on Whrrl, it triggers a number of algorithms that seek to solve what the company terms “social rut” by “bringing together people with the same real-world passions to share ideas in a social game experience.” First, you might see a fun fact about what other place people check into most frequently prior to checking in where you are. If you look at a Whrrl location page on the web, such as Yankee Stadium, you can see the most popular pre- and post-checkin places. While this is interesting for users, it’s especially valuable for a place owner to gain “footstream” insight about where customers come from and where they go when they leave.
Checking in via Whrrl also triggers membership in “Societies.” These are users who are grouped together according to the interests they reveal through checking in. Users as well as brands can also create Societies for others to join. This unique feature facilitates meeting new people who not only share similar interests but who likely live or work nearby. It’s also valuable for a place owner to know how their locations map to various societies and interests.
The Whrrl activity stream is rich with checkins, photos, comments, fun facts, and recommendations. Whrrl dynamically serves recommendations based on a user’s friends and checkin behavior. These can be ignored or confirmed as something one wants to do. There is also an “Ideas” tab that filters recommendations by friends, proximity, and the societies to which one belongs. Every feature and algorithm is designed to facilitate real-world discovery.
Today, Whrrl announced new recommendation features and integration with Facebook Places. Below is the press release.
Whrrl Launches Amazon-Like Recommendations Engine for the Real World
SEATTLE, Oct. 13 — Pelago, makers of Whrrl, today announced they have launched the first Amazon-like recommendations engine for the real world. Starting now, Whrrl will offer personalized recommendations to users about new and highly relevant places to go and specific things to do based on their real-world activity, interests and Whrrl’s unique social graph. This new release is now available on the iPhone.
This release represents a significant innovation in the location-based social space. Currently, location-based social services are primarily used as friend-finders. Whrrl has gone beyond checking in and friend finding to continuously work on the user’s behalf unearthing highly relevant discoveries in the world around them. This is made possible by Whrrl’s Society model and algorithms. Based on a person’s physical world patterns, users join Societies, which are groups of people with similar interests, tastes and passions. There are already over 4,000 Societies created by Whrrl’s community.
Whrrl’s algorithms take into account a user’s check-ins and recommendation activity, as well as the activity of Society members and friends to compute new, personalized recommendations. Recommendations appear on the home page of the mobile application and are also sent via email in a weekly digest. Whrrl’s unique “influence loop,” in which users earn points and level up in Societies by influencing others, assures the best recommendations get exposure to the right people in the community. Examples of recommendations include, “People who go to the places you’ve gone also go to…” “89% of members in the Foodie Society want to do this recommendation.” “A Level-10 VIP in the Wasabi Society recommends the following sushi dish.”
“Pelago was founded with the goal of bringing Amazon.com-like recommendation technology to the real world,” said John Kim, Vice President of Products for Pelago. “Jeff Holden, Pelago’s founder, CEO and ex-senior executive from Amazon, is the foremost expert in this space. It is an advantage that no one can match.”
“This news isn’t a surprise coming from Whrrl, who already has the most advanced segmentation strategy in the location-based space,” said Mike Schneider, Senior Vice President, Director Digital Incubator at Allen and Gerritsen. “Why should people check in? It goes far beyond just points and badges. The more information you share, the more you should receive in return. Whrrl is the first location-based service to offer the ideal marriage of content, context and place that enables them to give users the best recommendations at the most relevant time. This has the potential to be a total game changer.”
In addition, Whrrl is also launching integration with Facebook Places. Now, when users check in on Whrrl, they have the option to syndicate their check-ins, photos and notes to their Facebook Places feed.
About Pelago, Makers of Whrrl
Pelago was founded to revolutionize the way people experience and explore the physical world. Whrrl, the company’s flagship product, is a real-world game with a purpose – to help people escape from behind their computers and patterned lives, to get back out into the physical world with the promise of compelling, highly relevant new experiences. The company was founded in 2006, is based in Seattle, and is led by an executive team from companies including Amazon.com, RealNetworks and Yahoo. Pelago is backed by pioneering Internet and mobile investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bezos Expeditions, T-Venture, Trilogy Equity Partners and Reliance Technology Ventures.
2 responses so far ↓
1 John Kim // Oct 13, 2010 at 10:01 am
Max,
This post is excellent. Your deep understanding of this space makes it a great read.
John Kim
2 Local Discoveries and Not-So-Secret Societies: Whrrl : Pelago, Inc. // Nov 11, 2010 at 4:51 pm
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