Seattle-based tech start-up Pelago thinks its Whrrl iPhone app has a better way to get you to check in to local establishments on your smartphone: recommendations.
Location services such as Whrrl, Foursquare and Gowalla are duking it out in the competitive “friend finder” and check-in app market against 500 million-member gorilla Facebook. The social-networking giant recently entered the space with its Facebook Places, a tool to let friends know where you are at any given moment.
Expanding recommendations about new restaurants and local businesses is what can differentiate Whrrl from rivals, says founder and CEO Jeff Holden, a former Amazon executive. Whrrl is introducing the tools Thursday. Holden says Whrrl can take advantage of the data generated by its 500,000 users to say that if you liked Mexican restaurant A, for instance, you’re likely to also like restaurants B and C, based on your choices and the choices of friends.
Prior to the new technology being introduced this week, Whrrl’s members received information about what specific restaurants or locales their friends were frequenting.
Holden calls the tools “Amazon.com-type recommendations for the real world. Based on the places you go and the things you do, we’ll be able to recommend things to you.”
Four-year-old Pelago, which is backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ iFund, is just starting to make money from local advertising. Merchants advertise on Whrrl with offers in a game-like setting. For instance, Harrah’s hotel in Las Vegas offers games of chance to win a free room, dinners and pool cabanas for checking in. Other clients include Red Bull beverages and Murphy USA gas stations.
“This is how a check-in can really drive traffic into a local business,” Holden says. “And unlike offline, we have the data to prove that you checked in and saw the ad.”
Lots of mobile apps have tried…