It Knows Where You Are & What You’re Looking For
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Big Web companies and start-ups alike are scrambling to create the best applications to allow users to search for surrounding businesses and events from a mobile phone.
Loopt, a service that lets people find their friends on the go, is now entering the crowded field.
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Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Sam Altman, left, and Alok Deshpande, center, co-founders of Loopt, met Patrick Chung, right, when they were testing their newest release.
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A sample of a Loopt map.
On Tuesday, Loopt will introduce a new search service, Pulse, on its Web site. An updated application for Apple’s iPhone will be available soon.
Mainstream search engines from Google and Microsoft already offer local business listings, and the popular user review sites Yelp and Citysearch have mobile phone applications. Smaller sites like NearbyNow and Metromix are also jumping into mobile search, which uses the GPS capability in many cellphones to figure out where a person is and show ads for nearby businesses.
“Everybody’s got an eye on the mobile space and location as a central part of the search experience, but I don’t think there is some definitive app,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst on local mobile search. “It’s very elusive because it’s such an unwieldy segment.”
Loopt aims to distinguish itself by making its service comprehensive. It incorporates feeds from 20 sources, including listings and review services like Zagat, Citysearch and Eventful as well as content sites like DailyCandy, Thrillist and The Village Voice.
Pulse produces a personalized and ever-changing list of recommendations based on where you are, the time of day and Loopt’s own data on where you and your friends have been. It shows editorial descriptions and reviews from the partner sites and averages the ratings a business has received.
Pulse also factors in more subjective factors, like which places are particularly popular with Loopt users at a given moment. That will help Pulse come up with recommendations that a site like Google might not, said Sam Altman, a Loopt co-founder.
“One thing we’ve tried to do is strike a nice balance between purely algorithmic search and saying, “This is a brand-new and hot coffee shop that just opened in this city,’ ” he said.
Pulse is a new direction for Loopt, which has been focused on helping people find friends who are nearby and checked into the service.
Unlike competitors like Foursquare, Loopt gets some revenue from cellphone carriers, which include its service in their data plans or buy its technology to run their own location-based applications.
Pulse lists businesses like gyms and gas stations and events like movies and farmers’ markets, in addition to the usual bars and restaurants. It hopes to become partners with more sites, so users might be able to book tickets or make reservations from within the application. It also plans to include data from Twitter’s future location-based service.
The pitch to advertisers is compelling, Mr. Altman said, because Pulse knows where someone is, what they are looking for and what they previously liked. Retailers like Jack in the Box, Target and Chili’s have already agreed to offer coupons on Pulse. Users can save coupons to their phone to show the cashier.
Mobile coupons can get seven times as many responses as those in print or online because people do not need to write down a code or print the coupon, said Maria Mandel, executive director of digital innovation at Ogilvy, the advertising agency.
Still, Ogilvy does not have many clients that are interested in location-based promotions, she said. “The issue with mobile right now is you don’t have a large enough audience size at the moment. That will change as the media channel grows.”
Pulse will also share revenue with content partners like Citysearch. When a user reads a Citysearch review on Pulse and then clicks on the restaurant’s Web site, both Citysearch and Loopt will earn money.
Yelp, one of the most popular sites for searching local businesses, is notably absent from Pulse. That is because Yelp was not convinced that Loopt would clearly show that its reviews and information came from Yelp, said Stephanie Ichinose, a Yelp spokeswoman.
Mr. Altman said he hoped to cooperate with Yelp in the future. “I have huge respect for Yelp, and they’re probably the leader in the local content space right now, but I don’t think they’re better than everything else put together,” he said.
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partner / 03.11.2009
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