I love location-based services!  But like almost any industry experiencing explosive growth and innovation, it would be nice if the rampant craziness of engineering feats was interrupted for a moment by common sense.  I don’t know who needs to do it, but someone does.

For instance, when you are offering a deal - “Hey .. you there .. I’ll give you 50% off my coffee if you buy it here instead of that shop across the street” - know when and where to offer it!  It does me no good to receive that offer as I am checking into “that shop across the street”, or even worse, while I am leaving it.

That’s where I feel location-based services like Gowalla or FourSquare are failing.  I check into a coffee shop and then it tells me if I go to someplace else, I’ll get a deal?  No thank you.  And don’t bother emailing me - that is worse than receiving the offer after I’ve purchased another product.

But let me give you some insight into lil’ ole’ me.  I go to a particular tea shop.  You guys know it’s a tea shop, as you have it listed as such.  And I go to this tea shop very often.  So often in fact, you guys are tripping over each other to give me badges.  If I am going there that often, chances are good I like tea*.  So how about the next time I flip open your application, I get your deals for tea and coffee right away.

Because it only requires common sense, not engineering, to figure out that I am not going to abandon the drink I just purchased in lieu of whatever deal you’re offering, and I am not going to remember the offer when I want to go for a second round (remembering where I want to go for my drinks is, after all, why I downloaded your stupid app in the first place).

As always, I’m @threedukes

* - Okay, I also go to this particular tea shop because the girls on both sides of the counter tend to be very high on the JimP scale.  But we’ll leave offers related to those kind of benefits for another time.

It’s been an interesting few months here at SocialGuides. The location space has heated up to say the least. This is in large part due to the success of check-in apps (Foursquare and Gowalla). We love what those guys have done and we couldn’t be more excited about it all – Location is our business…

Why do we love location? Location is all about the customer experience. It’s where the magic happens for a business – it’s what customers come for, it’s what customer experience is and it’s what customers talk about when they leave. read more »

Paul Grahm wrote a great essay a few months back called, “What Startups Are Really Like“.  If you haven’t already read it, go read it now, its an incredibly on point article about some of the things that surprise founders most when starting companies.  Collectively the SocialGuides founding team of Scott Campbell, Christian Gammill, and myself have been involved in at least a dozen startups and would most definitely echo nearly all of the things in the article.  They also echo many of the things we heard in the Shotput Ventures program that SocialGuides has had a pleasure of being a part of.  One of the things however that I feel hasn’t been articulated as well is the length of time it takes for things to happen at startups. (At least) twice as long as you expect.  Heck even this article, predictably enough, I was originally planning on writing two months ago.  But alas, getting around to blogging again has taken me twice as long as expected.

So what is the twice as long theory? It simply states that everything you do will take twice as long as you think it will.  Yes, even if you are focused, yes even if you have smart people on your team, yes even if you subscribed to “modern methodologies” like agile.  Why? Simply because founders are inherently aggressive in what they believe can be accomplished (you have to be) and incredibly resource strapped at the same time (well you should be anyways).

We basically started working on SocialGuides at the beginning of 2009. At that point my timeline looked a little something like this: have a demo in 2 months, have a private alpha in 5 months, a beta in 8 and start commercializing by month 12.

What actually happened?

read more »

The fine hosts, Amanda Coolong and Mark Jeffrey over at This week in Android had Jeremy on the show to talk SocialGuides and all things related to android phones.  Give it a watch below or check out the full details (include how to get a early release copy of the SocialGuides android app) of episode 3 on thisweekin.com

“I just don’t understand why others need to know that you’re going to bed, or that you’re at the store,” were the exasperations from my parents when I first described Twitter and Facebook to them.  But that confusion is the modern analog of the usefulness of motion pictures or public libraries when they first appeared, or why aircraft carriers are now the kings of naval warfare and not battleships:  the core nature of what’s taking place has evolved.

What is taking place is not simply communicating every act we perform (however lofty of insipid), but offering our experience for others to take part. read more »

I hate long speeches.  I do insist, however, on thanking everyone who joined, got friends to join, and especially those who continue to use our site and stick with us as we grow from “in the basement” startup to a site that aims to become a part of our everyday lexicon.  Okay, long enough…

@asbird is the final winner.  He had the most friends join, doing the very social method of recruitment: he went to friends and asked them to join, use the site, and see about going places.  Congratulations! (We shall be in touch for details, dude.)

@nicholaspatten did an amazing job, and I want to thank him especially for all his blog posts, Twitter activity, and even working some magic by getting people to donate to charity as they joined SocialGuides using his invite.  Nice work, @nicholaspatten.

@Elphaba had a phenomenal run as well, with some of her friends being the more active members of the site overall.  Additionally, she is the only one I found with a friend who joined, indicating in their profile that they were “…made to do it.”  -laugh-  Apparently, @Elphaba is not to be trifled with.

The remaining standings were:

1. @mjmazzon
2. @lance
3. @Kngcloudis, @Spencer
4. @catharticflux, @MichelleHight
5. @meikoseymour, @tessa

2 quick things in closing.  Next up is an Android Giveaway, but before people start conjuring images of C-3PO serving them breakfast & doing their French final (he does speak over 500 languages), I’m talking about the Google Android G1 smart phone.  We’re launching an application for that phone, so in the next day or two, we will start a contest for a free giveaway of one those phones.  I used to work at Google, so there should be some fun stories for ya as that contest goes on.

Lastly, now that the contest has ended, I would love to know what you thought of the contest - what you disliked, liked, want to see more of?  Contact me on SocialGuides by typing a note with @threedukes at the beginning.  If you want to send me a lot of information, tell me so on SocialGuides and I’ll send over my email to ya.

I look forward to hearing from everyone, but not before you’ve talking about some places you were at this weekend, on SocialGuides, first.

As always, I am @threedukes.

Well folks, this is the final stretch.  At midnight tonight, Pacific-time (3am for those on the east coast, like @nicholaspatten and @asbird), the iPhone giveaway contest ends and the winner declared!

But this only opens us up for the next contest.  SocialGuides will be available in the Apple Store soon (for free) so we felt it appropriate to have an iPhone contest.  However, SocialGuides is blowing up so big, we accelerated our production schedule for other mobile devices as well, with the next mobile platform getting a SocialGuides app is the ever cool, ever snappable, ever black Google G1 Android.  See the details for that contest coming soon, but first … how is that iPhone contest going?

So the race is getting down to the wire, and it’s close folks.  Realizing that he had a whole fraternity house full of friends, @asbird has confidently moved 13 users ahead of @nicholaspatten, but @Elphaba is also bringing her long list of friends to bear and is only 8 users behind the 2nd slot. I’m thinking that all of the consistent effort from @nicholaspatten in the beginning just totally intimidated @mjmazzon as he seems to be moving slowly, and now @lance is about the surpass him.

So the standings for the next 6.5 hours are:

1. @asbird
2. @nicholaspatten
3. @Elphaba
4. @mjmazzon
5. @lance
6. @Kngcloudis, @Spencer
7. @catharticflux, @MichelleHight
8. @meikoseymour, @tessa

Set them loose folks .. this site rocks and it’s so great to be able to find a place based upon what people are actually saying about it .. and to even see what people are saying that very moment!  For instance, check out my play-by-play in Santa Barbara of #california taco# .

As always, I am @threedukes.

So as you know, two of our fearless co-founders (@jeremyalmond and myself) are road-tripping it from Atlanta to San Francisco, throwing down notes on our travels as we can. Remember kids … do not type on your phone while driving, unless it’s typing on SocialGuides.

So I leave the blog alone for a couple days, and look at the upsets. The famous and strong @nicholaspatten is being ousted by the suddenly very active @asbird, who is now 6 new invitees ahead. @Elphaba has been seeing some action as well, now a mere 11 invitees behind the #2 slot. @mjmazzon .. what happened? Ya gotta fire up that mojo some.

The rankings, as they stand this very moment, are:

1. @asbird
2. @nicholaspatten
3. @Elphaba
4. @mjmazzon
5. @lance
6. @Kngcloudis, @Spencer
7. @catharticflux, @MichelleHight
8. @meikoseymour, @tessa

As @jeremyalmond and I race across the country, in search of adventure (or just trying to dodge misadventure), look for our notes on SocialGuides. However, I wanted to put some unique tid-bits in here, which cannot be found anywhere else.

1. 9 county markers were passed in 23 minutes, for 4 counties, when we first entered Texas. How can we pass Gray County 3 times!?!
2. One of the best brunch spots in Louisville, KY is a place called “Toast”. Ask @freerider about it - he loves it.
3. For all our jesting, Texas and Oklahoma were very pretty, country-side wise. Several people driving in the cars we passed? Not so much.

As always, I am @threedukes.

We launched private Beta yesterday, to rave reviews!!  We are now receiving great feedback not just from you, our users, but now also from the industry and journalists.  We are so happy with the response.  Of course, with the launch of our Beta site, comes more people, so the contest just got a bit more interesting!

Some people have been thinking that our iPhone Giveaway contest is over, and so I am here to clear the confusion.  People can register now without the need of an invite code … but if they include their invite code (there is a field to do that during registration), you get the reference and the contest continues.  The only difference now is that a user doesn’t need an invite code.

So to get the iPhone, still send your invite code - and make sure your friends add it in during registration.  The contest ends at midnight, Pacific-time, on August 17th.

Still in the lead is @nicholaspatten, and still nipping at his heels are @Elphaba and @mjmazzon.  @asbird and @lance showed a lot of movement in the last 24 hours, though they’ll need at least 21 more people to join to edge out @nicholaspatten.

So the standings so far

1. @nicholaspatten
2. @Elphaba
3. @mjmazzon
4. @asbird
5. @lance
6. (tied) @Kngcloudis, @Spencer
7. @catharticflux
8. @meikoseymour
9. (tied) @Dave360, @delgadillo, @mblackmon2, @simplehuman, @snowell1

Remember that you can contact me on SocialGuides, and I will help resolve any question you might have.

As always, I am@threedukes .

Imagine if all of those tweets and status updates from people you know could be used to find more relevant local search results? Enter SocialGuides. The small startup from Atlanta’s Shotput Ventures has succinctly mixed contextualized local search data with realtime social input, making it easy for friends to share their experiences around them.

Users of SocialGuides tie their notes to a business through direct conversation on the page of the business (think of being in the actual business as you talk about it) or by using the popular method of hash-tagging the businesses name through status updates.  The note appears in the business (allowing others to see what is ‘happening’ in that business in real-time) as well as appear in the feed of a user.  Later, when a user searches for a relevant business, the search is enhanced by all of those experiences left.

These days, more and more reviews found on local search sites are inaccurate, seeded by the listed business itself, or simply just doesn’t match well with a users interests.  And while many consumers are now sharing experiences via sites like Twitter and Facebook, much of the information has no context. If a user is hoping to find what their friends would consider to be a good place to go, they still have to perform further actions to find where the business is located, whether it’s close, or to find the basic business attributes.

SocialGuides is the happy marriage of the two, where the real-time nature of posting notes allows users to find places to go based on the people they know. Detailed business information is provided, including maps and lists of amenities, but more importantly the notes occurring for that business are in real-time. In fact, users can understand the experience at a business beforehand, deciding whether to go or not.

SocialGuides also takes it one step further, by adding Expertise and Prestige as ways to quantify the value of users and business.  The more a community believes a certain user is properly contributing, the greater their expertise rating.  And businesses that continue to have positive experiences from users gain Prestige, allowing SocialGuides to offer more relevant local search results in a city even if their friends have never been there.

The billions of postings on socialmedia sites have been considered the next frontier for the $7.1B local search market.  With the popularity of SocialGuides, even during their preliminary invitation-only launch, users are excited to discover that their next dinner date at or a nice night out can simply be found through the shared experiences of their friends.