Social Guides

Why my parents thinks it’s voyeurism (and the rest of us don’t).

scott.campbell — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:36:19 +0000

“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. Take one of my examples above: motion pictures. Many felt the invention was a pointless, over-priced novelty surely to fade away because after all .. there were books, radio, and the ever classical stage theatre. Surely Shakespeare himself would castigate the abomination. But while motions pictures claimed to “improve upon” those other mediums, what motion pictures actually did was evolve how an audience member could experience something happening outside of their 5 senses. Call it projection, call it trickery, call it “more efficient suspension of disbelief” - the point is that someone was one step closer to actually ‘being’ there, in that scene, with that hero, …

So while Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks allow us to communicate an idea to others (even if “…watched t.v. … now off to bed” is not much of an idea), what’s really happening is the broadcasting of my experience so others can be in it. And this is particularly exciting when you keep in mind users can now be involved in many experiences in a short time .. almost simultaneously.

To put it another way, if you draw a circle around the experiences I will have today, I was limited in having to describe these experiences and convey them over and into the circle of another person’s experiences. Today, that conveyance is made more tangible not technically by making communication easier, but by essentially allowing circles to overlap.

So to my parents, I shall excuse myself from the table & bid everyone a good night as I am going to bed now. To the rest of my jacked-into-the-internet friends, well .. they’re all a little closer to actually feeling what’s it like to be me, in my life, and shutting for the night.

For some reason, I’m @threedukes.

Fighting grumpy people, in these cities!

scott.campbell — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:53:59 +0000

Help us stop the grumpy people.

SocialGuides is making life fun and exciting for a lot of people, and we just won’t stop. We’re making it easier for people to find out which restaurants, nightspots, even hotels, are the most fun to be at. And it’s frustrating the grumpy people to no end.

We are fighting on the bars, and in the hotels. We shall fight them from the restaurants. The grumpy people can not .. will not .. prevail. We can band together, go out to a good time, and show the grumpy people their era is at an end.

Our forces are stationed across the nation.
California:
San Francisco
Santa Cruz
San Jose
Sunnyvale
Santa Barbara
Orange County
Los Angeles
San Diego
Georgia:
Atlanta
New York:
New York City
Florida:
Miami
Fort Lauderdale
Orlando
Washington:
Seattle
Illinois:
Chicago
Texas:
Dallas
Austin
Houston
Massachussetts:
Boston
Pennsylvania:
Philadelphia
Tennessee:
Nashville
Oregon:
Portland
North Carolina:
The Crystal Coast.

Soon, we will have sufficient defenses in New Orleans, St. Louis, Louisville, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Denver, and many more.

In closing troops, I ask you remember the words of Winston Churchill who said to his nagging wife, “I may be drunk, but tomorrow I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Good times, @threedukes

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides, finale

scott.campbell — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:18:59 +0000

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:

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.

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides - last, remaining hours

scott.campbell — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:29:18 +0000

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:

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.

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides in 3D

scott.campbell — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:33:40 +0000

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:

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.

9 county markers were passed in 23 minutes, for 4 counties, when we first entered Texas. How can we pass Gray County 3 times!?!
One of the best brunch spots in Louisville, KY is a place called “Toast”. Ask @freerider about it - he loves it.
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.

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides, part 8 - Movie sequels are silly

scott.campbell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:41:35 +0000

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

@nicholaspatten
@Elphaba
@mjmazzon
@asbird
@lance
(tied) @Kngcloudis, @Spencer
@catharticflux
@meikoseymour
(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 .

Social Guides Beta Release

jeremy — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:52:35 +0000

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.

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides, part 6 - The Curse of Michael Myers

scott.campbell — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:27:24 +0000

Friday and Saturday were pretty aggressive there, folks, and I like it!

@nicholaspatten did not take other friendly people nipping at his heels sitting down, gathered some friends, and has now pulled 14 ahead of @elphaba and 15 ahead of @mjmazzon despite their movement over the two days. How will they respond, I wonder.

@asbird had some movement as well, and is becoming that ‘quiet, no one notices’ opponent that may become a solid contender here soon, so watch it!

The ranks are, this Sunday afternoon, at:

You should be noticing some feature requests being rolled out this coming week, and some exciting news about the SocialGuides crew heading to the left coast. Apparently, Atlanta has no surfing. ;-)

As always, I am @threedukes.

iPhone Giveaway from Socialguides, part V - Order of the Phoenix

scott.campbell — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:20:42 +0000

Part IV of the SocialGuides’ iPhone Giveaway blog was missed .. in memory of Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

There has been a lot of activity lately, and I have to say now two people are giving @nicholaspatten a bit of a challenge. Coming in now closely behind him are Atlanta’s @elphaba and @mjmazzon, each now less than 10 invitees behind New York’s @nicholaspatten. The rankings this morning are:

Your response to SocialGuides has been great, everyone. Keep it up.

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. You @-reply me on SocialGuides - that’s probably best.

As always, I am @threedukes

iPhone Giveaway from SocialGuides, part III Return of the King

scott.campbell — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:08:38 +0000

Mordor may have been tough to conquer, but we’re building an army that can do it.

Many more friends have come onto SocialGuides, and we couldn’t be happier. The feedback continues to be great - both the flood of positive emails, but also the emails that help us identify an error or typo. Thank you everyone!

The current rankings are …

@nicholaspatten
@mjmazzon
@elphaba
@asbird
@Spencer
@catharticflux
@Kngcloudis
@meikoseymour
@Dave360
@delgadillo
@mblackmon2
@snowell1
@ericdenman
@freerider
@Gammill
@GGegner
@simplehuman
@angelaalmond
@bil2k

Keep up the good work folks. And remember everyone .. your invite code is on the left-hand bar, as pre-launch users have permission to invite their friends. Contest ends on midnight (Pacific time), August 17th.

As always, I’m @threedukes.