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The move is a collaborative innovation of Facebook's latest acquisition Gowalla and its visual designer-cum- CEO Josh Williams. "We joined at this time when location services were growing at a pretty amazing rate, but outside there wasn’t much public awareness about just how much people had been using location tagging for checking in and tagging photos and status updates" says Williams.
This is Facebook’s first venture into local business discovery, that offers the most happening tidbits about nightlife, shopping sites, eating joints, high end restaurants as and when your friends Like or Recommend them for you.
Well that was 'things-made-easy' news-bite for the consumers. But the other side of the story is that this is a definite spook call for other industrial players such as Yelp and Foursquare, who are fighting it out to keep up in the apps race.
Interestingly, Foursquare launched its newest iPhone App update with additional features about local businesses - its locations, hours and ratings with swipe-able photos, on the same day as Facebook announced its Nearby feature. The turf war is on, no doubt, but the focus of all the industry players is to provide the small local businesses a 'mobile identity' as well as the users a easy tool to pick and choose the places they want to visit. From the usability point of view, while Foursquare's app notifies the users about small details such as the weekly check-in data, Facebook's Nearby feature too is catching up.
Well one might think if both the players offer the same services how is that going to help me- the user! Well to get some facts straight, its all a play of which platform manages to attract more traffic. And how will that happen? The service matters. So we are back to square one again.
Now we come to why Nearby is a workable app.
To quote Tech Crunch's technology journalist John Constantine "people want recommendations they can trust...and from people you know who share your tastes — your friends". What Nearby does is effectively compile a comprehensive list of recommendations and rankings based on actual consumer experience. This includes business’ names listed category-wise, address, distance, star rating and friends who actually Like a thing.
Besides the collateral advantage to local consumers and businesses, it is a handy tool for travellers on a look out for discovery the culture of a place. Facebook has tried to patch up certain loose ends via Nearby, by allowing the users to share their experiences and particular recommendations through mobile websites. Additionally, Nearby's interface is designed such that it truly justifies Browsing, by cutting out on typing hassles.
If we purely rely on statistics, Facebook beats other industry players hands down on this count. It currently has 250 million monthly users while Foursquare and Yelp have a paltry 30 million and 71 million unique users respectively. Yelp's shares dipped considerably by 3% following Facebook's latest move. To zero-in on the question of who will be the most affected by this app launch is the small time restaurant curators while the hospitality industry can capitalize on this in the times to come opines Jim Stewart, StewArt Media CEO.
That really sums up why Facebook has captured the imagination of the present generation. Even if it introduces a new innovation at a not-so-large scale, its performance record still remains intact based on its established industry credentials. So far as Nearby's success is concerned, it looks good to go. Zuckerburg's shining luck will surely rub off on this strategic move as well. At least we hope so!
Do leave us your experiences and reviews about the app, we would be happy to share it on our blog for other readers.
Follow us on our Facebook page, Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feeds for more interesting reads.
Besides the collateral advantage to local consumers and businesses, it is a handy tool for travellers on a look out for discovery the culture of a place. Facebook has tried to patch up certain loose ends via Nearby, by allowing the users to share their experiences and particular recommendations through mobile websites. Additionally, Nearby's interface is designed such that it truly justifies Browsing, by cutting out on typing hassles.
If we purely rely on statistics, Facebook beats other industry players hands down on this count. It currently has 250 million monthly users while Foursquare and Yelp have a paltry 30 million and 71 million unique users respectively. Yelp's shares dipped considerably by 3% following Facebook's latest move. To zero-in on the question of who will be the most affected by this app launch is the small time restaurant curators while the hospitality industry can capitalize on this in the times to come opines Jim Stewart, StewArt Media CEO.
That really sums up why Facebook has captured the imagination of the present generation. Even if it introduces a new innovation at a not-so-large scale, its performance record still remains intact based on its established industry credentials. So far as Nearby's success is concerned, it looks good to go. Zuckerburg's shining luck will surely rub off on this strategic move as well. At least we hope so!
Do leave us your experiences and reviews about the app, we would be happy to share it on our blog for other readers.
Follow us on our Facebook page, Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feeds for more interesting reads.
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