FB Connect and UpNext

There has been a lot of data portability news lately with both Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect launching within days of each other.

We have been utilizing some version of Facebook Connect for a while on UpNext. It is easy to use your Facebook ID to create an account on UpNext. It will also automatically bring together your friend connections if they have also logged into UpNext.

I personally don't have much to add to the data portability conversation because I really think what has been offered to date only scratches the surface. Until there is true data portability this is filed under nice feature rather than killer feature.

It is understandable that Facebook, Google and others are slowly sharing data in phases. Making sure things are set up correctly. There is also the question of what data should be shared. Afterall, part of Facebooks value proposition is that they were the ones that were able to get users to share so much data.

We will continue to dabble in the data portability solutions and create ways for people to better interact with UpNext and their social circles. Looking forward to seeing what comes next from this movement.

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Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Because of forthcoming traveling and holiday merriment, we wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving a little early.



Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.





Also, for those of you braving Black Friday in New York City, don't forget to use UpNext to figure out where all the stores are located to plan your shopping strategies.

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UpNext Map Permalink: Email, Blogs, Twitter, Tumblr

At UpNext, we try to make it easy for you to explore and discover this great city of New York. Users love how they can intuitively find places to eat, drink, shop, sleep, and more. We recently added a feature so you can share your finds with others.

You can now create a map permalink and share it with your friends. Here is an easy step by step tutorial.

1) Find the Place you want to share
Navigate the map and use the search bar, category medallions or activity buttons to find the business, landmark, intersection, or address you want to share.

2) Map Permalink

Click on "Map Permalink" button on the top right corner of the map

or

the "Send it to" button on the right side bar.





3) Customize the snapshot
- Select the size of your desired snapshot. A red box will appear which are the borders for the image size.
- Move the map to center your selection and to include any landmarks or streets you think are appropriate.
- Click "Create Snapshot" to capture.


(The example above shows the new Shake Shack on the Upper West Side. We have included the street names as well as the Natural History Museum on the right for context.)


4) Share the map permalink

- Copy the URL and send it in an email

- Copy the embed URL and post it to your blog

- Send the image along with a message directly to your Tumblr

- Post a Twitter message with the map url included





These permalinks are great for adding visual locations to messages. Here are some example of the permalinks in use. Twitter Example, Tumblr Example

If you come up with or see any other creative uses for UpNext permalinks, please let us know in the comments.

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Pitching VC's: The Big Three Auto Way

By now you have read about the CEO's of the Big 3 automakers flying to Washington in private jets to request taxpayer bailout money. Here's the link in case you missed it.

If Congress does indeed bailout the automakers, then perhaps we should all consider pitching investors the Big 3 Way rather than cutting costs and being lean.

Here is how I would do it.

- Show up to the meeting in an Audi R8 and park it next to the VC's BMW. Make sure he notices it from his office window by honking loudly when you pull up. (Even better, if you get there before him, make sure to park in his space if he has one.)

- Bring at least 6 people to the meeting. Make sure they all have VP or Director titles. That way the VC's knows that they get paid a lot of money, but there are still people above them getting paid even more.

- Bring along the consulting firm you hired to put your pitch deck together. McKinsey or the B's (Bain, BCG, Booz) would be best.

- During the getting to know you part of the discussion, make sure to invite the VC to the company holiday party at Per Se (or French Laundry) so that he can meet the rest of the team.

- When talking about the issues with your product, make the analogy that a product has to be tailored to each user like the custom suit you are wearing.

- When asked about possible exits, get your bankers and lawyers on the phone (both on retainer) and have them talk about the IPO window opening in 2009.

- When the receptionist/assistant/intern brings in some bottled water, make sure to tip him a benjamin.

- If he ever dares to question your spending, imply that he does not care about employee safety. If he looks confused, start rambling about standard procedures.

Let me know if you have other suggestions in the comments.

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NYC Hyperlocal Community

Last night a group of hyperlocal/LBS web companies got together for food and drinks at Pop Burger Midtown. It was a great evening and I hope that there are more events to come.

Here are some of the companies represented:

• 8coupons.com
• upnext.com
• unype.com
• outalot.com
• www.mobiledreamsfactory.com
• socialight.com
• truping.com
• pinchmedia.com
• cupidslab.com
• ibegin.com
• yipit.com
• gomobo.com
• outside.in
  
• 4square (or is it foursquare)

There are probably some that I missed (apologies in advance) but it was a great turnout. Special thanks to Landy and Murat for organizing.

This was probably one of the best meetup/networking events I have attended. It is great to be in a room with fellow entrepreneurs who are trying to solve similar issues. At one point there was a group discussion about a very niche local related topic which probably would have bored most people at regular tech events. But last night it led to a deep discussion that included everyone. It was nice to be able to take a deep dive into issues without having to explain the greater details.

There are some very smart and motivated people working great local solutions in New York City and beyond. If you are involved in the hyperlocal, location based services domain definitely join us so that the community can continue to grow.

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Medallions and Community Buttons

Medallions (or category) search has now been moved into the map area. This makes it easier to search and navigate by keeping everything in the map.


Also the medallions are now clearly labeled below and the on/off functionality is easily recognizable. Try them out yourself. We have...

• Hotspots (What's new in the city - restaurants, bars, shops)
• Nightlife (bars, clubs, lounges)
• Restaurants (search by cuisine and then filter by attributes)
• Shopping (lots and lots of shopping in NYC)
• Hotels (search by star rating)
• Recreation (salons, spas, theaters, gyms, etc)

Also, on the right side of the map, you will see community buttons as shown below.

Use these 3 buttons to discover places through your friends and the UpNext community.

- Friends: Shows reviews, favorites and places marked by your friends

- Community: Shows the latest reviews, top favorites and popular places from the UpNext community based on the area of the map.

- My Profile: Shows all the places you have marked. Your own personally annotated guide to the city.


Vik was the lead on getting these medallions done while Robin was the creative force on the sleek look and design. Gotta give credit where credit is due. Hope you enjoy and find them useful.

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Yelp Reviews

There is nothing better than having a passionate user base. We love our UpNext community members and all the feedback they give us.

So when given the opportunity to leverage another great group of users, we jumped at the chance.

The Yelp API allows us to bring more content into UpNext, helping you better understand and evaluate businesses in NYC.

Once a venue is selected. Click on "More Info" in the venue window to open the expanded sidebar. Here you will see up to 3 reviews from Yelp related to that business.


The screenshot above is a great example of how UpNext combined with Yelp content can be a very useful tool. Mr. Jones is a Japanese restaurant that opened this month. You can tell it is a new restaurant by the glowing red dot hovering over the location (UpNext Hotspots). When you click on "More Info", 2 Yelp reviews appear.

For a place that has been open less than a month, these Yelp reviews provide you with some immediate feedback on the location. Pretty impressive stuff from the Yelp community.

So take a look around when exploring New York City. Let us know how you like the Yelp integration and any feedback you might have.

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UpNext 2.0 or as we call it UpNext (the way better version)

So the team has been working overtime on this new version of UpNext. Honestly, I am blown away by the improvements and want to share them with everyone.

Even before you read this post, go to the new site (www.upnext.com) and check it out.

Here is a list of the new stuff we want to point out. (We will be writing expanded follow up posts on some of these features.)

1) Usability

Load time - UpNext now loads as fast as any other webpage. This required quite of feat of engineering by Raj, so please direct all your praise to him.
(Note: The first load will take slightly longer as we do need to build the base of the city initially. But subsequent visits will be fast.)

Speed and Stability - The overall UpNext experience is now faster and more stable. Try it out, you will notice the difference immediately. Exploring the city is now, an even better experience.


2) Features

Yelp Reviews - We are now utilizing the Yelp API to bring in more content for our users. When you click on the "More Info" button, you will see 3 Yelp reviews in addition to any editorial and user reviews that were there previously.

Permalinks - In the top right corner of the map, there is a icon labeled "Map Permalink". This feature allows you to take a snapshot of any part of the map and share it in an email, blog, Facebook, where ever you want.

Medallion - We have taken the category community medallions and brought them into the maps. (See the glowing buttons on the top and right of the map area?)
This allows to you to focus your interaction within the map and to easily find anything (from restaurants and nightlife to recommendations from other users and friends.)


3) Overall Look and Feel

We have improved the look and feel of the city. Fly around midtown and you will see a noticeable difference in how the city looks. There are more landmarks and better textures for all buildings.

Also, zoom down to the street level. Play around down there and run around the city. (More is coming for this feature so keep an eye out.)


There is a lot more in this new version than we listed above but those are just the highlights. Go check out the new site. Tell your friends about it. And tell us what you think, we would love to hear from you.

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UpNext featured in Forbes.com

The last couple weeks have been pretty good for us in terms of press. We did an interview with Maureen Farrell at Forbes.com. Check out it out to see some new stuff that we are working on.

UpNext on Forbes

(Sorry, no embed option again)

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UpNext on CW11 Morning News

It has been a while since our last post. We have been in a black hole of sorts getting the new and improved UpNext ready. It should be coming soon so keep an eye out.

In the meantime, enjoy this segment that aired on the CW11 morning news a couple days ago.

Raj and Vik both did an awesome job and are naturals in front of the camera.

UpNext on CW11

(Sorry no embed option on this video.)

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Hyperlocal: The ad side of the equation

I recently read a post on Peter Krasilovsky's blog, The Local Onliner, about Citysquares and the progress they have made. Here are some of the numbers Peter mentions...

Boston-based CitySquares, which just celebrated its second anniversary, is getting about 70,000 unique visitors per month and now has a base of 700 advertisers, averaging $1,200 per year, reports CEO Ben Saren. He believes they have even more potential via upsells such as video, sponsored/display ads, etc.

Those are some impressive numbers for the team over at Citysquares. I have met Ben and Bob, the founders, many times at local conferences and other tech related events. They are great guys who are passionate about building a fantastic product. These guys really get how to connect and work with local businesses and I think the results to date speak for themselves.

Citysquares is becoming another example of how hyperlocal can work by focusing on one area and becoming the experts there. But most site want to grow, expand and become national players. Thus Citysquares is now expanding outside of the Boston area into other Northeast cities. So the question becomes, how do you scale this advertising model to each region?

Is it simply a matter of throwing more sales people into the pot? More sales people is a solution, but does not make for a very scalable proposition. And this is the issue that most local sites face when trying to expand. There is very little, if any, overlap in your customer base and relationships must be build again from the ground up.

(While some of you might think this is a perfectly fine sales model, it should be understood that on the web it is expected that you have an self serving algorithmic based sales robot that requires no salary and can handle an infinite amount of customers while still converting an infinite amount of new customers. This way your revenues achieve hockey stick like growth while your costs remain flat.)

So while the promise of hyperlocal tantalizes, the economics of it seem to lag. But having attended many local conferences this past year, I can tell you that there are many smart people and companies working on new solutions. And having chatted with them in the past, I know Ben and Bob have some innovative and interesting ideas on hyperlocal and how to make it work.

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Hyperlocal: How can it work?

The recent news of the Washington Post's struggles to establish their local property LoudonExtra.com has sparked some conversation around hyperlocal and how to make it work?

Fred Wilson, a NYC venture capitalist, has written many times on hyperlocal and has made an investment in Outside.in which focuses on created newspapers for every zip code. He recently wrote a post entitled, "Hyperlocal Has To Be Peer Produced".

I have been interested in "hyperlocal" for years and have blogged about this topic quite a bit. From day one, I've been convinced that hyperlocal must be "peer produced". That means we together will document what is going on in our streets, our schools, our churches, our parks, and our communities. No "newsroom centric" model is going to work. That's how I see it.

I completely agree that peer produced content is the way to go for hyperlocal sites. Yet, there must still be an editorial voice or curator in the background to help filter and frame the stories that emerge from a neighborhood. The noise to signal ratio on peer produced content can become overwhelming without some filters. Individuals can produce great peer produced content but once aggregated that great content can become noise.

Local aggregators are becoming more and more popular. Local news, local events, local promotions, local anything. You crawl the web for it, you aggregate it, and you plot it on a map and there is your new hyperlocal site. But the reality is that the majority of users are not looking for all the deals in their area or all the events in their area. They want a direction or voice behind the information.

This is why email newsletters are successful. The Daily Candy's and Urban Daddy's of the world establish a voice and provide relevant local content that has been pruned and plucked for the user.

The Washington Post's struggles show why the peer produced content can not be ignored. But this peer produced content needs to be managed and filtered. In a sense, we are all reporters with an editorial staff behind us.

(Note: We did not touch upon scalability and monetization issues, two of the other pillars of hyperlocal. Perhaps in another post we will try to tackle those issues.)

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Whrrl Raises Big Money

Some exciting news for the LBS industry today. Pelago, parent company of Whrrl, raised $15M in a Series B round from some heavy hitters including T-Mobile. When I first read the story I thought 2 things:

1) Great to see geo-related, "where 2.0" companies raising serious cash. The phrase, a rising tide lifts all ships, comes to mind.

2) What are they going to do with all that money? This is $15M on top of the $7.4M already raised.

According to the press release and blog posts, the money will be used to quickly grow into new markets in the US and abroad. This is a smart team (ex Amazon veterans) backed by smart money (Kleiner Perkins, Jeff Bezos), but $22M+ seems like a lot of money for what is now a service built on top of Google Maps. It is an interesting service with some nice twists on LBS, but not one that on the surface seems to need that sort of cash to expand.

My guess, and this is not based on anything but pure speculation on my part, is that Pelago/Whrrl will be building out their own location based advertising platform which will require time, resources and therefore cash.

Geotargeted ads are the holy grail (or Crystal Skull) for location based services. A lot of people are focused on the building of services (Brightkite and Loopt come to mind), but fewer are focused on the advertising portion. The idea that a relevant ad can be delivered to me on my phone in a non-obtrusive manner has yet to be mastered.

Whrrl can combine both your past actions (place's you've been, reviews you wrote) plus your current location to deliver targeted ads. This is demographic/ psychographic/ geographic/ "fill in the blank" graphic, gold for advertisers.

Perhaps Whrrl will become the AdSense for location based services. (Blogger Greg Sterling has written some excellent posts related to this topic.) If not, I would like to know what they plan to do with all that cash.

(Note: I do not know what kind of relationship they have with carriers and how much having access to those companies might cost.)

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Where 2.0 Recap

There are plenty of great live blogging posts and recaps of Where 2.0 on the web. I just wanted to post some of my own thoughts about the conference.

Data and Open Data
This seemed to be a big theme this year. Google, Yahoo, ESRI and others announced greater access to data through API's. This is a positive move forward for the geo community as access to better data will leader to greater innovation.

Geotagging is hard (from Flickr)
I really enjoyed the Flickr presentation on geotagging photos and the difficulty associated with it. This was not the primary message they were trying to share, but that is what I took away from it. Getting down to the neighborhood level is hard enough but real value comes when geotagging occurs at the address or street level.

Monetizing Geo
Greg Sterling led an excellent panel on the challenges of monetizing the geoweb. It seemed like no one had truly figured out the Map Adsense model yet but plenty of people are trying. I liked the honesty of the panel in stating that no true model has emerged yet. I spoke briefly with Greg after the panel about the challenges we are seeing and discussed the idea of a Local Adsense from an IYP led group. Whether this happens or not, there are many newer players in the marketplace who are aiming to take over this large, very large market. Let me know if you are in the space, we would be happy to speak with you.

Streetviews and Geobrowsers
In the exhibitors room, I was surprised at the number of streetview and geobrowser companies. All the demos they had on display were very impressive and it just speaks to how far the geoweb has come.
Google, Everyscape and Mapjack were some of the companies showing off a streetview technology. And it looked like there were 4 geobrowser companies showing off impressive globes.
As we see geo data becoming more open and shared, will next year's conference have an annoucement that someone is opening up streetlevel pictures and 3D models to the community. Probably not, but we will see.

The Inside (from Mok Oh of Everyscape)
A very interesting presentation from Mok Oh, CTO of Everyscape. He talked about how Everyscape is emphasizing the inside as much as, if not more, than the outside. And with their ambassador program, they are looking for users to help them achieve this.
His demo of the Boston bar Cheers, from the TV show, was a great example of why the inside should be given more weight.
If Everyscape is able to "map" a large percentage of the inside for certain markets, this will give them a great advantage over others and the ability to license this content.
While I don't think this will happen, imagine the scene in Ocean's 11 where George Clooney and Brad Pitt are looking at the floor plans for the Bellagio. Perhaps in Ocean's 14, they will be looking at an Everyscape layout while using the tagging feature to plan their next caper.

Best Presentation - History's Best Geo-Hacks (Part Deux)
Chris Spurgeon had the most enjoyable presentation of the conference. Being an avid reader of history, this one really appealed to me, personally. Hopefully there is a video of his presentation as simply seeing the slides do not do it justice.

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UpNext at Where 2.0

We will be at the Where 2.0 conference this week in Burlingame on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Last year, we were part of the Launchpad event which was the first time the public saw UpNext. It was a great event and we met tons of people in the space. That is why this is one of our favorite events of the year.

This year we going as observers and look forward to hearing from a great roster of speakers and seeing some interesting demos. We have been working on some cool stuff so if you want to see it, just track me down at the conference.

Email: dmoon [-a-t-] upnext [-d-o-t-] com
Twitter: dam00n (those are zeros not the letter "o")

Should be a great conference. Looking forward to meeting some great people and seeing some very interesting new ideas and tools in the geo world.

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JavaOne Duke's Award: Java Everywhere

It was announced today that UpNext won a Duke's Choice Award under the category, Java Everywhere. The awards will be handed out tonight at the JavaOne conference.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced the winners of the sixth annual Duke's Choice Awards. The Duke's Choice Awards program recognizes the year's most influential Java technology-based applications submitted by developers and companies around the world. The winners are chosen by Vice President and Sun Fellow James Gosling, along with a panel of Java technology experts at Sun. (Sun Press Release)

We are very honored to receive this award. This really highlights the work that Raj and Vik have put into UpNext. Working with these guys has been an amazing experience and it is great to see their accomplishments recognized by Sun and the Java community.

Stop by our booth in the Java Playground if you are around and say hi to Raj and Vik, who are having a blast at the conference. Also, we are demo-ing some cool new things at JavaOne the we have not shown before. So stop by, check it out and let us know what you think.

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Great blog post from Tom

We get a lot of direct feedback from our users through comments, personal messages and direct emails. But sometimes the best feedback is indirect, like when a blogger writes about your site.

Tom - one of our top users - has a great blog "The Upper West Side Journal". He has a recent post about using the site that we really enjoyed.

A few months ago I badgered my friends to accept my invites to UpNext, which is a 3D map of Manhattan that shows nearly every listing on the island from copy centers to senior citizen lounges in stuyvestant town. I saw there were upgrades to UpNext and realized I hadn't been back to UpNext.com in a while, but even after being obsessed with the grid for nearly 2 years from my perch on the UWS this is still the best orientation tool. Instead of using the limited view in Facebook I thought I'd go full screen, and though I usually use UpNext to figure out the labyrinth of downtown, tonight I saw the new stars shining brightly on the UpperWestSide.

What are the other two restaurants? In addition to Eighty One which I haven't yet been to, Pinch, which I knew was moving from Rose Hill where I work on Park Ave copied a mass market restaurant innovation that I happen to know quite well. In its new home Pinch has done for locally grown comfort food groups what Yum! Brands did for fast food groups: they combined its usual customized pizza barges with customized mac and cheese pots through a merger with the East Village's S'mac (same link as 3 lines up if you missed it) .... (Click here to read the rest)

Thanks for the post Tom. You also get the award for most clever title. (You will have to click over to him original post and the screenshot, to understand the title.)

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Side Note: Captchas

Is it just me or are these captchas getting ridiculously hard? This was the third one I got after two failed attempts. I am surprised that the previous post ever got published.

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Cool Applets

Jim over at Altio in London has started a nice side blog on Cool Java Applets. There are only 2 entries now (we are the first) but he is looking for more.

I think this is a great idea that ties in well with his talk at JavaOne which he is presenting with Gary Thompson.

We are interested to see what other applets are out there. Send suggestions and urls over to Jim or Gary so that list can grow.

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Blog Post from Center Networks

Allen Stern from Center Networks has a nice little update on UpNext this morning.

He gives a nice run down on some new features and also talks about our continued focus on compatibility and stability.

(Click here to read article)

Just to comment further, the entire team has been working very hard on making the site more usable.

- Compatibility: There are a lot of different combinations of video cards/operating systems/browser/java versions out there. And when you are doing 3D these various combinations can cause a maze of compatibility issues. But we are getting very close to being at the level we want. Very close.

- Speed: Raj works tirelessly on getting the load time of the site down. We hope you noticed that both first time load and return loads are significantly faster. On the newer computers the load times are similar to any other site. This is a continual process and we will continue to optimize until the site loads even before you type in the url.

- Features: We are always adding new features both big and small. Some help you navigate the site better, others help you interact with the community easily. But we hope all the features make for a better experience.

Again, we always love feedback from our users. So let us know what you think in the comments.

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Compass and Navigation

This is something we have been meaning to get to for a while and it is finally here. There is now a compass on the bottom left of the map which will help with orientation and navigation.
Move/Translate - Click and hold on the Arrows to move in that direction. Or try the Joystick in the center by clicking on it and dragging in the direction you want to move.

Rotate - Click on any part of the Rotate Wheel and drag clockwise or counterclockwise to rotate.

Zoom - Use the zoom bar to move in and out of the map.

Tilt - Click on the Tilt Buttons to change the angle of the map.

Have fun flying around the city!

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SES New York

Vik, our esteemed CTO and now official spokeperson, spoke on a panel at SES New York on Tuesday. The topic of the panel was "Why Local is Different".


Here are a couple blog posts about the panel and Vik's insights.

Search Marketing Guru's

Bruce Clay

Drop us a line in the comments if you have any follow up questions for Vik on "Why Local is Different".

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SXSW Interactive and UpNext

We are taking off for SXSW Interactive soon. This will be our first SXSW (newbies) and after reading all the hype, we are very excited to see what it is all about.

In case you want to meet up, we will definitely be at:

• The Web Awards on Sunday night (we have our "it is a pleasure just to be nominated" line down pat but you never know...)
• Any event with "happy hour", "party", "beer" or "bbq" in the title. (Which seems like 80% of the events.)
• Low chance of meeting us at any event with "breakfast" in the title.
  

Feel free to leave suggestions on panels, parties, food, or people we should not miss out on.

Also, our friends have BricaBox have put together an awesome SXSWHERE guide. Not sure if the intention was SXSW Here or SXS Where but either way, it is helpful.

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Personal Reviews (New Feature)

For various reasons, some people don't write traditional reviews. But we know that everyone has opinions. So we created a different way to share your thoughts through personal reviews. Let's use Babbo as an example:

Search for "Babbo" and you get this on the map.

In the bottom right, you can see 3 friends have visited this restaurant.

(Also, you can mark this place as visited with the I've Been Here button.)

Clicking on the 3 friends have visited opens the expanded sidebar and shows you additional information about the business.

Near the bottom of the expanded sidebar (circled in red), you see which three of your friends (Paul, Saboteur and Tom) have been to Babbo.

Click on the Send Message button, located below the profile pictures, to request a personal review on this restaurant.

A message box will appear with the recipients name and the place automatically filled in.

You can now type a message directly to friends asking what they thought of place.

The goal is to encourage communication while adding a personal touch to reviews. The personal context in which you know a person, influences how you interpret their words. Using the example above...

What I know about Babbo.

• Highly rated Italian restaurant
• Expensive, Fancy
• Near Washington Sq Park

What I know about my friends.

• Paul - Foodie, especially Italian food, having studied there for a semester
• Saboteur - Vegetarian, probably won't be trying the same dishes has him.
• Tom - Already wrote a review so I read that.

Paul seems like the best option for getting more information about the restaurant. Saboteur might be a good option to ask about decor or service. And Tom already wrote a review so I know his thoughts already.

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Interaction and Communication: People

Communication on UpNext is based around 2 things: People and Places. Let's spend this post talking about people (how to connect with others and how to communicate with them) and the next one talking about places.

3 Ways to connect with other people!

1) Invite your friends.

Click on the "Invite Friends" button on the home screen or on the "Invite Friends" link in the top right.

Import contacts from gmail, hotmail, yahoo or aol. Existing contacts will automatically be found and friends not part of UpNext will be invited.

2) Search for a friend.

Go to "My Profile" and click on the "Friends" tab to find the search feature. You can search by name or email.






3) Top Members

Check out Top Members and see what the community is up to. This is a great way to quickly scan, discover, and meet other members.








2 Ways to communicate!

1) Comments

Drop a quick note on someone's profile. Just click on his profile and under the "Home" tab there is a box to leave a comment.



2) Private Messages

There is now an option to send private messages. These can only be read by the user and are stored in an inbox.

Click on anyone's profile. Below his profile picture is "Send Message" button.

A message box will appear. Simply write your message and send it off.



















You can check messages sent to you in "My Profile". Simply go to your profile and click on the "Inbox" button located under your profile picture. Here you will be able to read and respond to your messages.

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Notes w/ Favs and Places

You can now add a brief note when you mark a venue as visited ("I've Been Here"). You might be asking why add notes when we already have reviews? Here is how we think about it.

- Reviews are more formal and intended to be public. You are voicing your opinion and expecting it to be shared with other users.
- Notes are more personal and simple. You don't have to set the scene or establish a tone, you can just write a couple words that only you understand. Whether it is the dish you ate at a restaurant or the name of the bartender that got you a free round, however you want to use notes is up to you.

It is pretty easy as you can see below. The team spent a lot of time making the interface smooth and "Ipod" like. So try it out.


Click on "I've Been Here" to mark a venue as visited.

The business is now automatically stored in your profile and is visible.






Once you click "I've Been Here" the venue window will slide to this screen.

Add a note by clicking within the text box and type away.

Nothing to say? Just "Skip" it.






Here is an example of a note for a restaurant.

Some favorite dishes and drinks. Also a personal thumbs up.





We think there are a lot of uses for the notes. For that reason we are leaving it pretty open and flexible so that each person can customize it for themselves. Let us know how you are using notes in the comments.

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Improved Profile Page

We spent some time cleaning up and improving profile pages. We felt some of the content was getting buried and wanted to make it more accessible for everyone.

You can now easily tab between:
- main profile
- reviews
- favs/places
- friends

This should also make sorting through your friends profiles simpler. Here is a screenshot of the new profile page.

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UpNext Nominated for SXSW Web Award

We are delighted and honored to be a finalist for the SXSW Web Awards in the Experimental category.

Experimental
These are cutting-edge and trend-setting destinations that are pushing the envelope and challenging our perceptions of the web.

Thanks to the SXSW nominating committee for this recognition. Also, the People's Choice awards is now live. Each year the People's Choice Award is given to the public's favorite finalist from the SXSW Web Awards competition. Click here to vote.

Lastly, this will also be our first trip out to SXSW. Let us know if you want to meet up or have any helpful hints for the trip. Looking forward to it.

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Crunchies - NYC Represent

I just read Allen Stern's CenterNetworks post "My Votes In the Crunchies Awards Contest". (I am still catching up on some old blog reading from the holidays.) He mentions that he voted for UpNext for Best Bootstrapped because he likes what we are doing and because we are NYC based. Thanks Allen.

On that note, below is a list of the other NYC companies up for awards. If you want to vote local, here are the Silicon Alley companies.


Viewdle - Best Technology/Innovation Achievement

Based in NYC with a couple European offices. Viewdle is a media platform for doing everything with video.

Etsy - Best Design

Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. Based in Brooklyn, NY. I thought they should have also been nominated for Best Consumer startup.

Iminlikewithyou - Best Use of Viral Marketing

Assuming this is based in NYC. Saw them present at the NY Tech Meetup. Thought they were a shoo in for Best Time Sink Site, as that appears to be the mission statement.

College Humor - Best Time Sink Site

Still going strong. Part of IAC or, I guess now, part of 1/5th of IAC. They have the most billowy offices in Manhattan.

DonorsChoose - Most likely to make the world a better place

While it is hard to vote against any of the nominees in this category, DonorsChoose.org has been doing some remarkable things to help public school. Not only are they NYC based, but the company was started by teachers at a Bronx public high school.

Tumblr - Best new start-up of 2007

Great tumblelog site for quick and easy sharing of yourself. David Karp and his team have done a remarkable job and the growth they have achieved is fantastic.

UpNext - Best bootstrapped start-up

3D map of Manhattan. Can't get more NYC than that.


Best of luck to all these companies. If I have left anyone out, please make a note in the comments and I will update the list.

(Click here to vote)

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