Bing announced today that it has added another company – Sonar – to its Bing Fund roster.
Bing Fund was launched last year as an “angel investor with an incubator”. In August, Bing unveiled its initial startups. Now, after remaining quiet for the rest of the year, they seem to be picking up the pace a bit.
March is full of excitement and promise. Spring is just around the corner and people are beginning to get restless. As Austin readies itself for the geek-stampede that is SXSW Interactive, it seems a fitting time for this announcement. It will be an occasion for us to once again have the pleasure of hanging out with the Sonar crew led by founder, Brett Martin.
Over the years, we have crossed paths with Sonar across the land of tech probably more than any other startup. Whether it was TC Disrupt NYC, PSFK NYC, at our own epic pop-up gallery, SMW, and most recently Xconomy NYC, wherever we went, it seemed that the cool little periscope was right there with us. We would bring each other up to speed, and talk about “hey, wouldn’t it be cool to work together?” And go our separate ways until the next serendipitous encounter.
Sonar is a social discovery app that tells users when their friends and friends’ friends are nearby, and as the company puts it, “reveals the hidden connections and small world moments you might have otherwise missed.”
The app takes advantage of social and location data from Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and LinkedIn to give users context about the people they’re near.
As previously reported, Friendthem CEO Charles Sankowich is saying that his company is going to sue Facebook over a new feature the company has rolled out, called, “Find Friends Nearby“. The feature comes from Facebook’s recent acquisition of social discovery app Glancee, but Sankowich says Facebook really stole the idea from him, and he intends to bring his story to a court of law.
“We won’t litigate this matter publicly but we have ample information, including a dinner with a senior executive, multiple traded emails, and Facebook’s discussion of a ‘hack-a-thon’ that we have a strong legal case,” Sankowich tells WebProNews.
He adds that there is more info, which Friendthem will share shortly. That should be interesting.
“Facebook’s offering validates our belief in our product and the power of our message: ‘life happens when people connect’ and ‘you never know what a friend request can lead to’,’ says Sankowich.
These are trademarked phrases Friendthem keeps bringing up, with regards to Facebook’s alleged theft.
“We at Friendthem believe in the power of connectivity and we work hard in giving the world a seamless way to do so,” he adds.
Here’s what Friendthem does, according to its website:
Location-based Friend Requests – Imagine you meet someone at a party, a conference, or even out for a walk. This could potentially lead to a date, a new job, or just a great friendship. As you part ways, this person says “Facebook me” and then disappears. Friendthem is a location-based app which helps you find that person and send a friend request.
In a previous article, I made the point that what Friendthem offers is similar to other social discovery apps, including Glancee (which has been around since 2010).
“No, we are not like others,” Sankowich tells us. “They offer a lot of information and they allow their users to ‘instant message’. These are two differentials and what separates us from them. They are social networks and dating sites. We protect the users’ space and limit their exposure. We don’t ask them to put a lot of information out. Friendthem understands that our users want attention, but they want it on their terms. Others allow their users to get attention, but it is on the senders terms, not on the receivers like it is for us. Friendthem asks them to give up minimal and gain the maximum.”
“We, like Facebook, understand there are privacy issues in this space and we are one of the few to understand it and completely respect it!” he adds.
According to Friendthem CEO Charles Sankowich, however, it’s just a rip off of his company’s idea and trademark. Sankowich gave us the following statement:
I was amazed on Sunday to read that Facebook is blatantly stealing our idea with the idea they are calling “Find Friends Nearby.” Facebook engineer Ryan Patterson claims the feature was born at a hackathon as “Friendshake,”, but we believe they simply stole trademarked materials of friendthem.com
More than two years ago we trademarked “Friend them” and have had tremendous success and exposure with this concept. In February I was invited for dinner with a Facebook senior executive – and now we see that Facebook is up to their old tricks again.
Even their language is similar to what has been on our website for a few years – “Friendthem is a location-based mobile app designed to help you make connections with people near you. Use the Friendthem app to follow up on missed connections for work and personal.”
We are consulting attorneys and assuming this is true expect to commence a lawsuit very shortly. One would think that Facebook would have learned to play fair after being through the mud previously with legal difficulties – but now they are doing it again.
We may not be billionaires but we are damn tough New York entrepreneurs – and we believe in this idea and will keep working to connect people.”
Friendthem describes itself:
Location-based Friend Requests – Imagine you meet someone at a party, a conference, or even out for a walk. This could potentially lead to a date, a new job, or just a great friendship. As you part ways, this person says “Facebook me” and then disappears. Friendthem is a location-based app which helps you find that person and send a friend request.
Facebook, and founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg are certainly no stranger to accusations of stolen ideas, but this seems like a pretty loose idea, similar to functionality of other apps, like Sonar, Glancee and others, and frankly, something that Facebook would have done anyway. As a matter of fact, you may recall that Facebook acquired Glancee, which has been around since 2010. The acquisition, according to Facebook, is the basis for the feature.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment, and will update accordingly.
Social discovery site 20blinks, co-founded by Sandra Hay, never fails to amaze.
It’s an impulse as old as cave paintings – the desire to share images that interest us, things we find beautiful, inspiring, appalling or just plain weird. That’s the idea behind social discovery innovator 20blinks, the Amsterdam-based site that is attracting a hip, edgy crowd. The site allows users to share collections of images, art, books, music, movies or anything else that matters to them. In the process, users establish an online personality that somehow feels more real than a collection of text and links at a traditional social media site.”
The self-expression aspect was what first gave Sandra Hay, wife of iconic rock ‘n roller Barry Hay, the idea that eventually evolved into 20blinks. She envisioned an online treasure chest where users could store images that convey the things they find valuable. At first, she thought it would be a great way to create online memorials for deceased loved ones, a treasure trove of collections that would convey the deceased’s personality in a way that mere text and family photos could not match.
Teaming up with friend and neighbor Bastiaan Zwaan in 2010, the 20blinks founders refined the idea to include collections of anything any user (dead or alive) finds valuable and compelling, and the hot new social discovery site was born. Originally, the site enabled users to display up to 20 windows, but as the concept caught on and angel investment funding rolled in, it was expanded to allow users to express themselves in virtually limitless ways – capturing and collecting images that would otherwise be lost in a “blink.”
And express themselves they do, with collections featuring cutting-edge fashion, must-see classic movies, music, books and art – a dizzying array of images that are true to the site’s original purpose in that they say something unique about each user. Users can login to 20blinks with their Facebook, Twitter or Windows Live ID, and the site is integrated with established social media players like Facebook to enable users to grab compelling images for their 20blinks collections with a handy Blink-It button. It’s a natural fit since Facebook chats can be enhanced with a way to instantly share collected images and common interests.
So what’s in Barry Hay’s collection? Not surprisingly, the vocalist for Golden Earring has a collection of images featuring singers, including such diverse notables as Frank Sinatra, Ike & Tina Turner and the Kings of Leon. He also collects images of Chihuahuas and sunglasses as well as photos of French movie legend Brigette Bardot and much more.
“It’s amazing,” Hay observes. “All these images are floating around in space, and with 20blinks, you can collect them all in one place. Putting them together gives them a whole new meaning. It’s a great way to expand your horizons. There’s a practically endless variety of topics to share and learn about – from great speeches to ants to films.”
“20blinks also has a lot of potential to drive commerce.” Hay continued. “If you find another user with a collection of great movies, you might discover one you haven’t seen and then go buy it on Amazon.”
20blinks’ potential as a tastemaker has definitely attracted notice. It’s also an excellent tool to share new music. Golden Earring will celebrate the launch of the group’s latest release, Tits & Ass, on May 10, 2012, with a performance on the balcony of the Amsterdam Apple Store and free downloads of select singles at iTunes.
Hay notes that he will be back in paradise – Curaçao – ten days later. As he reviews his upcoming album launch activities, Hay describes a large flock of flamingos flying over the Caribbean beach he will soon temporarily leave. It sounds like a perfect image for 20blinks.
There’s a new trend in social media and application development, and it’s called “social discovery”. If you haven’t already heard the term a lot, you will soon. SXSW is famously an event where a lot of startups get to make their first major marks on the world. Some fizzle out. Some are Twitter. Quite a few are betting on the “social discovery” element as the next big thing. Some might simply find the whole thing a little too creepy. On the other hand, some find Google and Facebook creepy. Either way, the trend is here, and of course, there are always opportunities for businesses to take advantage.
Are you comfortable sharing personal information with people who happen to be nearby? For some of these apps that is essentially the founding principle. Tell us what you think.
The concept of social discovery is not really new. You might say it’s been a valuable part of social networks for years, and an area where some of them have improved as time has gone on. Early location-based services like Foursquare have gone on to improve the discovery part of the equation overtime. I’d say Facebook will be getting better in this department as it recently acquired one such service in Gowalla. The Gowalla team is said to be working on the Timeline feature, so that could play a big role in Facebook’s “social discovery” strategy. The Open Graph apps are certainly key.
Wikipedia’s description of a social discovery platform indicates it as one that lets users search for other users, either by physical location or by other criteria (age, name, interests, gender, etc.). Under that definition, you could include sites like Pinterest and its clones, but the physical location part seems to be more connected to the broader trend, particularly at SXSW.
Uberlife’s focus is extending online connections into the real world. It’s been available in the UK since January, but just launched here in the U.S. WebProNews interviewed CEO Sanchita Saha about the service, which she says sets it self apart from others that focus more on people discovery. “Uberlife is more about groups of people,” she says.
She says where Google+ hangouts are about hanging out online, Uberlife is more about finding groups of people to hang out with offline. “At the moment, we have no people discovery in our network. You can download the app and find out what hangouts are happening near me. What are people meeting up about around me? And that could be hangouts based around interests. It could be around a gig that you really want to go and see that’s going on nearby, and you really want to find a bunch of people to go to that with.”
You can sign up through Facebook or Twitter. It looks at your Facebook likes.
Privacy
Privacy may be an issue with some users, though they should be aware of that going in. Uberlife, for example, says it will implement features in the future that let only your friends connect with you, but right now it’s totally open. That might be a little creepy to some, and that is likely an obstacle a lot of these kinds of apps will face in terms of growing adoption.
“Right now, there is certainly an element of human nature,” where some may resist joining in hangouts, admits Saha. Particularly the more personal ones. But still, anyone in the Uberlife community can join hangouts that are going on around them.
Brands
There may be some big opportunities for brands to capitalize on this social discovery trend. Really, we’ve already happening to some extent over recent years with the rise of smartphones, and apps like Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon, and even Google Places. But that goes for this new crop as well. Saha says food, drink and clothing brands have already approached the company, as well as some bands (a natural fit for such an app).
“We’ve yet to have one actually creata a hangout,” Saha says of brands. “But their interest is around being able to engage their customer base offline – or to mobile their customer base offline, in really a fun, spontaneous way that’s great for things like flash mob events.”
The main interest, she says, for brands, is that when you create a hangout, the attendee can check in, upload photos, etc. and share that stuff through Facebook and Twitter. It’s about connecting customers with each other as well, which could be helpful for the brand in the long run.
More social discovery apps
Highlight would be another one of the new apps that’s getting a lot of buzz around SXSW. This one calls itself “a fun, simple way to learn more about the people around you”. As my colleague Mike Tuttle wrote about it, “stalkers of the world rejoice.”
“If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone,” the official description continues. “You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it. As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you. If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.”
Highlight has been around for a little while, but it just got an update, which it being touted around SXSW. The new version tells you when people in your timeline are “still nearby”. This way, users can catch each other before they get away.
Another social discovery app, Sonar, has been available for iOS, but is now launching on Android. It’s another one designed to get users to connect with people around them. The word creepy has been tossed around with Sonar for the better part of a year.
Similarly, Glancee touts itself as a way to “discover and connect with new interesting people around you,” though interestingly, it also throws “safe” into its description. Not a lot of additional explanation is given on that note, however.
Glancee’s been around for a bit too. As has Banjo, which has a new update. Banjo alerts you about your friends when they’re nearby.
Another app, Kismet, promises to help you “easily meet new people in the real world. “We’ll tell you who you should meet, why you should meet them, and who you know in common.”
In terms of privacy, you have to think about this stuff before you start using any of these apps. If you’re not comfortable with people near you knowing about you, you probably shouldn’t be using the services. Since this is generally the main purpose for such apps, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, because there should be this understanding going in. Of course the “cool” factor can sometimes trump common sense, and that’s not to say there is no value to be gained from “discovering” new friends, if your’e the social type. It’s not as if this is a new concept. It used to be called going out to the bar and striking up a conversation. Of course, that didn’t always end well for everyone either.
Beyond privacy, users could simply be setting themselves up for inconvenience. It probably depends on how much of a social butterfly you are. Sometimes you may want to go to a place and not have to “stop and chat” with someone who you may or may not already be friends with, just because you’re nearby.
Regardless of how you feel about these types of apps, having attended the last two SXSW Interactive events, I can tell you, the event is a perfect testing ground for this kind of thing. Austin is basically one big party, with a whole lot of things to do, great places to eat and drink, and lots of people with similar interests (of a wide variety) to hang out with.
In fact, it may give some of these apps to a misleading start, as the SXSW crowd is in this mindset. The real test will be how well such engagement holds up back in the real world when everyone goes back to their day-to-day lives.
That goes for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, as well (while maybe not to the party extent of SXSW), where TheLoop chose to announce its new social networking site, which it describes as as “a new social discovery and broadcast network.” They chose to launch at GDC, because they are reportedly seeking app developers to create content for a new site, rather than “overly-saturated existing platforms.”
But it just goes to show that “social discovery” is the big buzz word, and a major area of focus for startups these days.
SXSW is credited with the launches (or at least big coming out parties) of both Twitter and Foursquare. Will one of the new crop of “social discovery” similarly get its big break at the event this year? Can such a service have such an impact? What do you think?
With SXSW starting tomorrow, many startups are launching in hopes of becoming the next Twitter or Foursquare. One of the startups that shares this dream is UK-based uberlife. The company launched in the UK in January and launched its U.S. version earlier this week.
According to Sanchita Saha, the startup’s CEO and Founder, uberlife is a social discovery service that helps users extend their online connections into the real world. She explained that it is designed to save the back and forth conversations that consumers often have when simply trying to meet up.
Have you jumped onto the social discovery service bandwagon? Let us know.
Users can sign up for the service through Facebook or Twitter and can create “hangouts” around where they intend to be. The hangouts are similar to Google+‘s online video feature, but they are different since they are for offline events. At this point, hangouts are open to the public, but Saha indicated that the company would be introducing other privacy options in the near future.
The startup has also been likened to services such as Banjo and Glancee, but Saha told us that the distinction between them was based in the focus of the services. Uberlife focuses on real world events or hangout spots, whereas the others concentrate on people discovery.
“At uberlife, we’re very much focused on real world relationship building and the value in the real world of connecting people,” said Saha.
The service also includes an internal scoring platform called Connector Score that is somewhat comparable to Klout. Users earn this score when people who meet at their hangout begin following each other in uberlife.
“The Connector Score, for us, is a real indicator of which members of our community are the movers and shakers,” said Saha.
She went on to say that the startup would be launching a global leader board in the next few weeks that would enable everyone to see who the big influencers are.
According to Saha, uberlife takes location sharing to an entirely different level. Even though TechCrunch labeled it as “the next Foursquare, but for future real-world meetups,” she does not believe the two are competitors. In fact, uberlife plans to integrate with Foursquare in its next product roll out.
Saha told us the startup decided to launch around SXSW since the show is full of early adopters and passionate people looking to try new developments. The hope is that attendees that want to meet new people and “hang out” will use the service to do so.
“Any social app that’s worth knowing from Twitter to Foursquare… [and] GroupMe, Beluga last year – SXSW is definitely the place to be,” she pointed out.
The startup is already gaining some traction as artists such as Gabriel & Dresden and Shiny Toy Guns are using it to connect with fans at SXSW. In addition, Saha told us that various brands are using it as well to help build relationships with their customers. She said that companies are also finding that uberlife is useful in connecting customers with each other, which helps to build community efforts.
Uberlife plans to build a revenue model utilizing the influencers from the upcoming global leader board. Saha said that the company is working to create a platform that would connect small to medium-sized businesses to the influencers.
As the Game Developers Conference expands to more non-traditional platforms and modes of gaming, there will be more announcements that would seem out of place only a few years ago. This is one of those announcements.
Today at GDC, TheLoop announced the official launch of its social networking site. TheLoop is described as “a new social discovery and broadcast network.” The site is built on the core value of “seeking to partner with users instead of simply gaing from their creativity.”
“TheLoop is different because of its social philosophy, which sees the users as partners in the network’s success whilst providing them with new forms of social expression,” says Adi Engel, Head of TheLoop launch team.
TheLoop is an amalgamation of pretty much every other social networking site and provides all the features that one has come to expect out of these dime a dozen social networking projects. That being said, TheLoop does sound interesting if only for the emphasis on having its users shape the site.
It does leave the question of why they chose GDC to announce the launch of the site. The reason is that they are seeking app developers to create content for a growing Web site instead of developing content “into overly-saturated existing platforms.”
You can check out the open beta now at their Web site. For convenience and a heavy dose of irony, you can also log in with your Facebook account. It will import your profile picture and some other information into your TheLoop account.
Their YouTube page features six 30 second YouTube videos that do nothing to explain the site’s features. You’re better off just messing around with the Web site as is. Check it out and tell us what you think.
One of today’s hot topics at SXSW is “ambient social networking”. And the charge in that area is led by the new location-based social app Highlig.ht. Here is what Highlight tells us about their product:
Highlight is a fun, simple way to learn more about the people around you.
If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.
As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you. If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.
Highlight gives you a sixth sense about the world around you, showing you hidden connections and making your day more fun.
The point of highlight is to connect people, not just by location, but by interests. Highlight connects with your Facebook account. There is currently no other option to sign in to Highlight but via Facebook. The developers say this is necessary for three reasons (quote from the app itself):
1) It makes it super fast to sign up and create a Highlight profile.
2) It allows you to see what friends you have in common with other Highlight users.
3) It helps ensure that people are using their real identities.
Allow me to insert an opinion here. If your product has no other way to login but via Facebook, you need to call your product what it is: a Facebook app. I do not allow access to my Facebook wall, info or posts. That is mine. If I have to allow you to do what you like in my Facebook account in order to use your product, forget it. I managed to get a Pinterest invite in the days when you could just use a login name. Otherwise, no Pinterest for me. Call me a Luddite. I am not a sharer, I am not a consumer. Until Highlig.ht goes to open login with much more control over who I am interacting with, they can keep it. I deleted the app.
According to Sanchita Saha, the startup’s CEO and Founder, uberlife is a social discovery service that helps users extend their online connections into the real world. She explained that it is designed to save the back and forth conversations that consumers often have when simply trying to meet up.
