Archive for December, 2009

The difference between Search and Suggestion.

By admin, 29 December, 2009, No Comment

As new users come across our site, theSUGGESTR.com, they often assume the site is like other local search sites such as Yelp or CitySearch.  With our re-design we hope the site better articulates the difference between us and them, if not hopefully this post helps.

First off – we like Yelp and CitySearch, we use them to.  However, our site is about discovering new places you may never have heard of, especially unique places that may not be reviewed enough to get to the top of the list on the bigger sites.  theSUGGESTR uses a technique known as collaborative filtering to predict how well you will like a place based on your tastes and the tastes of other users.  By using this technique we eliminate some of the bias that goes into individual reviews and strictly allow the ratings to find you a place to try.  So why is this so cool…

Imagine you find yourself in a new city for the first time.  If you were to open up Yelp you’d find 100’s of top places with potentially 100’s of reviews each.  You’re then forced to narrow your search down, lets say you choose Italian and a specific neighborhood – then you may be on your way to finding someplace.  However, with theSUGGESTR.com’s personalized suggestions we can predict how well you’ll like that place and make suggestions for places that are nearby that you’ll like even better.  The difference is that we tell you places we think you’ll love rather than forcing you to search for places and decide for yourself.  Using our alerts functionality we can actually email you when your near one of our top suggestions!

We think using sites like Yelp and CitySearch to verify our predictions is a great idea!

Stay tuned to our blog for more information on how you can get the best possible personalized suggestions.

New GeoRSS Feed Available

By admin, 17 December, 2009, No Comment

We’ve made available a GeoRSS feed of all the ratings and suggestions made on theSUGGESTR.com.  New ratings by our users as well as the personalized suggestions made for user will be shown in this feed.  This way you can easily keep track of the suggestions we make.

GeoRSS feeds can also be mapped out with Google Maps as well.

See the GeoRSS feed on Google Maps.

Enjoy!

theSUGGESTR adds Twitter Location API support

By admin, 14 December, 2009, No Comment

During our most recent update we introduced simpler and securer integration with Twitter.  As part of this release we also have begun supporting the Twitter Location API.  Once you link your Twitter Account with your theSUGGESTR account, and set it to tweet your activity, you can decide whether or not not you want us to share the locations of your ratings.  As of now Twitter doesn’t do anything with these ratings but there are a number of exciting applications and ideas that will utilize this location information.

Our automated bot, @thesuggestr_bot also utilizes the location API, so if your building a location aware application the bot’s feed may be useful to check out.

Enjoy!

Update to Twitter Integration

By admin, 14 December, 2009, No Comment

We’ve recently released an update to theSUGGESTR.com that now allows for Twitter integration via the oAuth standard (this means is much safer for you since you don’t have to share your password).  Remember you can link your theSUGGESTR.com account with your Twitter account and have all your ratings and personalized suggestions posted so your followers can see.  You can also follow our bot (@thesuggestr_bot) and see ALL of the ratings and suggestions made on the site.

Remember you can also follow @thesuggestr to stay up to date on all the latest news about theSUGGESTR.com

theSUGGESTR implements hreview-aggregate microformat

By admin, 11 December, 2009, No Comment

We’ve just updated our business pages so that they support the hreview-aggregate microformat.  As described by Microformats.org hreview-aggregate is

a format for embedding review information (of products, services, businesses, etc). Whereas hReview is intended for an individual review, hReview-aggregate is meant for summary information about a collection of user or critic reviews about an item.

Some examples of the marked pages can be found here:

http://www.thesuggestr.com/dest549.html
http://www.thesuggestr.com/dest26.html

What does this mean? Nothing for our users really – we wanted to make our reviews available to engines that consume microformats and over time may start to consume some ourselves to help improve our suggestion engine.  You can see some of the neat products created using similar semantic technologies by clicking here.

If you have any questions or comments about our implementation or some ideas on how we can take advantage of Microformats feel free to post a comment.

Man vs. Food Map

By admin, 7 December, 2009, 1 Comment

We are please to announce the release of a map for the show “Man vs. Food“.  This Travel Channel show chronicles the travel’s of Adam Richman as he takes on some of the best food challenges around the world.

Using our new map you can quickly find places seen on the show in your area or anywhere you are traveling to.  Just use the zoom button on the map and click “Refine Search”.

Remember you can find a number of other “Food Maps” from other shows such as Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives and Food Paradise.

Check our blog in the upcoming days so you can learn how you can use our service to get notified when your nearby one of the Man vs. Food destinations.