I love recommendation sites, though I am also conscious of the fact that people have different tastes and ideas of fun.
GoodRec is an online and mobile (iphone app) service that makes it easy to make and share recommendations among friends.You can also look at a broader set of recommendations, but having the ability to see what your friends think adds a great deal of credibility and value.
Here's how they describe themselves:
Goodrec is the easiest way to make, find and remember recommendations among friends.
After years of seeking and making recommendations for everything from brunch spots to beach books via phone calls, emails, and crumpled paper napkins (often only to lose them moments later), we decided there had to be a better way!
Existing online review sites didn’t address our needs...
Reading through wordy online reviews from people we’d never met took too long and didn’t mean much to us anyway. Visiting different sites for different topics was a hassle. And more importantly, our friends weren’t submitting reviews online because it was just too much effort. We were always asking for ideas and tips, then having to keep track of them somehow.
Even more frustrating, there wasn’t a good way to get recommendations when we needed them most: starving on a street corner in a new part of town, standing in the bookstore trying to find a good airplane book, or searching the grocery store for a decent bottle of wine under $20.
...so, we set out to create an innovative, practical service that we’d actually use ourselves.
Our Quick Tip system makes it easy to find and make recommendations from and for your friends, enabling informed decisions when at home or mobile.
No more wading through 52 reviews of Sushi Sam’s, trying to figure out whose tastes most closely match yours.
No more racking your brain trying to remember which Hitchcock movie your fanatic friend says is the very best.
No need to send emails to every friend who’s been to Mexico asking for dinner recommendations in Oaxaca—now you can get it all on Goodrec.
The recommendation engine is simple, and takes some of the daunt out of providing reviews. What I mean is, the IDEA on this site is to get your POV out in a few words. No need to ape the length and pomposity of magazine restaurant reviews. Just state your telegraphic POV and move on with your life.
They also have a nice little thumbs up/thumbs down voting system that I like because all this 3.25 stars crap is just absurdity from people who can't be clear and make an effin decision. Sorry, off my soapbox.
I perused the recommendations and am struck by how much info and nuance people can communicate in 9 words. Absolutely remarkable.
The service allows you to filter through what could easily become hundreds of available reviews based upon personal preferences, location, or desired cuisine/activity/pricepoint.
Yelp and CitySearch and The Onion and the Alternapapers are tough competitors, but the easy to use mobile aspect of this service may give them an important edge in the upcoming recommendation category war.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
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