Dan Goodman of Loladex, a recently launched local search service on Facebook, tells me that the company has launched an update today improving the UI and adding a bunch of local search filters (category, distance, etc.). The service is focused on the Washington, DC area for now but clearly has national intentions. The new UI looks nice and clean.
The most interesting thing I heard from Dan is that even though there is a small user base (about 250), the service is already starting to generate recommendations from its “Ask a Friend” feature.
My theory is that most local search “list” interfaces are pretty useless when it comes to picking a business to use. A successful friend recommendation mechanism can produce much better results. This is why whomever conquers Facebook/Open Social local search could be in a pretty amazing position to change the world of local search.
I am sure we will see more big and small companies go after this space in the near future so stay-tuned and best of luck to Loladex.
One Response Comment
This sounds like a cool app. I think that more specific searches would be useful on Facebook since some searches can yield hundreds of results. Thanks for the info!