Localist: New Local Social Event Site Hits the Scene

I was perusing some of my feeds this evening and there it was .. in a post over at CenterNetworks, Allen was covering a new local social events site called Localist.

According to Allen, Localist is a new name for the former site, Socializer, an event listing service.  As I kept reading I was surprised, and happy, to see this service is currently only the Washington, DC and Baltimore area.  I could barely wait to get over and check it out, it was an obvious surprise to me.

So according to the home page

Looked pretty cool and I was curious to see more.  I signed up quite easily for an account and logged in to see what was up.  The interface is nice and clean, very pleasing.  Local events are suggested to you depending on the zip code in your profile.  Its not all about events either, they give you a list of business in your area as well.  There is a bit of a social aspect as well as you can friend other people and see what they are up to or any places they have rated as well.  They have a pretty cool calendar interface with the ability to filter out things like recurring events, concerts, bars, etc.

On the main page for either of the cities, Washington or Baltimore, they have a nice list of Upcoming events and Popular places, a look at that weeks calendar, and even a break down of the neighborhoods.  All in all it looks pretty cool.  I will be anxious to see how it takes off and the use it gets from the local audience.

I am trying to see who is behind this and get in touch with them for a more in depth interview and look at the service.  If you guys are out there, give us an email, we would love to get together and chat about the site.

So what do you all think after taking a look ?  A viable service for you ?  Lets keep an eye on this one.

Startups: Need Money? Ask for Advice

One of the great podcasts I find myself migrating back to is a series called “Entrepeneurial Thought Leaders” from Stanford University.  They have some great guests, powerhouses in all corners of all industries that have awesome insights and advice.

The other day I found myself listening to an interview with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X PRIZE Foundation.  As he was talking about starting the foundation and raising money for his new venture and the struggles he went through.  In his talk he made some excellent points that I thought applied to all startups and those out there trying to make a difference. He relayed a great quote:

When you ask money you may get advice, and if you ask for advice you may get money.

He followed this by saying that patience is a key and that when investors invest money in you, they are transfering confidence to you along wth the money.  So take time to build that rapport/relationship and the confidence level.  Fundraising should almost be

secondary to getting groups of good people involved

I know that many times, time is not a luxury many startups can afford in raising capital in order to further their dream.  But as you are building up to that dream keep these thoughts in mind and you may be surprised how quickly the money may follow.

Mixx Doubles Down Today

Well Mixx hit a pretty cool exacta today on the news front, both traditional and new media. I woke this morning and saw a tweet form the Mixx twitter account that they were featured in the Washington Post today in an article by Mike Musgrove.  And then this afternoon they hit Techcrunch in a post by Erick Schonfeld.  That’s a pretty good double feature, wouldn’t you say ?

The Post article was a nice feature of Mixx and the qualities that make them stand out from their compeition in the space.  While the service is similar to Digg and Reddit, Mixx offers

But Mixx users are encouraged to start an account and configure a start page with news topics of their choice. Users can pick subjects, or “tags,” from “Alzheimer’s” to “Star Wars.” If a tag doesn’t exist, they can start a news group with a few clicks. Group creators can determine whether they are public or invite-only.

Mixx’s partner news sites such as CNN feature a Mixx button next to their articles. Mixx users can click the button, tag the story and share it with other Mixx readers.

The post touches on the fact that while Digg is much larger in terms of page views, Mixx is building a loyal following of its own and is one to keep an eye on.

The Techcrunch post focused on the major increase in Mixx traffic since partnering with CNN.

Consequently, the number of unique visitors to Mixx more than doubled from 380,000 in April to 904,000 in May.

To put that into perspective, only 2.4 million people have ever visited Mixx since it launched in September, 2007. In other words, more than a third of all the people who have ever gone to Mixx, went there last month.

That is awesome numbers and looks as though Mixx’s partnerships with some major media outlets is finally paying off.  They made a similar deal recently with the LA Times to place Mixx buttons on the stories on the respective sites.

It is awesome to see a local startup get some good coverage, especially from the local Washington Post.  We can only hope the team over there continue to innovate and build great features and partnerships that will bring in new loyal users to the Mixx family.

Great job guys.

Local Startup: SpotCrime, Mashing Up Local Crime

While attending the recent SocialDevCamp in Baltimore MD, I had the opportunity to see a lot of the cool startups that are popping up across the area.  I sat in one of the sessions with Colin Drane, founder of SpotCrime.  I did not have a chance to chat with Colin, but I noted hi company to follow up with.

The on Thursday heading downtown to see Larry Page talk at Google Unwired, I saw SpotCrime spotlighted on Techcrunch .. damn they beat me to the punch yet again… :)  SpotCrime is a pretty cool concept and use of a google maps mashup.  In essence, SpotCrime taps into local police databases and is able to display that data on a google map for you to view.  As it is right now, they have a limited number of cities they are drawing from, but hopefully they will be rounding that out.  Here is a look at the local Baltimore map with the incidents annotated.

Techcrunch noted that

While it’s hard to believe that the police don’t already know about the rougher areas of town, the visual overlays could conceivably held them identify trends. Other potential applications of the data include real estate evaluation, and (for more paranoid users) “safe” driving routes mapped by GPS.

I think another great applicaion for this is prior to moving to a new area.  When I have looked at buying my last couple of houses, I have taken the time at night to drive through the neighborhood and see if anything untoward may be going on.  This would be a great tool for prospective buyers to look at the area they are looking to move into in order to get a gauge on the crime in that area.

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