Yesterday Boston-based hyperlocal discovery search engine Goby released a brand new feature on their iPhone app. The app now boasts a main feed of personalized recommendations, branded as the Fun Feed, for things like upcoming events, concerts, venues, and more. Think Pandora, except for things you are interested in doing
Goby has made it easy for you to get up and running quickly with a base personalized Fun Feed thanks to integration with Facebook. By authenticating with your Facebook account Goby pulls in things like the interests and favorite musicians and bands listed on your profile. Recognizing your location (or setting a location manually), Goby then goes to work for you by scouring what’s nearby and upcoming for events, concerts, and other activities.
If you are like me and do not list much on your Facebook profile (or prefer not to authenticate), you can manually filter through hundreds of lists to customize your preferences. You can think of these feeds like the different stations you set up on Pandora, except Goby provides you even more control over exactly what’s recommend to you. Here are just a few examples of the main categories and lists within each that you can customize:
- Events / places: Turn on feeds for things like live music (choose the genres you are interested in), food and drink (choose from things like breweries and wineries), sightseeing and tours (choose the type), and hundreds of other feeds.
- Venues: Turn on feeds from an alphabetical list pulled from your current location or other cities you frequent around everything from comedy clubs to arenas.
- Music artists / bands: Turn on feeds for when they will performing at a location near you by simply typing in their name and adding the artist.
Before this feature release, you would have to actively search for things to do on Goby. Now, you can follow things like your favorite venues (Houes of Blues, MFA, etc.), teams (Red Sox, Bruins, etc.) or music genres and results will be brought automatically to you. These recommendations in your Fun Feed are pulled from the company’s database of 350+ categories of events and activities organized for each and every zipcode in the United States. This means the app delivers value no matter if you live in the heart of Boston or out in Palmer, Mass.
“With the goby fun feed we’re launching a new mobile service that knows who you are, where you are, and what you are interested in, and delivers great recommendations from goby’s phenomenal wealth of content,” said founder and CEO Mark Watkins. “We’re answering the eternal question: what are we going to do this weekend?”
Other features within the Fun Feed include a filter to view events and activities happening just that day, on the weekend, or what’s happening for the full week. The app includes a feature that allows you to set up push notification alerts so, for example, you never miss your favorite bands when they come to town. See something you’d like to do on the weekend with friends? The Fun Feed makes it easy to round up troops with features for sharing to your social networks and over email. If you’re into a whole slew of things, you can reorder your Fun Feed so the things you’re most apt to be interested in doing stays at the top.
“Our free time is one of our most precious possessions,” explained Watkins. “Goby’s new release is designed to help busy, active people make the most of their free time.”
Watkins also tells us that the update for the Android app is just a few weeks away, and after that the feed will be available online. “Mobile is the key, first focus,” he said.
