What do you want to do when roaming?
Roamz, a Sydney startup, is trying to second guess this question.
At the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, it unveiled an iPhone app that aggregates real-time social data from Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare about goings-on at nearby places – something founder Jonathan Barouch likens to “”x-ray goggles showing what people are talking about at places nearby.”
Barouch said he even gave Google co-founder Sergey Brin a demo.
With “funky offices” in Surry Hills, in the old La Sala restaurant, Roamz is backed by listed media company Salmat Group, Inteq Limited and supported by the New South Wales Trade & Investment’s Collaborative Solutions Program.
With the exponential growth of smartphones, entrepreneurs are thinking out of the box to offer location-based services.
Quite some time ago, Mobile Surroundings LLC rolled out iPhone apps called It Happened Here. The obviously named apps delivered interesting information about places as people traveled. However, It Happened Here has been restricted to a few cities around the world and it is not clear if it updates as fast as people would like to.
That is where Roamz steps in.
It not only updates in real time but also offers far more information about almost any place by mining rich data streams from sources such as Facebook and Twitter. So, it strives to identify the cool spots and events in any neighbourhood by first identifying the user’s location.
Roamz also tries to tailor the results based on a user’s likes and dislikes though it might be soon to tell how “intelligent” its app is. The app also allows users to share their updates and photos.
“If you are walking down the street and your favorite café has a barista teaching customers how to make a coffee, then this is a Roamz moment,” says Barouch. “If you are down by the beach and there is a produce market around the corner, you should find out about it on Roamz. If there is an awesome new Japanese restaurant a few blocks away from your house with mind-blowingly good sushi, Roamz can help you discover it!”
Roamz calls its app “local, social, relevant and real-time,” and, may we say a need of the times. It is something many, if not most, of us would love to use when traveling or even otherwise, so long as it delivers good value.
