Vote for us at VentureBeat!

June 26, 2008

Hello Whrrld,

MobileBeat

Whrrl has been nominated as one of the best mobile technology start-ups in 2008 by MobileBeat (hosted by VentureBeat). They’re asking for people to vote for their favorite company online at VentureBeat2008, so your vote counts. Please spread the love and vote for Pelago now. You can vote up to five times, but only once every 24hrs.

Voting ends on July 2nd (did we mention you can vote 5 times?). Click here to vote, you’ll have to register first but it’s painless - All it asks for is a username, email, first & last name, and password. Pelago, the creator of Whrrl, is listed under the “Application Companies” in the first grouping.

Thanks for your help!

-Whrrl Team

Cool New Ways to Explore on Whrrl!

From Blake Scholl, Director of Product Development-

As you know, we’re continuously tweaking and improving Whrrl. I’m especially excited about our latest update - the most significant in Whrrld history. We’ve got a totally new mobile download that works on more phones and is faster and easier than ever… but that’s a topic for another post. Today, I want to share some of what’s new on whrrl.com including a revolutionary new way to explore the real world with the help of your friends.

blog post density maps

Whrrl is all about getting more out of your real-world life, discovering new places to go and things to do by seeing what your friends are up to. We’ve made it even easier to uncover and share awesomeness in your city without ever typing a keyword. I’d like to show you how this works.

When you’re zoomed out, Whrrl colors your map according to your friends’ opinions so it’s easy to tell where the good stuff is at a glance.

With a flick of the scrollwheel, you zoom in and see more: positive are the places people you know love and touched are the places they’ve been. It’s fun and easy to cruise around the map and bump into cool stuff. Like eating at places with great water views? Cruise along the coastline and checkout the places your friends love. Of course, the more you and your friends use Whrrl, the better this works.

blog post waterfront seafood

Even though I’ve lived in Seattle for almost a decade, I’m shocked by how many gems I can uncover just by browsing the map. Give it a try - when you find something cool, click “I want to go” to share your discovery and remember it for later. Come across something you already know? Mark it as “been there” and rate it. You’ll light up your friends’ maps (and their lives!) with your discovery.

 

To get back to your discoveries, go to “What’s on my map” and pick “I want to go” from “show only.” It works like magic: other places vanish leaving only the places you want to go on your map and list.

By the way, many of you have asked for even bigger maps. Now you can hide the left side of Whrrl by clicking the “arrow” control between the content page and the map.

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Whrrl puts literally millions of places on your map. You can explore every single one just by hovering over whatever looks interesting. Want something more specific? “What’s on my map” gives you complete control over which places and events appear on your map. You can filter by dozens of factual attributes (everything from ‘open now’ to ’serves beer’), your friends’ activity (for instance, visited by a particular friend), and even by your own history (where you’ve visited and where you want to). Just open up “show only” and pick the filters you want. Your map and list update right away, and you can add/remove filters in any order you want. Family-friendly Mexican places rated highly by your friend Bob? Whrrl can find them. Sushi restaurants with a happy hour right now? As I write this, there are 9 in Seattle-including 2 recommended by my friends.

Without Whrrl, your friends’ collective knowledge is locked up in their minds. With Whrrl, you can tap into your friends’ experiences anytime, wherever you are. Combining your friends’ wisdom with Whrrl’s detailed database of places and events makes it easy to discover new favorites and be smarter when you go out.

We love all the new experiences we’ve been able to have, thanks to Whrrl. We’d love to hear what you think. Write us at feedback@whrrl.com. Please share your stories about your discoveries with Whrrl - we collect these, and from time to time we’ll post our favorites here.

The Latest From Whrrl

May 27, 2008

If you read Tech Crunch or Business Week today, you may have seen news of our latest round of funding or our upcoming iPhone application coming out next month from the Apple AppStore. Both of these are exciting developments for us, but there is also exciting consumer news to share today - anyone can now try Whrrl before signing-up.

Try Whrrl

From www.whrrl.com, all you have to do is click on ‘try whrrl now’ and you’re taken straight to the site; no sign-ups, no confirmation, no waiting. As you explore Whrrl, you can create a free account to keep track of the friends and fans you make, places you review, and those you want to check out in the future. Tell your friends about the ‘try it’ feature so they can see what they’ve been missing without Whrrl in their lives.

SPYGRL!!!

May 9, 2008

People can’t help but stare in awe at what Wendy is driving. Is it a car, is it a bike? It’s actually a Can-Am Spyder roadster made by Bombardier, the same company that make Sea-Doo watercraft and Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The three wheel Spyder has a Rotax 990 engine that accelerates 0 to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. It has a reverse gear and even has a cargo hold! As soon as the personalized license plate “SPYGRL” arrives Wendy & her sister - it’s a mutual investment - will be set for summer road trips! Everyone at Pelago is jealous!

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Welcome Jeff Ayars and Bill Gossman!

April 22, 2008

The last few weeks have been exciting for us here at Pelago; we’ve recently hired a VP of Engineering – Jeff Ayars and welcomed a new board member to the team – Bill Gossman.

Jeff A
At Pelago, Jeff will be building on his 17 years of experience developing, leading, and managing the production of software products across various platforms. He has come here from a long productive career at Real Networks via a stint as the CTO of the Seattle start-up, Konamoxt, Inc.

Bill
Bill is currently the President and CEO of Revenue Science, where he oversees the company’s operation and drives its strategic vision. He’s bringing to Pelago over 20 years of experience in the mobile media, wireless Internet, and communication infrastructure industries. Bill also has extensive experience with start-ups, holds 11 patents, and is a sought after online media speaker and writer.

We are extremely happy to have both Jeff and Bill on our team as we continue to develop innovative, social solutions with Whrrl.

Club Zum Gym

April 9, 2008

Whrrl is full of all kinds of locations from bars and restaurants to movie theaters and fitness centers - as such, we’d like to share with you another one of our favorite places, Club Zum. You can read the review below or check it out on whrrl.

Club Zum

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Snowstorms and Picnics

March 28, 2008

Our dev team enjoying a picnic in the office during a freak March snowstorm. It’s all about the red wine and cupcakes!

picnic

New Release of Whrrl!!

A collective cheer (and sigh of relief) was heard throughout the office today as we released our new website at 9 am PST. The new site is faster, offers improved user interaction and looks awesome! We moved to a top navigation layout and made the map loading much faster. We also added user interaction features like the text box on the home page that asks Where Are You and What Are You Doing? Check it out and let us know what you think!

New interactive feature:

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New top nav bar:

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New Maps:

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Posted in Whrrl | 1 Comment

Whrrl Featured in WSJ

We were featured in the Wall Street Journal today as being one of the companies working on cutting edge GPS mobile technology. Just to be noted as an industry leader makes us proud! It’s press like this that makes all the hard work worth it!

Read the article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120666235472370235.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Stumbling Goat Bistro

March 21, 2008

Whrrl is about finding new favorite places, spending time with friends, and sharing your knowledge so others can make well informed decisions before they try a new place. With that in mind, we thought we’d share one of our favorite places with you, the Stumbling Goat Bistro (http://www.stumblinggoatbistro.com). Read the review below or on our website.

SGReview