All the Internet is buzzing with Facebook’s Places announcement and launch yesterday. Curious how Whrrl plays into the mix? You can listen to a Cinch interview Robert Scoble recorded last night, with Jeff Holden and John Kim’s thoughts on the news:

Click image to listen

We’re excited to announce that today we launched Whrrl Society Rewards – a social loyalty program designed to close the gap between a brand’s online social media presence and real-world physical presence. As part of our unveiling of the new program, we teamed up with Murphy USA who will reward their customers who love them through Whrrl Society Rewards. When customers check in with Whrrl at one of Murphy USA’s 1,100 locations nationwide, they will be accepted into the “Murphy USA Society” and earn a chance to immediately win free gas.

We like to think of Whrrl Society Rewards as an entirely new form of a loyalty program. It’s different from traditional loyalty programs in four important ways:

• Whrrl Society Rewards is prize-based. Consumers have an opportunity to win prizes when they check in to participating retail locations and earn additional opportunities to win as they achieve higher levels in Societies – which happens as others act on their recommendations. Because the rewards are prizes of chance, the program can be started and stopped easily and quickly, without the long-term financial liabilities that come with traditional transaction-based loyalty programs.
• Whereas traditional programs, e.g. loyalty “punch cards,” are based solely on transactions, Whrrl’s Society Rewards is based on a person’s ability to inspire friends to try new ideas at real-world places. When a user recommends an idea, they earn points and can level up in a Society. Users receive additional points when others “Want To” try that idea, actually do try the idea or pass on the recommendation to their friends. Users also earn points by getting others to join the Society and by checking in at qualifying locations.
• Retailers and brands can have their own Societies on Whrrl. Societies are passion groups for the real-world, bringing people together to motivate each other to try new things in a vast array of topic areas, including live music, fashion, food, shopping, outdoor activities, “follow in the footsteps” groups and more. Retailers and brands can create their own Whrrl Societies and motivate their customers to join, activating them in the real-world.
• Whrrl Societies are viral. There are many opportunities for Society members to share out to their friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter, from check-ins and recommendations to prize win moments, which organically grows the Society.

We can’t wait to see how this program unfolds! If you’re interested in rewarding your customers with Whrrl Society Rewards for checking in, contact us at merchant-feedback@whrrl.com!

You can download our entire press release on the program here: Social Rewards Murphy USA Release

And read about our exciting news in the following articles:

“Check in with Whrrl, win free gas” on TechFlash

Whrrl Launches Real-World Social Rewards Program; First Partner is Murphy USA on MSN Money & also on PRNewsWire

“Check in with Whrrl, win free gas” on uInnoBlog.com

“Moso Network Whrrl Fuels Up On Real-World Rewards” on Adotas.com

“Murphy Gas Uses Whrrl Social Rewards to Accelerate Customer Loyalty” on SocialTimes.com

“Murphy’s USA Creates Loyalty Program With Location-Based Service Whrrl” on ClickZ

“Whrrl Adds Game Of Chance Spin To Social Media Loyalty Program” on InventorSpot

It’s been quite a ride  since we launched Whrrl 3 during South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) on March 11 . The team here at Pelago had no idea what to expect from our users, the media, social media/technology influencers, and the public at large about the latest version of our product. We’re super excited and humbled at your positive and supportive feedback, including:

• Awesome blog posts and articles written about Whrrl 3. The first article to break the news – TechCrunch, was reTweeted 513 times and shared to Facebook 72 times. Wow! We also received mentions in the New York Times, CNet and ZDNet, a 5/5 rating on Appolicious, a TechFlash blog post and more. (You can find a full list of our press here.)

• Whrrl featured in the “What’s Hot” Featured section of the Apple App Store:

• The love we’ve seen in the Twitterverse:

(You can see a full list of our favorites, here.)

• And buzz from our on-the-ground “Ninja opps” in Austin (it wasn’t spray paint by the way, and we’re cleaning it all up!)

We want to thank everyone who has taken the time to download, use, review, Tweet, blog and tell others about Whrrl. We *heart* you! Your ideas, suggestions and feedback is always appreciated so drop us a line: feedback@whrrl.com

We’re very excited to be partying together with Max’s Kansas City to revolutionize the music world. Max’s sent out a press release today that we wanted to share with our readers…

New York, NY – December 3, 2009 —Maxskansascity.com, the online nexus of authentic fashion, art and music culture, announces today that it is teaming up with Whrrl – a location-based, social networking application.  Now, when users go to www.whrrl.com, they will find exciting featured content about today’s artists, musicians, fashion designers, actors, writers and filmmakers, (e.g. Andrew WK, Chin Chin, Cat Solen, Gareth Pugh, etc.) and also learn about those celebrated idols that frequented the legendary New York City location.

Members of the MaxsKansascity.com community will now have the opportunity to discover the history of Max’s, and connect with each other by sharing their own stories on Whrrl.

The just-launched Maxskansascity.com is an online community dedicated to continuing the artistic trajectory of Max’s Kansas City.  From the late 1960s through the early ‘80s, Max’s was a gathering place in NYC for all things hip and, as William S. Burroughs called it, “the intersection of everything.”

Famous icons including Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Richard Avedon, Roy Lichtenstein, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Aerosmith, Betsey Johnson, Halston, Twiggy, Dennis Hopper, Stanley Kubrick and Federico Fellini are just a few of the heralded characters that formed the eclectic tapestry of Max’s Kansas City.

_____________________________________________

About Max’s Kansas City

Max’s Kansas City is dedicated to propelling and exploring the fusion of art, fashion and music. In the same way the original Max’s represented the melting pot of “pop culture” for its generation, the new Max’s aims to be a progressive and dynamic genre of “avant-garde art culture” for today’s artistic community.  From the storied history of the legendary establishment that Mickey Ruskin built, and onwards into the future, Max’s Kansas City will continue to be the authenticator and gold standard of all creative movements in art, music and fashion.

www.maxskansascity.com

Contact:

Marni Wandner, Sneak Attack Media

Phone: 212.481.3400

Email: marni@sneakattackmedia.com

On page 68 of this week’s edition of US Weekly, Ali Sweeney mentions Whrrl as her favorite iPhone app to use! Woot!

Thank you Ali – and everyone of our users! We heart you for all your support!

TechFlash posted over the weekend that Seattle firms see gold in iPhone Apps, and we certainly agree.  Jeff was quoted in the article:

The iPhone and Apple App Store have “created a thriving ecosystem with an effective reach that dwarfs any other path available via a single platform,” said Jeff Holden, CEO of Seattle web startup Pelago, which works primarily with the iPhone.

We can’t wait to share more of the thinking behind the concept of “effective reach” in measuring the strength of the iPhone application ecosystem on the whole, as well as the success of particular applications.

John Cook has been compiling a list of local iPhone applications and developers using local service Blist, check it out and contribute anyone who should be included:

Check out the full article here and if this interested you, you may also consider joining the Seattle iPhone Development group on Google to keep up with the latest events and discussion.

It’s the first day of the last month of 2008, which leads me to do some looking back and a whole lot of looking forward.  As 2008 comes to a close, it seems appropriate to reflect on a year of rapid growth in the mobile space we’re a part of, both as a location based service in general and an iPhone application specifically.  Just the thought of the hundreds of thousands (maybe even a few million?) of people receiving iPhones for Christmas has me giddy with excitement at what they’ll discover and how they’ll benefit from greater connectivity to the people in their lives.

The promise of LBS is finally becoming reality as applications like Whrrl become more widely known, accepted and used. We are proud that VentureBeat included us in an article about location based services to watch in 2009:

Here’s what Justin Davey at VentureBeat had to say about Whrrl:

Whrrl, a social discovery network developed by Pelago, not only lets you stay connected with friends, but also to discover places and events. Whrrl was the first iPhone application to receive an investment from Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers’ iFund for iPhone developers. It has also received hefty sums from T-Mobile and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. So why am I bullish? Because chief executive and co-founder Jeff Holden was the senior vice president of online consumer services for Amazon.com prior to co-founding Pelago. He was one of the developers of Amazon’s prediction system that analyzes consumer behaviour, and, based on a user’s previous searches, delivers other products that may be of interest.

In a chat with Holden, he told me he has the know-how to transfer this type of system to the Whrrl platform. Judging by Amazon’s success in delivering appropriate product matches to users — if you don’t know what I mean, try it out — Holden and his team could likely develop a similarly effective geo-targeted advertising platform for Whrrl. He didn’t disclose too much to me when I talked to him, so I’m not sure if this will roll out in 2009, but he did reveal the company will attempt to monetize the platform by selling virtual goods.

Our lips are sealed for now as to what we’ve got cooking for 2009, but the oven is hot and we can’t wait to unveil our progress in our ongoing mission to bring together the web and the real world seamlessly, in realtime.  For now, enjoy Whrrl and look for updates to the website in the near future (more about that will be posted here).  Cheers!

Last week Whrrl had a booth at the WTIA monthly meeting and I had the good fortune to run into Tim Reha as he was interviewing the guys from Melodeo. They’re promoting the new nuTsie music service (see their interview with Tim here).

Tim and I talked about how social discovery with Whrrl helps you find new places to visit in the real world. We also discussed privacy settings, publishing your location to Twitter, our recommendations engine, and engaging with the Whrrl user community.

Tim Reha interviews Danielle Morrill about Pelago’s Whrrl, a Mobile Social Network Application from Tim Reha on Vimeo.

At the end of the interview, Tim asks about emerging trends in location based social networks and beyond, and the broader application of “the web of the physical world”. To hear more on the ongoing instrumentation of devices with sensors (beyond location), check out Tim O’Reilly’s talk Web Meets World from Web 2.0 Expo New York.

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

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