Introducing Whrrl 3

This is a big day for me.

I founded Pelago in 2006 with the vision of helping people escape their social ruts, of bringing people together in a new and interesting way to inspire each other to do new things and to experience new social opportunities in the real world.

Since I founded the company, sadly, the problem has gotten worse. (Doh.)  The problem as we understood it in 2006 took the form of people tending to go out to the same places over and over again – the classic “what do you want to do?  I don’t know, what do you want to do?” problem.  But now, there’s a whole new way to be boring.  :-)  You can sit at your computer and spend countless hours throwing sheep at your friend’s Facebook wall, play Mafia Wars to level infinity and hoe someone else’s virtual garden – all substitutes for getting together with others in the real world.

Even more now than ever, we need to help people escape back into the real world, to add some spice to their lives.

With Whrrl 2, we started down the path by allowing people to inspire each other with everyday, real-world “stories.”  Today, we introduce, in Whrrl 3, what we believe is the full cure for Social Rut.

We had a dream that we could enable people to vote with their feet as to the places in the real world that are important to them; that we could bring together people whose feet take them to the same kinds of places and allow them to exchange ideas – all those little bits of knowledge people have about places in the real world; and that we could put those ideas at your fingertips with unprecedented relevancy.

This dream materialized.  These groups of people who share real-world patterns are called Societies.

Societies are powerful.  They enable the Whrrl community to curate the world and engage in a new kind of conversation that leads over and over again to discovery — discovery that is always relevant to the Society members, because it’s from other Foodies if you’re in a Foodie Society, other gamers if you’re in the Pinball Wizard Society, other wine lovers if you’re in one of our Wine Bar Societies, and so on.  You get into Societies by checking into the places you go, and believe me, it’s very obvious when you get into a Society.

We took it a step further.  Societies have levels.  People move up levels by getting “influence points.”  People get influence points by doing things that, well, influence other people to try something.  For example, if I check in somewhere, my friends can see where I am, so I might influence them to go to that place.  I get some points for that.  If I create a recommendation to go to Restaurant Zoe and get the (off-menu) Siren drink, I might influence them, so I get some points.  If a friend or fellow Society member clicks “want to” on my recommendation or check-in, I get even more points.  If they click “did it!” on my recommendation, I get even more points.  If they then re-recommend my rec, I get even more points.

Lucky me!  :-)

(I should mention that you can add photos to your recs in Whrrl 3.  You already know a picture is worth a thousand words, and now it will probably get you quite a few extra influence points, too!)

Societies, recs and influence points are wickedly cool (we think), but we didn’t stop there.  We created a way for real-world merchants to make offers to Whrrlers.  Not only can they make offers at individual places of business, but directly to Societies, as well.  In fact, the offers can made to members of Societies *by level*.  So, a gym owner might make an offer for all Gym Rats, but they can make a super special offer for just VIP- or Trendsetter-level Gym Rats.  For Whrrlers, that means that as you level up in Societies, you unlock more and more potent offers from merchants.  We have lots of offers in Whrrl today, and the number grows daily.

That’s also pretty darned cool, in our collective humble opinion.  But, again, we didn’t stop there.  As you level up in Societies, you also unlock special privileges, which are things you can do in Whrrl.  Like maybe you want to change the places in a Society.  Or maybe you want to create your own Societies.  There are many privileges to unlock, but I won’t spoil the fun by listing them all out here.

To make Whrrl 3 as fingertippy as possible, all of the recommendations and offers come together in one place in Whrrl 3:  your Ideas list.  Wherever you are, just click on the Ideas tab to see all the relevant recs and offers around you.  For every Idea, we keep track of everything that happens to it “in the wild.”  Who wants to do your Idea?  Who has done it?  Who has re-recommended it?  Not only do you get points as you help people discover, you can see exactly who the people are!  Oh, and you might see a few surprises on your Ideas list that go beyond offers and recs from others.  Let’s just say our algorithms are constantly trying to figure out cool and interesting things for you to do based on what others are doing and have done, so check your Ideas list often.

I have to say, it makes me tingly just writing all of this.  Whew!

So, in short, by participating in the Whrrl 3 community, you’re simultaneously helping your friends and others who share your interests, and you’re opening new experiences and pathways of exploration for yourself in your city.

We poured our heart and soul into Whrrl 3, and we feel like we’ve created something special and powerful for all of you, and something that will definitely enhance your life.  We look forward to being surprised by how you use it and to your as-always super valuable feedback.

May your life be spicy.

You can read the press release about the Whrrl 3 launch here.