recommendations

Looking more and more like a local search and reviews site, Foursquare is launching a few brand new features with its Android update today.

The central new feature is popular places recommendations.

"When you're in a new city or neighborhood, Foursquare will show you popular places, sites, and must-see attractions," Foursquare wrote in a blog post today. "When you're on your home turf, we'll tell what spots are 'new and notable' -- places that have recently opened in your area."

This feature pops up in Android devices as soon as users open the … Read more

Finding a discovery engine that is actually useful is rare. In my experience, they either spit out vague, useless recommendations or they return results so predictable as to prevent discovery. Thus, it was with trepidation I approached TasteKid. Turns out that underneath its odd name, TasteKid boasts an engine that successfully occupies the fertile ground between pointless and predictable.

Head to TasteKid.com and try it for yourself. Front and center, you'll find a search box and seven tabs, six of which let you narrow your search to music, movies, TV shows, books, authors, and games. You can also … Read more

Over the last few months, Yahoo has been talking about plans to beef up its mobile unit, and now it's making good on the promise. The Web giant announced today that it has acquired Alike, a company behind a mobile app for recommendations.

"The Alike team created an app that focuses on personalization -- using the restaurants and places you like to find the ones you'll love," a Yahoo representative told CNET in an e-mail. "We were very impressed by the team and their approach to building personalized experiences. The entire Alike team will join … Read more

Foursquare launched its shareable mobile venue pages for non-members today, as it continues down the path of becoming less of a social network and more of a recommendation search engine -- a la Yelp.

"Foursquare has tons of helpful information about places, like photos, menu items, and great tips from insiders and local experts," the company wrote in a blog post today. "When you Tweet, post to Facebook, email or text about a place with friends who don't have Foursquare on their phones, they'll be linked to a shiny new page showing all the most … Read more

Nearby, which got bit of a face lift in December, will now show a list of local businesses and landmarks based on your interests, according to Facebook, in addition to what your friends have liked, checked-in, or rated.

The network rolled out the voice mail function on its Messenger app earlier this month, so it's not surprising to see it make its way to the main app. Facebook added this function as well as the … Read more

Foursquare is showing off its last 500,000,000 check-ins with an interactive map that looks more like a galaxy than clusters of people checking into their favorite locations.

The map plots out all the check-ins -- which are so complete in some areas, it looks like a boundary map -- from the last three months in bright points against a black background. You can zoom in to get a closer look, but most of the activity is in the U.S. and the U.K.

Along with the map, Foursquare highlights its ramped up Foursquare Explore recommendations system in … Read more

Foursquare is rolling out a new website today that could lure new users to the location-based recommendations service and let it step into Yelp territory.

Update, 12:12 p.m. PT: Foursquare's new site is now live. Check it out here.

First reported by Search Engine Land, the redone site could help Foursquare reach a broader audience, which would increase its data -- the key to its socially driven recommendations.

The new site will feature a prominent search box, instead of the tiny search bar that is currently at the top of the page, and unregistered users will get … Read more

Facebook says its app recommendation engine, which runs on your data, has become a major way for developers to get to the millions of users who visit the App Center each month.

In a developers blog post today, Facebook estimates that every month, some 220 million people visit the App Center, which went live in the U.S. in May and globally in August.

"We built the App Center to give the growing audience of app users a central place on Facebook to browse apps. However, given the multitude of apps that use Facebook, recommending the right apps to … Read more