Spindle | Tune Into What’s Happening Around You
Launched August this year in the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Boston by Pat Kinsel, Alex Lambert, and Simon Yun, the location based application is an asset for people who want to discover what is happening around them in real time.
The Team
Spindle founders led by Pat Kinsel as CEO, Alex Lambert as CTO and Simon Yun VP of Engineering say they are focused on enabling people discover interesting, relevant social content when and where it can help them the most.
They say,’ The social web is the most dynamic and authoritative source of news and information, but valuable content still fails to reach you when and where it could help you the most. We hope to change how you discover information and relate to the people, organizations and places around you.’
Make Social Content More Discoverable
According to the founders, their mission is to make social content more discoverable.
“Like a newsfeed for your surroundings, Spindle uncovers the best social content from nearby businesses and points of interest. Spindle updates throughout the day, showing you the most relevant, interesting, and actionable content for your location and time,” the founders say.
The app uncovers users’ interests such as oven fresh muffins from a user’s favorite bakery in the morning, lunch specials in restaurants around, a concert in the area or a hackathon in the nearby hub, spas with best offers, discounted boutiques or latest arrivals.
To uncover one’s interests Spindle uses location based searches, the social graph and adds attributes of each social update to answer what’s happening around the user. Spindle can also alert your friends that you are going to a certain event, tell them there is an event in your current location or show them something cool you discovered. Spindle then publishes your activity to Facebook or Twitter.
You can also choose the category of happenings they want to follow.
Spindle lets one choose either Shopping or Nightlife or several others. You can also add spots or events to their Favorites list and Spindle will tell them what’s happening at just those places. You can also select a different location to tune in and discover what’s happening elsewhere.
Spindle’s Features
Its User Profiles allow users to view their own profile, review their recent activity and view other peoples’ profiles to discover what they’ve shared.
The Place Search enables users to search businesses and organizations by name to see their recent activity.
Sharing: Spindle allows users to share updates directly from their Spots feeds. Users can share by Email, SMS and can also be liked on Facebook.
Location Selector which allows users to zoom in on a specific location and show what is happening there. The menu has also been redesigned to show a user’s Favorites and friends at the top of list.
Spindle has not only focused on top results for Food & Drink, Shopping, Nightlife, Events and Deals & Discounts but has also introduced updates for seasons and holidays.
Thanksgiving Feed
Recently, the Spindle announced two new updates in a move to see users make the most of Thanksgiving week. The updates will help Spindle users find holidays more easily and prepare for them,
Pat said, “We’ve added a new Thanksgiving feed that will help you find the best holiday updates from places around you. Restaurants and bakeries are requesting final takeout orders, local attractions are announcing special events, bars are featuring holiday-themed cocktails, and businesses are sharing holiday hours across the board. Spindle tracks every place, inspects every update, and finds the best for you and your family this week.
Expanded Deals & Discounts
Pat added that,”We’ve expanded the Deals & Discounts feed to feature Black Friday updates. Spindle will help you stay on top of the latest and best holiday deals in your neighborhood.
According to Pat, the updates are automatic and users need not to install an updated version of Spindle.
He says, “Your feed menu will update automatically. We want to help you find the best updates at all times, and seasonal feeds are one of the many ways we’re doing this.”
Spindle is backed by Polaris Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, Greylock Partners, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, Broad Beach Ventures, Project11 , Ray Ozzie and Raman Nayaranan.
