If Yahoo Local were a standalone startup, it might look like Center’d. Partly that is because CEO Jennifer Dulski used to be the general manager in charge of Yahoo Local. Center’d, which publicly launches today, is a mixture of an event-planning/invitation site and a highly targeted local search engine, with a little social networking thrown in.
The entire site is set up to do two things: plan and explore. You import your email contacts, put in your zip code, and off you go. There is a calendar view for local events, and a map view for local destinations.
The company started out as FatDoor, a failed social network for neighbors. It took the $5.5 million it raised last October from Norwest Venture Partners and Keynote Ventures, and rebooted as Center’d. The chief technology officer is Chandu Thota, previously the lead developer on Microsoft Virtual Earth. I reviewed the site last April:
Center’d is both a local search engine and an event-planning application. You can search places for restaurants, hotels, schools, museums, stores, etc., and the results appear on a Google map. There is also a calendar view. Once you connect with friends on the system their events pop up in your searches. And you can also create your own events and get your friends to help decide the details. For instance, things like the location and date can be voted on. Want to have a party by the sea? Ask your invited guests if they’d rather go to Stimson Beach or Montaro Beach, and if next Sunday is better than this Saturday. You can also assign tasks for them to sign up for: bring lobsters, bring wine, bring volleyball.
The site is perfectly serviceable and looks like it will do a decent job with both event planning and local search. The interface is heavy on Ajax, with the screen telescoping open as you go through the options. It is very similar to Pingg in that regard, except it is much more limited in what it can do. But Center’d is also not doing anything appreciably different from many other startups on the event-planning side, including Pingg, Socializr, and MyPunchbowl. It does have the local search piece, but so does Yelp, Yahoo, and Google.
Still, when you are starting out with FatDoor, anything is an improvement.
Since then, the site has been improved. Places can be saved and commented on. And it lets you connect to people through places, such as schools, stores, or museums. Social + local. Isn’t that the original definition of community?
WOW, a maps/social/listings site. HOW NOVEL. SNOOOOORE. next loser please!
Great name!
For the webjoggers… a track for this post
http://www.jogt...php?trackId=112
Don’t people plan events on Facebook these days? And everyone’s friends are already on facebook to plan parties with? Not sure if this idea was well thought out.
I just don’t see how Center’d is adding value to the listings they have on the site. They get their data from third parties like Yelp and then don’t do anything interesting with it. Why would I go to Center’d to comment on a restaurant or tag it when I can go directly to Yelp? “Helping” me plan an event is not a big enough win – I can do that on dozens of sites already too.
They need to do a much better job of distinguishing themselves from the myriad of other listings sites out there if they are going to survive. Of course that $5.5M in VC should hopefully last at least a little while, right?
Nice clean look and easy to use, but here’s the problem. If their model is only built on friends telling friends to populate their social network, I don’t see anything strong here and their value = we’re meeting at the beach tonight or Pizza or w/e, I am not sure people will want to use it that much. (in general)The content has to be much richer, but maybe in phase two they will do that.
Their points idea to populate their DB is nice, I am waiting to see what people get for those points.
Hikey has a good point, even though I think FB is so blah, but they have the numbers.
My final take on this site is it might be ahead of its time for what it is and needs more value added to their services for their customers. And what I mean by ahead of its time is, and I haven’t seen their research, but it seems like people don’t mind planning events, like they used in their examples, on the phone (in general). And how about offering 10 points for those who vblog a location, instead of the 5 for filling out the text for the db? This site needs more 2.0.
And wow that was a lot of money. All I need is 10% of that and my idea is so much better with a model that doesn’t rely on friends telling friends and four different real streams of revenue. But I have to jump through the hoops and don’t have 99% of the connections she did.
GL Ms. Dulski – can’t wait to see phase 2.
@5 Thomas – Yeah my thoughts too. I want to see what phase two has to offer before I say anything else, cause I know how limited a beta can be.
My question is, since Yelp already has their DBs filled and a little social network, how hard would it be for them to implement the forms to create events. And one thing that this company does (center’d) and probably Yelp and the business below is create the event at a location and then what? Pizza, snow cones, birthday party, coffee? – What all online event businesses are missing is a higher level of passion or value to a person. The experience.
Here is a company who kind of does what these guys do: http://www.socializr.com/ – They have that ugly tacky 12 year old FB design, but they do a good job , so I’ve heard.
Thank you! It’s good
Great Name ya
This is a good site if you have at least 5.4 mil left out of the original $5.5 mil investment. Hopefully (for their sake) the founders know something we don’t as far as feature add-ons yet to come etc. Complete overhauls of “business models” (or lack thereof) are not atypical for startups and this one may be destined for something along those lines à la Global Grind.
Come on, how many other sites out there do this? Where’s the creativity??
You just gotta love how it says “First Draft” in the logo
Was the site built using Ruby?
This is a pretty cool site, combining events/activities with the local sphere. Localization is something that hasn’t completely been integrated into a national network site. Check this startup out, OneCoach… http://www.read...ex.php?rta=blog
@John: No Center’d is not on Ruby – it is built on Microsoft technologies (ASP .NET and C# on IIS + Windows etc).
what a piece of crap