Many of you will know this already – Berlin is an awesome city to call home. But even here, it can be easy to fall into a rut of going to the same places day in, day out. That is part of the reason why recommendation platforms are so popular because you can check out new destinations with a minimal chance of being disappointed.
The latest such platform is Twisper, a smart location diary iPhone app that offers suggestions for things like restaurants, bars and hotels that match those which you have favourited yourself. Want to find a sushi restaurant nearby? Desperate for a cocktail to get the evening started? Or you just want to go somewhere different for a change? The idea is that you can use Twisper to find somewhere which will suit your personal tastes.
Once you have signed up, you begin adding your favourite places, and once you have five the app’s algorithm can start making suggestions. It also makes for smarter search, with results including favourited locations from other users with similar tastes to you. You can add to your favourites as you go along and the ten closest to where you are at any given time will be displayed.
There is also a ‘Want To Go’ function where you can add places you would like to try out, and which displays them when you are nearby.
In addition, Twisper also acts as a social network, allowing users to follow and receive recommendations from each other.
Thomas Sterchi, David de Brito and Darius Moeini founded the Berlin-based startup in August 2012. It is part of Sterchi’s Swiss Tom Talent Holding company, and he provided six-digit seed funding for the 15-strong team.
“If one of my Facebook friends has ‘liked’ a restaurant out of pure interest, then the recommendation is of no value to me,” said De Brito, the CEO of Twisper. Many contacts in your social graph, he added, are not be close friends and so may not necessarily share your lifestyle and individual tastes.
Moeini, the company’s COO, said: “We wanted to develop an app that thinks and learns and makes suggestions based on your personality.”
Currently, the service ‘functions reliably’ in Berlin, Zurich, Zermatt and Vienna. The onboarding process is reminiscent of Foundd, while the end goal is similar to that of Unlike – finding cool new places to spend time.
In truth, the database will need to big pretty comprehensive to really get the most out of the idea, but it could well be perfect for dragging yourself away from the same old bar where you spend many an evening.
