We’ve been getting a few questions about how Shizzow is different from our competitors. I don’t want to turn this into a competitor bashing session, so I’ll just focus on what we think we do really well.
Shizzow is laser-focused on helping people find and meet up with their friends in the real world. We don’t worry about trying to replace Twitter, Flickr, or other services; we just try to find ways for people to connect for dinner, drinks, work sessions, and more. Here are a few specific ways that we accomplish this single mission:
Focus on places, not addresses
On Shizzow, we focus on places. Broadcasting my location as Portland, OR doesn’t really help my friends find me to hang out. My close friends probably know that I am in Portland, so Shizzow focuses on a specific place, Urban Grind Coffeehouse for example. Addresses are also problematic, since our human brains don’t usually do a reverse lookup from address to location. I may know exactly where the Green Dragon is located, but when I see that Sam is at 928 SE 9th Ave my puny human brain may not associate that address with the Green Dragon. Shizzow, on the other hand, alerts me with a message that “sam shouted from the Green Dragon”.
You supply the place name, and we find the address along with other important information for you. Tags are just one piece of information displayed on the place page, and we also encourage you to add additional tags to these places. Any user can add a tag to a place, which is then shared by all of the other users to make it easy to find somewhere nearby with wifi, coffee, beer, or whatever your passion is.
Find people nearby
My favorite feature, and the one that I find the most valuable, is the ability to see people who are currently at places near your location, which you can view as a list or on a map. While sitting here at the Green Dragon, I can see people who are at work nearby or at other pubs in the area. It’s a great way to find and meet up with friends in the area.
Context is important
It seems like too many applications focus on either the location (data) or the context without a really great tie between the two. I publish that I am at the Peruvian restaurant, Andina. Does this mean that I’m having a romantic dinner with my sweetheart, or am I in the bar wishing someone would join me for a drink? We give people the option to shout with a message to give their friends some additional context about what they are doing at any given location. I’ll have a post with more details on this topic of location vs. context soon.
It’s all about the people
Shizzow is about 2 things: places (which we already talked about) and people. Again, our focus is on connecting people with each other in physical places, so we make sure that we make it easy to find your friends. Most areas of the site allow you to separately view your friends (those you are listening to) and also view everyone.
We’re always open to your thoughts on how we can make Shizzow a better service and help you connect with your friends. Let us know what ideas you might have at Get Satisfaction.
UPDATE 8/15/08:
Audrey Eschright, a Portlander and location guru, does a very nice job of comparing a bunch of location services in a recent blog post: Location Sharing Options. As a bonus, since she isn’t affiliated with Shizzow other than being in the private beta program, she can be objective about the differences.
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2008.08.15 at 09:04
Ryan W
I agree that place is of primary importance over displaying an address. But, there are many times I just want to name a place based on a city, not a full blown address. Most of the time, I’m home, but I don’t want to enter my full address. I’d like to create a “Ryan’s Home” place for just Sherwood. I really liked brightkite for this, but it did not see the adoption of the local community like single location focused Shizzow can.
Anyways, looking forward to following developments on Shizzow.
2008.08.15 at 09:07
Ryan W
Never mind, I see it’s already being discussed (http://getsatisfaction.com/shizzow/topics/special_case_home_place).
2008.08.15 at 09:24
Dawn Foster
Ryan,
Shizzow has a very different usage model than Brightkite. People seem to use Brightkite mostly at a city / zip code level to let people know what city they are currently visiting, and I think that Brightkite & Dopplr are better than Shizzow for that purpose.
Shizzow is really about getting together with your friends. You only need to shout when you are at a place where people might want to join you (coffee shop, pub, etc.) In general, a city / zip code are not specific enough for the purpose of getting together with friends.
We are looking at ways to leave a place and go “off the grid” when you aren’t somewhere that friends might want to join you. I actually avoid shouting from places where I want to be alone. For example, I don’t normally shout from the gym. At the gym, I want to focus on getting my workout finished without the distraction of talking to friends.
We’re also working on better ways to allow people to shout from home without telling the world the address of your house. In my case, I offset my house a number of blocks and put it at a major intersection (43rd & Hawthorne). Someone would find the Hawthorne Auto shop, a martial arts studio, and my favorite bubble tea store, but not my house if they try to visit me based on my “home” in Shizzow. This isn’t ideal, so we’re working on better ways to handle residential privacy in Shizzow.
I hope this helps.
2008.08.15 at 09:54
Audrey Eschright
Re: residential privacy, this was a hot topic at WhereCamp in May, as you might expect. One approach I like is to use Yahoo’s Location API to report home or private locations at a larger (perhaps neighborhood) level, so you can say generally where you are without giving full details. This is what Fire Eagle is using.
2008.08.15 at 10:47
Ryan W
Thanks Dawn. Perhaps at a mass level, BK has a different usage type. But, so far, I’m using Shizzow exactly as I did BK, except without SMS, pictures, or a mobile/iPhone app that Shizzow doesn’t have yet. But, there are more people I know on it (which can go a long way towards making up for other features). If I want to say where I am, I shout, just as on BK, when not home, I use an address/place, when home I use a city. Now, if Shizzow has better place handling than BK, as Audrey mentioned in her blog, than that’s a great win as well.
I love the “leave” concept though, and like the ideas circling around the “home” place.
2008.08.15 at 11:00
dawn
Audrey, I think we underestimated the concerns around residences (at least I did - I don’t want to speak for the other 3). My assumption was that if people wanted residential privacy, they would achieve it by not shouting from home. However, as you know, we can never predict exactly how people are going to use the software, so we are working on ways to make the idea of “home” work for more people. Sam is working on some ideas for how to make this better, but it’s a complicated issue with the way that the site is currently architected, so it’s taking some time to get it right.
2008.08.18 at 12:36
Jeff the Great
I think the key points here are these:
1. Shizzow and BrightKite offer incredibly similar features (in my opinion).
2. Here is the difference: Shizzow has a focus on places, instead of addresses…not because it has technology that BrightKite doesn’t have, but because Shizzow is marketing it as a places, not addresses site. In a way, Shizzow offers less (can’t ’shout’ from a generic place) to get more (more detailed location info).
I really, really want to see Shizzow succeed…don’t get me wrong. I’ve just been rubbed the wrong way by all the blog posts that so badly want Shizzow to be different that they are literally making things up in an attempt to silence those of us that are asking the question.
Its okay to be technilogically the same and to rely on your positioning/marketing to help you stand out.