| Website | likeme.net |
| Blog | daily.likeme.net |
| @LikeMeNetwork | |
| Category | Consumer Web |
| Phone | 303-573-9100 |
| contact@likeme.net | |
| Employees | 12 |
| Founded | 10/08 |
| Description | Personalized Recommendation Engine |
| TOTAL | $3.12M |
| FUNDING TOTAL | $3.12M |
| Venture Round, 9/09 | $600k |
| Venture Round, 10/09 | $100k |
| Venture Round, 10/09 | $100k |
| Venture Round, 2/10 | $2.32M |
Founded in 2008, LikeMe.Net (http://www.likeme.net) is a lifestyle recommendation engine that harnesses social networking to power personally relevant search results and discovery. Based in Denver, Colorado, LikeMe.Net is in partnership with the Village Voice Media Company.
As a LikeMe member, you upload the vital stats on yourself and your favorite places and things, which both turbo-charges the website’s collaborative filtering platform and activates your own personalized recommendation engine. When you search, LikeMe accesses a network of people who have the same taste as you and gives you their best recommendations – for the city you’re traveling to, or even in your own hometown. There’s no weeding through a long list of positive and negative reviews wondering whose opinions you can trust, and you won’t get the same recommendations as your parents, your colleagues, or your third grade teacher.
LikeMe provides a number of utilities beyond straight search. The site’s architecture enables a plethora of discovery loops: if you’re interested in Bob’s Chophouse in Dallas, you can check out the different people who recommend it, or click through to browse other restaurants, activities or spas that those who like Bob’s also enjoy. And the Facebook Connect feature facilitates sharing recommendations with your extended social network.
The LikeMe Network includes profiles for Guest Recommender celebrities who travel regularly and have extensive lifestyle recommendations, like singer/actress Katharine McPhee and NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne, as well as local tastemakers, like chefs and DJs, who are always in the know about the latest goings on in their areas of expertise. LikeMe.Net will also aggregate relevant editorial content from lifestyle publications, which will list their Top 10 or “Best of…†picks in Official Recommender profiles.
LikeMe.Net launches with a key strategic partnership in Village Voice Media (VVM), the nation’s largest publisher of metropolitan digital media. VVM’s web sites offer definitive coverage of news, food, music and events and have a combined on-line readership of 8 million per month in fifteen of the country’s premier markets. “For people like me, VVM’s newsweeklies and websites have been the go-to source for discovering cool places and events, so having access to that content is a dream,†said Giarraputo. “And since our social search technology allows us to monetize in a way that other social platforms can’t, we’re grateful to have VVM’s experience on board.â€
The VVM relationship consists of a promotional, content sharing and ad sales partnership. It also powers LikeMe’s one-of-a-kind Live Music and Events category, pulling authoritative entertainment listings from VVM’s 15 markets and matching them with your customized criteria. The live music and event recommendation feature will alert you to timely events that fit your tastes and expose you to new and emerging bands, artists, clubs and concerts that otherwise might have gone undiscovered.
In addition to the new LikeMe.net service, LikeMe is also launching a mobile application for the new Palm® Pre™ phone, providing mobile access to LikeMe’s services. “We specifically chose to go with the Palm® webOS™ platform because of its ability to multitask and unique points of integration. Being able to instantaneously send recommendations straight from the LikeMe app to friends from your Palm Pre phone’s contact list will strengthen LikeMe’s social search capabilities, providing our customers with more immediate connectivity and more accurate search results.†(1)
LikeMe’s webOS application employs the location based services (GPS) of the Palm Pre phone to identify places nearby that have been recommended by people like you and share your current location with your LikeMe friends. The application also enables you to get updates on your friends via notifications and share instant recommendations via the multimedia messaging (MMS) capabilities or email, so you’re never out of touch or out of the loop.
