www.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog
www.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog

Monday, March 31, 2008

Many items on our blogs appear in the next day's paper. Here's an excerpt of one from the Post I.T. blog that didn't:

Word of Web

Two former AOL execs last week launched an application for Facebook that lets you take advantage of your friends' first-hand knowledge of local businesses. The local search engine, called Loladex, helps you find hot new restaurants or reliable mechanics in your neighborhood by tapping into the recommendations of people in your Facebook network.

"We're trying to model the way word of mouth works in real life," said Laurence Hooper, co-founder of Loladex, who used to lead AOL's development of local search and travel search products. "If you're looking for a dentist, a plumber, a good restaurant for a first date, your first instinct is to ask a friend."

Hooper left AOL about a year ago to start working on Loladex and later connected again with colleague Dan Goodman over LinkedIn. Goodman, who had worked on AOL's YellowPages product, joined Hooper in October. The duo came up with the idea and outsourced the development of the application to Viget Labs, a Falls Church Web design and development firm.

Here's how Loladex works. If you search for, say, a barbershop in Bethesda, the first results you'll see will be the recommendations from people you know. The product now extends only to people in your various networks, such as Washington, D.C., or George Washington University. But the application will eventually also extend to people in the groups you belong to, such as a group for mothers, newlyweds or Arlington singles. Check it out at http://apps.facebook.com/loladex.

Hooper and Goodman said they think the product will take off most quickly for twentysomethings who are trying to get established in a new city. Another key demographic will be those who are starting families in unfamiliar suburbs and suddenly find themselves needing services such as lawn care and hardware stores.

Of course, the application doesn't really work unless a lot of people use it. Hooper said he hopes it will spread as people start to see their friends using it, via Facebook's Newsfeed. And if you can't find a recommendation for, say, an accountant a few weeks before the tax deadline, you can post a query. Hopefully that will prompt people to give you a few pointers, he said.

-- Kim Hart