Lozzal.com
Lozzal is the world's first true local activity suggestion engine.
Systems like Yellow Pages and Google Local help you find nearby businesses based on your location. These services assume you know what they're looking for either by name or category. But, what if you don't? A local search for "I'm bored" or "I want to go out with friends tonight" will inevitably lead you nowhere. Lozzal, however, will give you ideas. It will suggest places to go, things to see and activities to do.
Given only your location, Lozzal will consider the weather, time of day, popularity of businesses and activities in your area and many other key influencers to give you ideas that you can use immediately. If you want to shape the results towards your cravings you can enter those as well. We'll focus our ideas around your needs and introduce you to some ideas you likely wouldn't have thought of on your own.
Here's an example of our mobile Android app in action, helping a user explore San Francisco, CA:
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Lozzal is not search.
Lozzal differs from search in that you'll never get a list of businesses based on your input. Everything will be framed as part of a larger activity suggestion. Moreover, we won't always list the businesses that you can see right in front of you because we consider popularity, reviews and proximity in roughly equal parts. If you're looking for food and we suggest a short walk rather than the restaurants you can see, you can bet it will be worth your while to go investigate them.
For comparison, you can think about Search and Suggestion being part of a spectrum, and the various services available to you function differently at different ends:
For local search queries (1-3) Google and business directory sites are the undisputed kings. They're great at looking for specific businesses by name or giving lists of businesses (sometimes based on proximity) for a given category. What they're not good at is dealing with vague inputs, desires and cravings (4-7). However, Lozzal provides much better results for the suggestion end of this spectrum. When a user searches Lozzal they will get a few valid results pertaining to their exact query then a few loosely related ideas. A craving of bowling might also suggest billiards, mini golf or paintball with friends as alternatives. In a fair comparison* we can't honestly include those results as valid (because they aren't what the user asked for) even if they end up being the idea the user decides to pursue.
Lozzal was designed from the ground up precisely to give social activity suggestions for queries as simple and vague as "I'm bored". Suggestions like "Enjoy a few drinks with friends while playing billiards at Benfica Sports Bar", "Pick up dinner from Twice the Deal Pizza and rent Dear John from Generation X Video" and "Join friends at McGinnis Frontrow Restaurant for beer, wings and to watch the Indians play the White Sox at 7:05 pm" give users fully formed inventive and relevant suggestions that satisfy their desires.
Lozzal is an engine.
Very shortly you will be able to get Lozzal for your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, BlackBerry or Android mobile device. You will be able to use it on your desktop computer, or even on your modern mobile web browser. In the slightly more distant future you'll be able to chat with it over instant messenger, Twitter or even SMS. If you want to be the first person you know to have this technology in your back pocket, just let us know by emailing us. We'll let you know as soon as it's available.
And hey, if no one knows you have Lozzal on your phone, you can be the person with all the great ideas. No one ever needs to know :).
* If you are interested in a deeper analysis and comparison please request our White Paper on the subject: Local Search vs Local Suggestions.
What would the world's first suggestion engine recommend for you?Click to find out!