Apple Acquires Social Search Engine Spotsetter

redletterdave (2493036) writes 'Apple has purchased Spotsetter, a social search engine that uses big data to offer personalized recommendations for places to go. Spotsetter was designed to combine recommendations from friends with trusted reviews and other data to create more social maps. It would show you which friends were 'experts' in a given area, and you could tag your friends as experts (like LinkedIn) to boost the influence of their recommendations. You could also discover new places by browsing Spotsetter's maps to see where your friends have been and what they've recommended. Spotsetter's app, which was available on iOS and Android, officially closed down just six days ago.'

Comments

Re:Sell! Sell!

[mfh]

They might buy them to ensure they have enough plastic for more purchases.

social search and data mining

[TheGratefulNet]

if there's one thing we need more of, its this.

I mean, how can I find out about my friends unless they report up to some big corp?

oh right. I could just call them or email them directly. and that does not involve ANY spying at all.

yet another useless 'company' and 'product'. sigh.

I guess, like the movie industry, the software world has just run out of truly new ideas and just keeps rehashing the same old shit.

Re:social search and data mining

[vux984]

I mean, how can I find out about my friends unless they report up to some big corp?

For me, the real question is

"Why would I have people using this service as friends?"

Besides, outside of very limited domains I wouldn't value my friends reviews of products on amazon for example. And it would be far more trouble for me to tag them as friends, and then tag them as 'experts' in something, and then hope that they reviewed precisely what i was interested in... ? And that's assuming I'd be bothered to sign up for an account in the first place, which is unlikely in the extreme.

No, like you, I would just call them.

Re:social search and data mining

[TheP4st]

oh right. I could just call them or email them directly.

There are honestly times when I wonder if the average teen even know that you can make calls with a smartphone. And email?! That's just soooo 2012!

Re:social search and data mining

[Plumpaquatsch]

I mean, how can I find out about my friends unless they report up to some big corp?

For me, the real question is

"Why would I have people using this service as friends?"

You obviously didn't understand TFS. Your friends don't need to "use" this service for it to get information from them. The service digs through publicly available information on the internet, info that people give up voluntarily as if somebody gave a shit. You can boost the ranking of information coming from certain people, be they your friend or foes or Kim Kardashian or Eric S. Raymond.

There's no magic about it, it's just a meta-crawler.

Re:social search and data mining

[R3d M3rcury]

[...] And email?! That's just soooo 2012!

More like 2004. if you're in Korea.

Re:Sell! Sell!

[FatdogHaiku]

BRILLIANT! You know that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc? Most of those boxes are full of AOL CD's! It's a polycarbonate gold mine! Think of it, first give them a sleek paint job, then re-brand them as iCoasters! They come complete with an ergonomic hole in the center to aid in picking them up! They can be spindled for easy storage. Think about it, when was the last time you had a product you could "SPINDLE"? (Folding and mutilating still not recommended...)

Never heard of it

[rebelwarlock]

Is this "Spotsetter" something I'm supposed to have heard of? I feel like I got dumped into a story halfway with a bunch of characters I have no reason to care about.

Re:Never heard of it

[rasmusbr]

Is this "Spotsetter" something I'm supposed to have heard of? I feel like I got dumped into a story halfway with a bunch of characters I have no reason to care about.

Nope, thy had an app that peaked at number 50 or so in their category ranking on iTunes.

Their blog talks about them working on wearable software, so I suppose Apple was behind on some software feature for their iWatch (probably a feature that lets you know when you are near good restaurants, cafes, shops, etc) and decided to source it from the outside.

Re:Sell! Sell!

[ArcadeMan]

Apple needs to buy SpaceX, so they can nuke the entire Googleplex site from orbit - it’s the only way to be sure.

Re:Sell! Sell!

[peragrin]

Hey it would lower property prices in silicon valley. So it wouldn't be all bad.

A nuke wouldn't be needed. Apple just needs to drop a couple of tungstan chairs.

That way they could destroy Google and one up Ballmer in one shot. With the money left over Apple could buy the Cubs for 10 billion.

Who?

[msobkow]

How much did they waste on a "service" I've never heard of before and would have no interest in using?

As someone else commented, if I want to know what my friends are doing, I call or email them, not check some random corporate spy network.

Re:Sell! Sell!

[Plumpaquatsch]

Looks like, without Steve and the helm, Apple is just going to randomly spend all of their money on worthless acquisitions.

Not randomly. Like Microsoft did in the past, they've fixated on killing a competitor rather than improving their products.

Yeah, just like they shut down that other outfit Siri. Nobody ever heard of that again. [/sarcasm]

Re:Note to Curmudgeonly Posters

[msobkow]

Ever hear of the tech bubble of the 90s?

The way I see it, this mania for "social" sites is another tech bubble.

Bitching about it should remind everyone with a functioning brain cell of that last debacle.

But then there are people like you, who think that this crap is "special".