SupportLocal releases social recommendation platform

SupportLocal has launched version 1.0 of its social recommendation platform on April 3. The company currently has seven employees and is "always looking for talented developers," says CEO Justin Sanger. The company has a special emphasis on Google's Go programming language.

 

Sanger co-founded the company in 2011 with CIO Cory LaNou and CTO Levi Cook. "Our DNA is in local search," says Sanger. The trio formerly started Local Launch, which they sold to Dex One in 2006 and worked for under management contracts for several more years. 

 

"Yellow pages used to call word of mouth their number-one competitor," says Sanger. It follows that SupportLocal offers "personalized yellow pages," he says. "SupportLocal is a place to give and get local recommendations from people you trust." Sanger notes that nearly 90 percent of businesses rely on word of mouth, but "only seven percent of it happens online." 

 

Why? Facebook Likes aren't designed to be recommendations, and people typically want to recommend only to their local circle and not spam their entire network. "It's not an adequate proxy for making a recommendation," says Sanger.

 

And neither are the crowdsourced reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. "The problem with untrusted recommendations is you have no idea what the impetus was behind that recommendation," says Sanger. "Next year, about 30 percent of the reviews online are going to be fake."

 

Subsequently, SupportLocal "removes the noise and just focuses on giving and getting local recommendations," he adds. "We don't need 30 answers on a Google search results page. We need a couple of trusted recommendations." 

 

SupportLocal users sign up for an account and make local recommendations on everything from Mexican restaurants to orthodontists and the recommendations are then pushed out to their local networks of friends and family.

The company's model calls for premium business solutions that will be offered at "a very low price point," says Sanger. "We want it to be a no-brainer." 

Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.