Apple reportedly acquired Spotsetter, a social engine featuring interactive maps of personalized recommendations on where people could go based on the visited places of the people on their network.
According to sources of Techcrunch, the agreement was more about Apple's acquisition of Spotsetter's technology and the expertise of its founders, Johnny Lee and former Google Maps engineer, Stephen Tse. Both Tse and Lee updated their LinkedIn profiles to show that they now work for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company.
Spotsetter works by providing an interactive map layered with personal recommendations based on the places that the people on one's network visited or submitted a review about. It was initially available as a mobile and web application. Recently, the developers incorporated data from major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram as well as user-submitted content from review sites like Zagat, Yelp, The New York Times, TripAdviser and Michelin. As of 2013, Spotsetter stated that the app has data from over 5 million user profiles, 1 million curated venue items, and 40 million venues.
A Spotsetter user can search for any location through a keyword or a particular category. Once the results are up, he will see personalized venues as well as the reviews of his social network of these locations. The app will also show which of your friends are knowledgeable about a certain category, for example, coffee, dress shopping, pasta, or sushi.
"Our users won't have to explicitly search; they get a great recommendation at the appropriate time with the right amount of content," Lee told Techcrunch. "Then they continue to enjoy the physical world without a thought about technology."
Now, Spotsetter is available on iOS and Android but its developers are working on making it available on the wearable technology, particularly, Google Glass and iWatch.
Apple refused to comment about the acquisition report.
