Stamped Updated For SXSW: Better Maps, Search & Austin-Area Recommendations

stamped-sxswStamped, the NYC-based startup founded by ex-Googlers, is rolling out an update to its social recommendations app today with a focus on improving local discovery. Specifically, Stamped has overhauled the app’s map interface with the addition of a search box and slider for switching between views.

The company has also teamed up with The Austin Chronicle for SXSW, whose branded account will “stamp” their favorite restaurants around Austin.

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Social Passport Marries NFC With Social Media For A New Spin On Mobile Deals

-1When it comes to daily deals and loyalty programs, local merchants are constantly bombarded with new options. Groupon has leapt ahead in daily deals, and there quite a few players in the loyalty program space, all trying various approaches to mobile, to rewarding influencers, to encouraging social engagement, gamification, and more.

New York-based Social Passport is taking a different approach to the problem by creating a social loyalty tool that leverages both NFC and QR codes to allow customers to interact with their favorite businesses in realtime and receive discounts, and, in turn, gives businesses access to a wider audience of potential customers through their users’ social media channels.

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Location App Highlight Gets Clever Update That Features… Highlights

Screen Shot 2012-03-08 at 8.13.01 AMThere are a few use cases for using hot background location app Highlight, cofounder Paul Davison explains to me. You just met someone and you want them to find out more about you. You want to note that someone is particularly interesting for future reference. And, you want to see which friends are nearby, or have recently left.

The app is getting a set of updates today that should make it more useful in all of these situations.

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Trippy Launches New Visual Browsing Experience; Adds Kevin Rose, Celebs As Advisors

Trippy_BoardDetail_SFFor those unfamiliar, Trippy is a social travel web and mobile app that operates on the assumption that travel recommendations are best served on a silver, friendsourced platter. That is to say, Trippy’s platform, which ties your favorite social networks into its platform to allow friends to comment on your itinerary, feedback, and so on, advances the notion that travel recommendations and destination discovery is most effective when emanating from people who you implicitly trust.

Trippy debuted in private beta at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC in September, launched open beta in October, and raised $1.75 million in November from VCs like Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, True Ventures, and angel investors including Rob Solomon, Tim Ferriss, Brian Lee, Gil Ebaz, Randi Zuckerberg, Jason Mraz, and Rachel Zoe.

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Kismet Combines Check-Ins, Background Location And More — A SXSW Dark Horse?

Meetings_ProfileOut of the slew of new location apps vying for users at SXSW this weekend, Highlight and Glancee are looking like the standouts. They both have subtle ways of connecting you to friends and new people via your phone, without invading your privacy too much. But there’s a royal rumble of competitors.

And another one of them, Kismet, has just entered the ring with a particularly forward approach to privacy that could help it win the attention melee.

It includes the background location stuff like the others, but lets you check in if you really want to declare the place you’re at. “Walking around San Francisco, I’m unlikely to check in,” chief executive Kevin Stephens explains. “But at SXSW where so many events are right on top of each other, it’s more valuable to show which event or location I actually am in order to meet new people. It’s impractical to leave a bar to go to one next door if the line is 30 minutes long.”

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Triptrotting Raises $1M To Combat Clueless Tourism

triptrotting logoTriptrotting, a startup that connects travelers with hosts, has raised $1 million in a Series A round of funding.

The company’s website promises that users will be “not just another clueless tourist.” The idea is that when you’re traveling to new places, it’s almost always better if you have a local friend, so Triptrotting tries to connect travelers with locals at their destination.

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Social Marketer Buddy Media Hires Salesforce Exec Susan St. Ledger As New President

Buddy Media SusanAnother big move for Buddy Media as it continues to build out the services it offers as part of its social media marketing business: the company has hired sales supremo Susan St. Ledger as its new president.

She is joining Buddy Media from Salesforce.com, where she had been for the past seven years in a number of key roles. They included (most recently) SVP of industry verticals, where she was in charge of relationships with Salesforce.com’s biggest clients in technology, financial services, insurance, media and telecoms.

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Major Changes In Facebook’s Amended S-1: Mobile Ads, Zynga, Yahoo Patents, Credit

Facebook S-1Facebook today filed an amended S-1 to IPO that describes new risks based on its launch of ads for mobile, Zynga’s standalone gaming platform, and a patent dispute with Yahoo. It also explained how its concentrated voting structure would impact investors, and listed additional underwriters.

Here are the major revisions to the S-1 compared to the original Facebook filed at the beginning of February.

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Facebook Becomes Location Backbone That Lets Apps Import Checkins From Each Other

Facebook Location APIsFacebook has confirmed with me that its new location APIs let any third-party app import and display the checkins as well as location-tagged posts published to Facebook by other apps. This turns Facebook into a location backbone that can power serendipitous meetups and other geo-functionality no matter which apps you and your friends use.

Bliss — soon you won’t have to use every location app simultaneously, you’ll just pick your favorite.

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With Channel Daily Uniques Up 60%, YouTube Brings New Layout To All Channels

Screen shot 2012-03-06 at 10.04.56 AMRemember that big redesign YouTube launched in December? Granted, you’ve probably seen it several times today already, but in case not, YouTube redesigned its homepage so that its overall look would reflect the design changes that have been rolled out across Google products. More specifically, the update brought tighter integration with Google+, more personalized video discovery and viewing, and a whole mess of updates to channels.

Based on the results YouTube shared today, it thinks the redesign is having the desired effect, as daily unique visits to channels have increased by 60 percent and daily net subscriptions are up 50 percent since December. With channel engagement and subscribing on the up and up, YouTube says that its ready to take the next step in the redesign process it began in December.

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