Recommendations

by irenet - January 29, 2009

Users and visitors to 11870.com now have a new way of discovering places and services, a personalized recommendation system. This is possible thanks to a collaboration agreement between 11870.com and Strands, a US-based company pioneering recommendation technologies.

With this system 11870.com can offer suggestions of places and services based on what users are commenting on or looking at.

For starters, even visitors who are not logged in can see what others interested in the same place have been looking at. Simply scroll down when you’re at the page for a service, for example Caracas Arepa Bar.

When a user is logged in, and browsing through services in a particular city (e.g. Marrakech) or neighbourhood (e.g. Gothic quarter of Barcelona), they’ll also find recommendations available.

Logged in users will also have this choice when browsing at services within a category, like Mexican restaurants.

And most important of all, any 11870.com user will find individual personalized recommendations on their homepage at any time.

The more activity you have as a user (saving services, tagging, creating categories, etc.) and the more you tell it what interests you and what doesn’t, the smarter and more accurate the system can be. In time, it can become a useful tool for planning or making choices.

We’re very pleased with this new feature, and hope that our users an visitors will be so as well. Though we’re aware that it can be improved. We’d love to know what you think about it: write to us or participate in the forum discussions regarding this feature.

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Our friends at Strands have also mentioned this collaboration on their blog.

categories: features, new!

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Such great hights

by irenet - January 26, 2009

Some time ago we mentioned Google StreetView integration on 11870.com maps, it’s a feature that can often come in handy. Still, there are other ways to look at a location that might suit your needs or curiosity better, depending on the occasion.

Satellite views can be informative, but sometimes appear a little too abstract.

The place we’re looking at here, Top of the Rock, is at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. With street view we can check out the entrance to the building:

And the bird’s eye view feature gives us a whole new perspective.

The route to these visual aids is simple: at the page for any service, click on enlarge map or on the map itself. Then you’ll see, not only a bigger map, but a few extra options to help you find your way around. Try the different views out yourself, at the map page for the London Eye, for example.

For another way to view services on a map, read about 11870.com places on Google Earth in the help section.

categories: features

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If you’re feeling chatty

by irenet - January 16, 2009

If you’d ever wanted to give another user kudos for their excellent photography skills or comment on something you saw in a video here, now you can.

This option has been available for a couple of days and is our first new addition in 2009. Here’s a quick run-through of how it works.

As long as you’re logged in you can comment or mark any user’s pictures or videos. As you can see above, we’ve kept the previous options: other media and photo data to the right of the picture, the possibility of e-mailing it to a friend or flagging the picture as inappropriate are underneath it…

Now look at the top of the picture:

This picture has one comment and has been marked as a favorite by one user. To read the comment, just click on the link or scroll down. There you’ll see previous comments and a box to participate in the conversation.

On the bottom left hand corner is the link to mark this media item as a favorite.

If you choose to mark it as a favorite you’ll be able to easily access the picture from your own pictures and videos section. Read more about your media on 11870.com in the help section.

Want to comment on the comments feature? Visit our forum or send us a message.

categories: features, new!

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