Tag: Local »

Looking for some fellow musicians to jam with? Or perhaps it’s time to really get together that Afrikaans metal band together, for real? That’s what musicr is designed to do: bring local musicians together. Users can fill out a musical profile that shows their interests and musical proficiencies, like what instruments they play. Then, they can find other people with smilar interests who play other instruments to help get a band together, or people who play the same instruments to practice with and get tips, or just some cool folks to jam out with.

The app also serves as a great vehicle for self-promotion. Share photos of instruments and setups to wow friends and other users on the service, or even just to prove that yes, you do own a 12-string guitar. Use status updates share info on upcoming gigs, or to say how that song is coming along, or anything music-related.

The app is coming soon to the App Store.

Knowing what’s going on in the world at large is certainly useful. Sometimes though, it’s more important to know what’s going on across the street instead of what’s going on across the globe. Recognizing that, the EveryBlock app seeks to fill that local news niche and with its the new update it is hoping to fill that niche even better.

The 2.0 update adds a host of new community features bringing the app more in line with the EveryBlock website. Users can now more easily connect to their neighborhoods by choosing the specific locations they want their news to come from all the way down to the block level. Users can become citizen journalists and share breaking news and photos of events as they unfold. Using the app, users can also send questions to their neighbors or even just start a conversation in real time.

Be aware that currently EveryBlock is only available in the following 16 cities: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The updated EveryBlock app is available now for free on the App Store.

[gallery size=”thumbnail”]

Pulse is about to pick up on what's important locally for users, not just nationally. The new Local category in Pulse adds special local categories for users based on their current location. This includes sports categories provided by SB Nation, Bleacher Report, and CBS Sports, to help read up on local teams. Publications that track food reviews are also available, to find the newest delicious eats in the area. As well, deals from LivingSocial and Groupon are collected and available in the app. This is along with special categories for local publications that can provide relevant news and happenings in the local area, such as Gothamist for New York, and The Bold Italic for San Francisco users.

These categories appear identically to national sources in Pulse, and articles can be read and shared from them just as national publications, making for a seamless fit into the app. The free update is available now for both the iPad and iPhone/iPod versions of the app.

It's Friday night and you've got no plans. What do you do? Well if you're up for a bit of adventure you could fire up Roamz and let it guide you to all sorts of local fun and excitement. The app scans your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and FourSquare accounts to find out what other folks in the area are up to and what local establishments are jumping on a given day.

What sets Roamz apart from similar apps is that it tailors itself to your personal tastes, recommending locations which are not only popular, but which you'll also find interesting. Who cares if your friends are checking out an art museum if you're not into that stuff right? Basically, the more you use the app the better it can predict what you want to see, and the latest update has improved the app's learning functionality so it will be more accurate than ever. Want to know more? Check out the video for a quick rundown of what Roamz can do.

Most of those living in big cities know that it can be tough branching out from the tried and true, regional way of life. Living or working in a specific section of a big city usually influences dwellers to play in those areas as well. How do folks find the cool new places to go? Word of mouth, usually.

Urban Dig aims to provide even more of this kind of recommendation, via experts on local culture and places, called Curators. These experts create lists like Best Dive Bars, Art in the Streets, Vintage Shopping, Food Trucks, and the like, then pass them along to users of the Urban Dig app. In addition to lists of cool places to go and things to experience, Urban Dig provides Curator Notes, to give users a richer understanding of the places and things they're being directed to.

Urban Dig is available for free now in the App Store. The cities included are Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver for now, and will add New York, Chicago, Austin, Portland and DC by the end of 2011, with more cities promised in 2012.

[gallery]

Consistently popular instant messaging app IM+ Pro has just had a new feature added in the latest update. It sounds like a great way of bridging the gap between virtual and 'real life' social networking too.

The Neighbors feature enables users to find people locally who have similar interests by locating them on the IM+ map. Besides being able to locate your friends on the map at any time (with appropriate privacy settings on offer), you can also get to know new people through the app.

Through the interface, you can post local announcements such as offering goods or services for sale locally as well as see other sellers and their products.

It's a pretty neat idea so it'll be interesting to see how it works out on a worldwide scale.

The update is available now for all IM+ Pro owners. For those interested in buying the app for the first time, it's an universal app and available for $7.99

The problem with the iPhone today is that is has become the hub of all decision making. Starting with Urbanspoon and with Yelp, and even OpenTable, we rely on apps to guide us to where we want to go.

None of these apps have any sort of human touch though. Apps like Yelp and Urbanspoon just jumble up all the places in the area and then rank them based on user ratings. You might be looking for a really cool restaurant to kick back at after a long day, but nothing that these apps have will help you narrow down your options. There's just no differentiation between The Cheesecake Factory and the coolest place in town, and there's definitely something wrong with that.

To fix this issue, Thrillist has made an app that hand picks the very best in food, drinks, and shopping, all with descriptive editorial, to finally give you what you want... something great.

"Search, sort, share, and save thousands of hand-picked, local favorites -- from five-star steaks to two-dollar tacos, rooftop clubs to underground speakeasies, and bespoke shirts to kicks inspired by Jacques Cousteau."

Next time you are looking for somewhere to go, just do a quick Thrillist search and see what's awesome right around you. It's not available in every city yet, so check out the list of cities on the iTunes page before you pick it up.