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New York-based NightOwl launched on Wednesday in Chicago to prove that local search—a model that tech giants like Yelp, Foursquare, TripAdvisor all rely on—is broken.
NightOwl, an iOS app that tailors its search based on an individual’s preferences, allows users to find the best bars, clubs, lounges and other hotspots to spice up their nightlives.
“Local search has basically stayed in the same form for much of the past ten years,” said founder and CEO Kevin Madden. “There really hasn’t been much of a disruption in a long time. Regardless of what you’re looking for—whether it’s a barber or a nightclub,—you’re basically dealing with the same app. Having this one-size-fits-all model, in our opinion, just doesn't make sense, specifically food and drink.”
NightOwl hopes to change all that. By focusing on relevant data from friends and others with similar tastes in drinks, bars, and clubs, NightOwl lets users identify where they want to head next during a night on the town. That means users can skip sifting through long-winded and irrelevant reviews from people whose tastes might differ from their own.
“When you unbundle food and drink, and you focus just on drink, it becomes much more subjective,” said Madden. “It becomes all about the scene and the crowd. Things like that are very hard to get any sense for from reviews from people you’ve never met before. If I’m looking for a single’s bar, reading a Yelp review really isn’t going to help much. Having something that’s personalizing would be really beneficial.”
NightOwl is powered by its “Nightlife Genome Project,” a proprietary search algorithm that gives users personalized recommendations based on their activity on the app, according to a company statement. The more time a user spends on the app, the more personalized their search results become. The Nightlife Genome Project is also able to base recommendations off of things like location or day of the week, because even at the same bar, nightlife and events vary throughout the week.
NightOwl launched in 2014 in New York and is also available in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston. The company is currently in the midst of securing seed round funding.
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