Dailyplaces, which launched as a location-based microblogging platform in December 2009, has made a significant pivot today by relaunching as a social recommendation service for places but with its own gaming twist.
Aside from ditching its Twitter-for-location roots, the premise of the updated iPhone app is to shun ‘anonymous’ lengthy reviews of places as is the model used by sites like Yelp or Qype (although they too are evolving) to focus on short recommendations from a user’s social graph. But it’s the newly introduced gaming metrics that are, perhaps, most interesting.
Writing a review on Dailyplaces isn’t obligatory but instead users can rate a place simply by clicking on the ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ button so they can be as positive or negative as they like. There’s also the check-in aspect of Foursquare ensuring that the reviews/tips are authentic and offering the ability to see where your friends are in real-time or historically.
Intriguingly, Dailyplaces’ new gaming mechanism does away with Foursquare-style mayors, presidents or kings, yet users do earn credits by being active on the platform e.g. checking in to places or publishing reviews and tips. However, using those credits they can buy virtual shares in places and then every time somebody checks in to that location, they receive a dividend and, thus, move up the leader board. It’s an idea reminiscent of the game Monopoly, although in this case buying shares in popular but perhaps lesser well known hangouts will likely pay off the most.