Dutch Internet entrepreneur Mathijs van Abbe (also founder of mobypicture.com) started a new service today; Spot2.be. This is a very easy service that combines a short and easy url with a google map. This way you can easily share the location (on a goog map) with others. So instead of communicating a very long Google map link, or for the more savvy ones a tinyurl of that long goog map link, you can share a link that is configured like this spot2.be/thenextweb
How does it work?
Step 1:
fill out an address
Step 2:
Claim your spot and create your own url. You can add additional information, like a telephone number, a url to your website, pictures etc.
Step 3:
Share your spot with your friends on facebook, your followers on twitter or just via email.
The Business model
A spot2be url is free, but you can spice it up with some extra paid features. If you want your spot to be shown when others visit a nearby spot, you can buy yourself into a category. For instance, if I’m going to a party and the organizer send me to a spot2be link I can see restaurants nearby on the map.
There are plenty ways to monetize this once a critical mass has been reached. All the usual suspects associated with location based marketing can be implemented here.
If you want to know where I’ll be having dinner tonight… check http://spot2.be/dinner
Check out the 1 minute screencast I made earlier today:
Claim your spots, for your parties, events, your favorite coffee bar or restaurant and let me know in the comments which ones you have claimed.
Update: Mathys was kind enough to give away 500 vouchers for a free premium spot to Next Web readers. Use ” thenextweb” when you get to the redeeming of the vouchers.
lijkt een beperkte kopie van het vele malen rijkere geostart.nl
succes
Excellent concept – and it works really well. I like the way they’ve set up the monetisation options from the start.
I grabbed http://spot2.be/newsbase for my Edinburgh NewsBase office – and guys – I have a very interesting vertical market idea for this application that might be – er – right up your street!
Contact me via @clarocada on twitter, or mail David at TheNextWeb.com
come.to and other V3 services revisited.. a decade later
Thanks for the blogpost!
We’re giving away the first 10.000 premium spots. If you use ” thenextweb” when you get to the redeeming of the vouchers there are 500 spots available!
All you feedback is welcome (we’re still in beta), please use http://spot2be.uservoice.com or just send us an email.
English?
Geostart is something completely different. Geostart is a company which builds custom Google Maps solutions and Spot2.be is a tool you can use to create pointers to your spots.