TrustedPlaces Links with Facebook and Launches New Features

London, UK (PRWEB) July 14, 2007

TrustedPlaces is pleased to announce that Facebook's growing membership will now be able to "roam" directly onto the TrustedPlaces site. The Company is also announcing a number of new features namely: capability for members to create video reviews; the launch of a syndication widget; and the introduction of richer business information for their listings. These improvements mark a noticeable enhancement to the service offering, placing the company at the leading edge of product development in its field.

TrustedPlaces is a vibrant social network site, based in the UK but with an international membership, providing peer reviews on members' favourite lifestyle locations. Originally based on London venues, its growing passionate, global community share their opinions on what's great and what's to be avoided in their area and city. The site is now growing rapidly and nearing 5000 member reviews on restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs, cafes and much more. These are now spread across 301 cities in 35 countries.

TrustedPlaces received its first round of funding earlier this year from HOWZAT Media, the investment fund set up by the entrepreneurs behind Cheapflights - the leading flights search engine.

The product improvements include:

•     Linkage with Facebook

Facebook is the fastest growing social network for over-25s in the UK. Now members of Facebook can seamlessly 'roam' onto TrustedPlaces,share content and relationships across the two communities, without having to register for a separate account This presents a shift from the traditional walled-garden approach of previous generation online communities and allows TrustedPlaces to tap into an exponentially growing, global community of 22 million members.

•     Ability for TrustedPlaces members to upload video reviews

Video is a hot topic for local search right now and TrustedPlaces is enabling its members to share experiences of their favourite places through this rich medium. To kick the service off TrustedPlaces is combing the video capability with one of the things they do best - getting people who socialise online to meet in the real world and enjoy some of the things about which they're passionate. The recent 'gastro- tour" of Borough Market is a case in point and is accompanied by a mouth watering video clip.

•     Launch of the TrustedWidget that allows reviews to be syndicated across different sites. In the current spirit of open standards the company is now enabling the export of content from TrustedPlaces with the addition of the TrustedWidget, which is a novel web application that allows anyone to specify an area or city, pull the latest reviews created by the TrustedPlaces community and easily display the content on an external blog or website.
•     Improved interface and richer information for every listed business

The addition of an updated core database, which allows users to view a place's phone number, website, nearest transport links, a sample photograph and a list of special features, now renders the service a complete city guide in its own right.

Sokratis Papafloratos, TrustedPlaces CEO and co-founder commented on the recent changes : 'When we started TrustedPlaces nearly a year ago, we promised to our members that we would listen to their feedback and continue to evolve TrustedPlaces with their views serving a guiding compass. The recent changes go a long way towards addressing some of the most common requests we've had and, at the same time, throw in a few pleasant surprises. These mark the beginning of a very active summer for us with a number of further improvements along the way.'

Reflecting on the wider industry trends and how they are affecting smaller social networks he added that: 'We're witnessing a key change in the way people use web applications; embrace social networking; create and share content. However, gaining and retaining a user's loyalty depends on the quality of the product offering more than ever. The barriers between services are coming down and technology is enabling content to travel across sites more easily. We actively embrace this change - the Facebook linkage and TrustedWidget development demonstrate that and indicate the direction of further TrustedPlaces development.'

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