Pelago Launches Whrrl, First Mobile and Web Social Discovery Experience Benefiting Consumers, Carriers and Local Businesses

SEATTLE--Pelago, Inc., a new company developing consumer experiences derived from breakthrough technology, today launched Whrrl, a mobile and Web social discovery service that uses proprietary location-based technology to create a unique intersection of social networking, local discovery and user-generated content.

The result is a new consumer experience that catalogs a person’s activities, chronicling an individual history of the restaurants, clubs, shops, live music events, movies or any other visited place or event. Users may augment this history with more in-depth content, like reviews and photos, and they may share all of this with others in their social network. Whrrl opens entirely new discovery pathways by allowing users to look at the map and search through the eyes of other users they know. For the first time, discovery questions like “I want to find a fun place to go out tonight” are answered quickly and easily from either the Whrrl website or downloadable mobile application.

The information is available in real-time to Whrrl members and any updates to the information appear in a member’s “Whrrld Feed” instantly, creating a persistent, always-on conversation among the members of anyone’s personal community. Not only can users “remember” for the future places that appear in their Feeds with one click, the “Whrrld Lens” and “Whrrld Sifter” let members combine other trusted members’ visit histories and ratings with factual information, like open hours, distance from current location, cuisine type (for restaurants) and so on to quickly filter down to a small number of highly relevant options.

“Whrrl provides a great consumer experience that gives friends a simple and immersive way to discover, gather and share local information for both real-time use and later reference,” said Jeff Holden, co-founder and CEO of Pelago. “Before Whrrl, the way people would answer a question like ‘Where should I go for dinner tonight?’ or ‘Where can I meet up with some friends for happy hour?’ was to ask friends for suggestions. However, this process is quite inefficient, and so people simply fall back to their few usual places rather than expanding their horizons. Whrrl takes the difficulty out of this kind of discovery, and it’s truly fun to use.”

Whrrl’s patent-pending, location-based service technology called “Passive Visitization” represents one of the most significant innovations ever developed for mobile form-factors. This technology can identify the location of Whrrl members with such precision that it can discern whether a member actually entered a store, restaurant or other venue, rather than just passed by the storefront. “Not only is the entire discovery model different from anything out there today, ‘Passive Visitization’ allows users to effortlessly capture the places they visit and events they attend. Ultimately, this culminates in strong personalization for the physical world and high-relevance targeting for local advertisements,” stated Holden.

The free service will be available nationally with an initial, deep content focus in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington, DC and Atlanta.

In conjunction with this launch, Whrrl is being introduced to American Eagle Outfitters’ customers on ae.com and in stores with the “Our Planet, Your Whrrld” campaign. Beginning today through November 19, American Eagle Outfitters will donate one dollar to the AE Foundation for each customer that signs up for Whrrl via ae.com. AE customers can also sign up for Whrrl from anywhere using the text message code Whrrl (94775).

About Pelago

Pelago, Inc. is an early-stage company based in Seattle developing a new generation of consumer experiences based on breakthrough technology, including Whrrl, a new mobile and web-based service at the intersection of social networking and local discovery. Pelago was founded by former senior executives from Amazon.com and is backed by leading venture capital firms, including Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, Trilogy Equity Partners and Bezos Expeditions.