Dailyplaces ups the social – adds realtime chat to locations

Dailyplaces, the social recommendation service for places, has upped the social today by adding realtime chat to its iPhone and Android apps.

Dubbed ‘Places Chat’, users can communicate directly and in realtime with other users that are checked-in at the same location. Additionally, it’s possible to chat with other users that aren’t nearby via a user’s friend-list. The idea behind the feature is to enable users to converse with each other around locations so that they can ask about the place, give recommendations or even book appointments, says the Frankfurt-based startup.

Having originally launched as a location-based microblogging platform in December 2009 and then pivoting recently to focus on recommendations and adding gaming metrics, the new Places Chat feature sort of brings them full circle. Social is very much the order of the day, although to be fair Dailyplace’s emphasis on a user’s social graph as a way to add trust to reviews of locations was already a lot more social than a typical yellow pages type site. Places Chat pushes the realtime nature of the service a lot harder too.