With a fresh infusion of $4 million from Comcast Interactive Capital, which it raised recently in a series B financing (with previous investor BlueRun also pitching in), hyperlocal places database Fwix is pushing out a major upgrade to its developer API today. Fwix is creating an open database of places in partnership with Factual . Developers will be able to pull data about millions of places into their own apps, and edit the places as well by adding their own data or content.
Fwix started focusing on becoming more of a places database last year, but its API was clunky. Nevertheless, it served 20 million API calls in March, up from 11 million in February. Now with the new developer API, it will be easier to associate places with content such as news articles, Tweets, and check-ins. The API also includes an advertising layer which plugs into various mobile ad networks and geo-specific offers, including ones from Groupon, LivingSocial, YellowPages.com, and Gilt City.
Other efforts to create an open places database exist. What is unique about Fwix’s places database is that it can append location-specific content to a place such as news articles, Tweets, and photos. The Fwix database is set up to make it easy for developers to mix and match places with content and bring both into their apps. They can filter places by popularity (measured by check-ins) or other ways, and write back into the database with data generated by their users.
Fwix organizes the world’s information by location. Fwix is the largest local content curator and a local data platform for developers and media publishers. By automatically indexing the Web by location, Fwix is currently operating in 7 countries, 61,000 cities, and defined down to 87,000 neighborhoods in the US alone. Founded in October 2008, Fwix is headquartered in San Francisco and is backed by BlueRun Ventures.
Comcast Ventures ( http://www.comcastventures.com ) is the private venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation. It consists of the recently combined Comcast Interactive Capital and NBCUniversal Peacock Equity Fund. Comcast Ventures invests in innovative businesses that represent the next generation of entertainment, communications and digital technology by partnering with entrepreneurs who have the vision, passion and tenacity to succeed. Its primary goal is to generate superior financial returns through the success of its portfolio companies by applying the unique resources,...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
