Location-based social planning platform Hotlist (formerly “The Hotlist”), is launching a revamped website and iPhone application today, with an increased focus on ease-of-use, improved discovery of upcoming activities and events, and better tools for coordinating plans with your friends.
According to Co-founder and CEO Chris Mirabile, the company is also nearing the close of its next round of funding to the tune of approximately $1 million+, raised primarily from angel investors (via AngelList) and previous investor Centurion Holdings, among others.
“When you think of other location-based services, like Facebook and Foursquare, it’s about what’s already happened in the past, it’s a more historical view,” explains Mirabile. Hotlist, instead, wants to help you find out what’s going to be happening in the future. It does this by tapping into users’ Facebook profiles to see what events users’ friends plan to attend. It also aggregates public data to show which places will be trending nearby. Hotlist users are then offered recommendations based on a combination of factors: their friends, places, events and the brands they follow.
With the update, Hotlist has added the ability to take “virtual peeks” into venues hours or days ahead of the actual events in order to see event details, photos of those planning to attend, and who among their Facebook friends plans on going.
The other notable new feature is the “Planner” which helps users determine the best place and time to meet up with friends. Users can specify up to 5 locations and times and friends select which ones work best.
However, the best part of Hotlist’s update may be the redesign. If you remember what the app and website used to look like, you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by the changes which make the service much easier to use.
Hotlist says it now has over 100 million plans in its system for over 2.7 million venues in over 40,000 cities. Mirabile says that the service has also grown to half a million users since launch.
The new app is in iTunes now, but an updated version will arrive in just a couple of hours with additional bug fixes.
