Kyle
Chicago startup Evzdrop has put a new spin on social discovery. Rather than going somewhere and seeing who’s around you, you can “listen” to places using Evzdrop’s website and mobile app. Essentially what Evzdrop is doing is combining event discovery with people discovery, in reverse.
To understand this better here’s how it works. When a user goes somewhere they do a drop, basically putting a pin down where they are at. “Dropping” is Evzdrop speak for checking in. Once you check in or “drop” you can leave a tip or comment about the place. Through your setting you can decide if you want to share your “drops” with people in your network or the public at large. Or, if you rather just lurk in the shadows you can go into “stealth mode” kind of like those startups that think they have original ideas.
You can update your drops as well. For instance if you go to your favorite burger joint and they’re out of milkshakes, that may be important information people need to know. Or perhaps you’ve gone out to one of your favorite clubs but tonight it’s a pure sausage fest.
These drops make event and people discovery for other users a breeze. Now people can look at all the places they want to check out. Users can search for a place or see what’s trending. When they do that, they’ll see all the drops from the people there already. They’ll know if it’s hot or not, by just looking at the drops on the mobile app.
If you’re the “dropper” your drops can be voted up and get you points by the more people that check out your drop. Evzdrop calls this whole thing listening in. So now you’re listening into places rather than just checking them out.
To put it another way. FourSquare is great for checking in you want to check in and get points, and show all your friends that you’ve checked in to such and such place. You may even want to be the mayor (do they even do that anymore). With Evzdrop they’re giving the drops a real purpose. When’s the last time you went to FourSquare to see if a place was hot? You looked for the people right? Evzdrop puts that idea in reverse.
We got a chance to talk with the Evzdrop team. Check out the interview below: