Bizzy Launches Simplified Local Business Ratings and Mini-Reviews with New Community Features for Mobile

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Bizzy (http://www.bizzy.com), a mobile app that lets you rate and share the places you go with friends and followers, today launched a series of new features including a feed for discovering new places from your community and the "Try List," a one tap way to keep track of the places you discover on Bizzy and would like to try. Bizzy is helping users answer the question, "How was it?" by stripping away the complexity of rating the businesses you visit by creating mini-reviews, where you can select a sentiment, snap a picture and leave a couple of sentences to help people make instant decisions on new places to try.

"Ten years ago, you had to be a food critic or writer to publish a review about a business. Then came Yelp, where anyone could sit down and write a review about the place they just visited," said Gadi Shamia, founder of Bizzy. "But Yelp was built before smartphones and social networks were ubiquitous. We wondered, what would it look like if it was built from scratch today? It would be designed for mobile, and it would be more social and easier for people to participate."

Today's most successful mobile apps have grown by lowering the bar for participation and providing a social experience to be shared with friends. Instagram users have shared 100 million photos in less than a year and Foursquare has had 750 million "check ins" in two years. Conversely, Yelp has logged 17 million long form reviews in seven years. Bizzy is changing the local business reviews process by leveraging mobile and social technologies in a similar manner to what Instagram has done for sharing photos and what Foursquare has done for sharing your location. By making rating the places you go as easy as sharing a photo or checking in, Bizzy is building a community of people with similar tastes who are helping each other discover great new places to try.

Bizzy's new in-app community features include:

• Follow your friends and people with similar tastes to see what businesses they are loving and check out their recommendations and tips
• Browse your Bizzy Feed to see where people are going and how they feel about the places they go
• You can now Comment on and Like other people's "check outs" to share your opinion or thoughts on the places, ask questions, or just give props for a great picture or funny review
• Add the businesses you discover to your "Try List," a dynamic to-do list that provides an easy way to keep track of the places you want to try
• Discover great places nearby from your "Try List" or from your Bizzy recommendations

To promote the new community features, Bizzy is embarking on the "Check Out America" road trip. The "Check Out America" road trip will kick off with a launch party in San Francisco and hit cities including San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M., Lubbock, Texas, Austin, Texas, Dallas, Shreveport, La., New Orleans, Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta, Raleigh, NC., Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston where the Bizzy team will be hosting MeetUps and dinners at each stop to talk to Bizzy users from across the United States. For more information on the exact location of each Bizzy stop head to Bizzy.com/roadtrip.

To share your reviews of the places you visit, download the Bizzy mobile app for iPhone or Android smartphones and start "checking out" from the places you visit (tell Bizzy how you liked the place by using one of three emoticons: the "happy face :)," the "okay face :|," or the "sad face :("), snapping a photo and leaving a tip or mini-review. Your favorites are mapped to people with similar preferences, creating a foundation for Bizzy's recommendations. Bizzy recommends the best places for you to eat, shop and play based on the places you've identified as your favorites, and allows you to search those recommendations by category based on personal match or popularity. You can find more information or register on the web at http://bizzy.com.

About Bizzy

Bizzy is a mobile app that let's you rate and share the places you go with friends. When you go out, "check out" from the places you go to answer the question "How was it?" Bizzy then maps your personal preferences to help you discover local businesses recommended by people with similar tastes. Bizzy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ReachLocal (NASDAQ: RLOC). For more information and to sign up please visit http://www.bizzy.com.

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Media Contact:
Seana Norvell
FortyThree, Inc.
831.401.3175
bizzy@43pr.com

SOURCE Bizzy