14 July 2009 | Author: J. Cave SEO Consultant

Ex-Googlers Launch Townme

Townme, a startup launched by a number of ex-Google employees, has launched in the United States. The website combines data from both Google Maps and the census to bring users heatmaps of where concentrations of "Yuppies", "Cougars" "Sugar Daddies" and starving students are in your area.

Of course, concentrations of Cougars and Sugar Daddies aren't the only nuggets of information available on Townme: the website also offers other useful snippits, such as which restaurants offer free meals on your birthday, as well as providing a huge list of reviews of every amenity in your area - from bars to laundrettes.

In a recent position offering on a job site, Townme described itself as an "early stage Internet company started by two Google leaders and backed by people who invested in Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and other key digital media companies." Obviously the company has high hopes for its future, but little has been discussed about how Townme will make money - or whether or not the 'restaraunt reviews' marketplace is saturated.

It's clear that there are already a number of established websites which are very similar to Townme, Yelp being an obvious example. According to Co-Founder Elad Gil, however, Townme is a much more advanced version of Yelp, taking the use of reviews and user-generated content one step further.

For example, Techcrunch reports that Elad said if if you were to type "Golden Gate Bridge" into Yelp you may well find a list of restaurants and bars nearby, usually with reviews to match, but you wouldn't be able to discover the best locations to shoot photos from or which landmarks are particularly worth visiting.

Some of the content which Townme will become most famous for - like areas with the highest concentrations of Yuppies or Cougars - are presumably just for fun, but there is a lot of other content on the website that could prove useful. The question is whether or not Townme - even with its detailed locations of interesting characters - will be able to compete in a market that is already so dominated by players like Yelp, Yahoo local, Zagbat and many more.

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