I had lunch a couple weeks back with Nagaraju Bandaru, co-founder of Boorah and yesterday I dropped by the social media startup's Palo Alto offices to learn more and meet some other of US-based team members. I like what these guys are doing and how they plan to apply social media community functionality to hometown venues.
Right now, Boorah is focusing on restaurant reviews and as such, they do not look all that different than other such community sites. But the twist is that while other communities may be among the causes of death for so many major metro newspapers, Boorah is working with traditional hometown newspapers to provide citizen journalism reviews of local restaurants. There first such deal is with the Palo Alto Weekly, a financially healthy small town paper, similar to a large number of other suburban weeklies. When I asked to see what Boorah does, Nagaraju did not take me to his company site. He took me to the Palo Alto Weekly Restaurant section, where I saw not just citizen reviews but an aggregated summary of local restaurant reviews, including other online resources.
It is a service I would readily use in picking a restaurant. I do a lot of talking on this site, about the concept of Global Neighborhoods, where geography is irrelevant, but the truth is that the opinions of my tangible neighbors is important to me.It influences where I eat or shop in my hometown.
The hometown newspaper's asset is that the enjoy established relationships with most local merchants. While BooRah is currently focused just on restaurants, there is no reason that it's citizen review system and recommendation engine cannot be used to review any local event.
But restaurants seem to me to be a great starting point. Word of mouth drives the restaurant business and are obviously more valuable than a static newspaper ad. With the partnership, there is immediate revenue and it has an ironic touch, The restaurants pay for the citizen review--even if that review warns people to choose starvation over a meal there.The more reviews, the better Boorah does. Visitors also get to rate the reviewers, so the ones who give the best advice, over time get the greatest credibility.
I think that hyper-local social media is something now beginning that is in position to become very successful in a short period of time. The Palo Alto Daily News is already part of the Topix local news network and it will be interesting to see how Topix and Boorah develop a relationship or rivalry over time.
One of the most interesting twists is that Boorah, a thoroughly modern social media company is partnering with the slicers and distributors of dead trees. Well, it turns out that most suburban local dailies and weeklies are doing quite well these days, while major metros have evolved into studies in red ink. The hometown paper may succumb to the Internet over time, but by then little Boorah will no longer be so little. For now, it is using papers the way many starts ups begin--by finding partners that already has access to the right customers
I think this will be an interesting company to watch. And if you happen to be looking for somewhere to eat in the Palo Alto area, give the Boorah a try and let me know what you think.
