Montreal Tech Watch

Lenny Rachitsky presented localmind at MtlNewTech, along with other new services. LocalMind is a brand new location startup that would allow its users to know what’s happenning at one specific place.

For instance, if you want to know if there’s any interesting activity at your favorite bar, you can ask a question on localmind.com and checked-in users can then answer back. No more going to an empty or extremely busy bar. It’s easy to imagine other potential uses, such as asking about the weather if you’re going on a trip, or if your grocery store has fresh vegetables, saving you time and money.

It’s interesting to see localmind bridging technology & daily needs. Users do have to sign up, get used to third-party services such as foursquare or gowalla, and also get psychologically into the game of answering questions from random strangers… plus there’s always the prospect of marketers spamming the system to force their visibility, both in questions and answers. However, in return, users could get precious information, even without leaving their chair, whereas the same problem requires them today to go on-site or at least phone a friend or coworker nearby.

I see localmind doing very well in advertising, since their users will be in information search mode, similar to Google. Local shops & providers can track keywords and buy ad space in questions relevant to their business. At the same time, localmind could also provide advanced tools & privileges to organizations requiring local information. For instance, taxi companies would be interested in having a real-time heatmap of city activity, or even the city of Montréal who can ask if there’s still snow in your street.

As you might conclude, the potential uses are endless. LocalMind is somehow similar to the invention of telephone where for the first time you can “talk” and get information while not having to leave the comfort of your room. But it’s also to soon the judge the service. It would be interesting first how it would tackle spam, and also how it can create a vibrant community of active users. Like the telephone, LocalMind is useless without users!

LocalMind is now in beta but I am sure that if you ask nicely Lenny (@lennysan), you’ll get an invite code.

Lenny presents localmind at mtl new tech