“We’re bringing together your whole context,” said Aloqa CEO Sanjeev Agrawal, in this second segment of a four-part interview I had with him recent. Sanjeev was responding to a question I asked about the difference between Aloqa, Loopt and Google Latitude.
Aloqa, which recently raised $1.5 million in venture funding from Wellington Partners and angel investors, recommends Facebook friends around you and relevant things to do. (See the first interview, in which Sanjeev talks about how Aloqa knows what to recommend). Loopt and Google Latitude are similar.
But Aloqa is more, Sanjeev suggested. Aloqa doesn’t just help people discover which friends are nearby, it also recommends places to visit, events to attend and bargains to check out.
In this interview, we also talk about what the “killer app” is for location-based services, and, in particular, Aloqa.
Sanjeev said that it’s hard to put a finger on what exactly the “killer app” will be because people will most likely want recommendations for different reasons. To that end, Aloqa is focused on four use cases, according to Sanjeev.
1) Static points of interest, like local coffee shops
2) Local events (plays, games, movies, book readings, etc.)
3) Friends
4) Sales and bargains
You’ll have to watch the interview to hear Sanjeev explain why these are the four to focus on.
I also ask Sanjeev what the biggest challenge is today. Is the biggest challenge getting people to invite their Facebook friends to join Aloqa? Or is the biggest challenge getting information from local merchants so Aloqa can then make them discoverable to its members?
Sanjeev believes it’s getting local merchants. In order to tackle that scale problem, Aloqa allows merchants to create their own channels. He hopes the self-publishing ability will drive merchant sign-ups.
Check out the interview. There’s so much more that I didn’t cover in this outline.
(Editor’s note: Stay tuned for our upcoming interviews in which we discuss how Aloqa plans to make money.)
