What’s your APPtitude? Great recommendations from people you know
By Lisa Nicklanovich
Like most people, I often read reviews before making a purchase decision. Recently, however, I had two negative experiences despite the many super-positive reviews I spent time reading. Both my twenty-something kids said, “Well, you know, lots of times the reviews are fake.”
I thought about the fact that I always trust the recommendations of friends, family, and neighbors over an anonymous reviewer for where to go, what to do, read and watch. Since I am a big fan of asking for recommendations from trusted resources, I’ve created many different lists I’ve added to over time. It has not been a great system. I recently learned about the app Likewise, which was designed to discover and keep track of recommendations from friends.
The idea for Likewise came from Larry Cohen, the CEO of Bill Gates’ private office, who noticed how often conversations with his friends turned to recommendations for places to go and things to do. He felt there was a need for a way to collect, organize and share those ideas.
Gates loved the idea and is the investor behind the app. In light of how negative and potentially fake rating and review systems can be, the Likewise team purposefully set out to create a positive environment for discovering and keeping track of great recommendations in one place.
Similar to Pinterest boards, users create lists of recommendations and insider tips that can be shared with friends on restaurants, TV shows, movies, books and places to explore. The app uses a follower structure like Twitter and can help users connect with others who have similar interests.
Users can create themed lists (movies starring animals, for example) and quickly save recommendations to pull up when they want to remember that hike they wanted to take, the brunch spot to take visiting friends or the deli they wanted to visit in New York. Custom picks can be provided by in-house experts and users can ask friends and experts for specific recommendations.
The free app was just released in October 2018, so it will be interesting to see how it evolves. I like the idea of learning what people are enjoying instead of reading reviews that may or may not be true. If you love discovering and sharing what’s new and interesting, give Likewise a try.
