The Inside Scoop

1. Who is our target audience? We will target most generally youngish people in the metropolitan Washington, DC, area; that is, people 40 (35?) and younger, as they tend to be more tech-savvy and more “into” the social scene. Washington is one of the most wired cities in the country, so that helps us. More specifically, since our selling point at least at first will be GPS-supported nightlife, our target audience will be GPS-enabled mobile device users in metro DC. We envision this focus to be our entrée, or the leading edge of the wedge, into a much more comprehensive local news and information service, but which will still have GPS as its linchpin.

2. What is the competitive landscape? A cursory Web search indicates Yelp especially, and Urban Spoon less so, will be our main competitors. It was a bit disappointing to see that Yelp covers what we’ll cover – restaurants, bars, live shows, etc. – and with reviews by Joe Schmoes to boot. Hopefully the immediacy we can offer with the GPS platform, combined with blogging, Twitter, etc., will be enough to give us a decisive edge. The same can be said relative to Urban Spoon, and at least there only restaurants are covered.

3. How do we differentiate ourselves? We will highlight that we are GPS-driven, that wherever you find yourself – leaving the office at 6:00 p.m. and looking for a happy hour, leaving a restaurant in Dupont Circle and wanting a nightcap within walking distance, finding a party is lame and wanting to see a band in the neighborhood instead – all you need to do is flip open your GPS-enabled handheld device and you’ll know what’s happening at the moment and how to get there. Also, the addition (as early as possible after the project launches) of user-generated content could make us a destination for creative types, and those who just like to observe, write, tweet, etc., who want to submit video, reviews, etc. Most generally, user interaction with the application and/or Web site will set us apart and sell us.

4. How do we create our site? We will need staff to develop an application that works with GPS technology on all mobile phone operating systems. We will also need several people, at least in the early stages, to generate a comprehensive database of restaurants and bars in metro DC. Once that is achieved, perhaps one person should be dedicated long term to keep tabs on new, emerging venues. Depending on the extent of our plans to seed our Web site with in-house videos of venues, we will also need a videographer(s) and editor(s). Later, as we expand coverage to more newsy items, we’ll need staff to cull area news outlets and aggregate relevant pieces for the site. And somewhere along the way we’ll need to grow an advertising sales staff.

5. How do we get our content? In the beginning we will seed our site with reviews and video of restaurants, bars, etc. that we produce ourselves. Once we reach a critical mass and begin to make a name, we will turn to submissions from patrons of the nightspots, in the form of written reviews; videos; on-the-spot, at-the-moment tweets; etc. As we become more comprehensive and news-oriented, we will largely aggregate items from other outlets and lean heavily on user submissions.

6. How do we market our site? We’ll need to market ourselves to two audiences, the first trickier than the other. We’ll have to get owners of GPS-enabled handhelds to actually avail themselves of our services. How to do that…? Second, more traditionally we’ll have to entice venues to place ads with us, which will depend largely on how many eyeballs we can promise them (that is, how successful our first marketing foray is).

7. How do we sustain the site? The bulk of our money will come from advertising revenue from bars, restaurants, nightclubs, etc., who want to place a static print ad in a corner of our site, submit a video short to be appended to a longer feature, or something else. Lifestyle advertisers will do the same. Ultimately, this application/Web site would link advertisers to specific demographic groups in specific geographic locations in real time. There lies great potential for precision-placed ads.