Therea4‚¬a4„s no shortage of restaurant-review websites on the Web, but New York City startup Bundle is tapping into an even more honest source of opinion &8212' peoplea4‚¬a4„s wallets.
Bundle launched earlier this year as a site where users can compare their spending habits to people like them. Popular personal finance site Mint.com recently released a similar product, MintData, but that data comes from the sitea4‚¬a4„s 4 million users. Bundle may not have anywhere near that many users, but it says it has financial data from Citibank and other providers, meaning that, effectively, it has data on 20 million users.
Still, are massive data sets really what you&'re looking for from a finance site If the initial pitch sounds a little fuzzy, Bundle is launching some new features today that make its value more apparent &8212' starting with the Restaurant Recommender that I mentioned above.
Instead of basing its ratings on user votes and reviews, the recommender looks at where people actually eat and how much they actually spend. The idea is that you may go to a restaurant once and give it a five-star review, but you reveal your real preferences when you go to a restaurant again and again, and when you spend a lot of money there.
The recommender can tell you which restaurants in your area inspire the most loyalty from others in your income level. And it can tell you what the average spending in those restaurants is really like.
On the downside, the Restaurant Recommender is only available in Los Angeles and New York for now, though chief executive Jaidev Shergill said Bundle will be adding a third city in the next 30 to 45 days.
The Move-O-Matic, meanwhile, will help you figure out the financial impact of moving to a new city. You can enter the city or zipcode of wherever youa4‚¬a4„re thinking about moving, then based on your income, the site tells you how much youa4‚¬a4„re likely to spend on rent, food, and more.
Bundle is backed by Citi, Microsoft, and Morningstar.
Previous Story: Yahoo may ax 650 jobs tomorrow (report)
Print Email Twitter Facebook Google Buzz LinkedIn Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Delicious Google More&8230'
Companies: Bundle, Citi
People: Jaidev Shergill
Companies: Bundle, Citi
People: Jaidev Shergill
Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.
VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
Comments