TechCrunch, Rip Empson, July 6, 2012
... a couple of seniors at MIT have developed, and quietly launched,
Tipflare to be that general solution. While the site's creators, Hayden Metsky and Thiago Vieira, have bigger ambitions, today Tipflare focuses in on giving users one place to find quality recommendations on books, movies, songs, and restaurants - in a jiffy.
If you've ever struggled to find a recommendation for a good book that's actually based on what you like to read and not just your browsing or purchase history (Amazon, for example) and then repeat that for a good movie, Tipflare's value is obvious. If not, you might just say, hey, why not go to GoodReads or Amazon or Netflix? And it's true that, using Netflix as an example, those that specialize in one domain will probably be better at recommending (say, movies) than a generalist.
But the Tipflare creators aren't worried about that. If you want to watch something on Netflix, you'll discover on Netflix. Instead, Tipflare really aims to differentiate itself from other services by being broad in focus while trying to keep the design and UX as clutter-free and as easy to use as possible.
Users simply enter what movies or books they like - or import their "likes" from Facebook, and the site instantly serves recommendations on what they'll go bananas for based on what they already enjoy, factoring in Facebook friends' interests, your location (for restaurants, specifically), the day of the week, time of day, etc. so that it can offer "New for You" recommendations when you come back.
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