If you’re like me, you need a better way to keep track of the things in your life. I remember a time where I used to keep a crusty old spiral notebook with a picture of Kirby Puckett on it that had a list of all the books I wanted to read (I am embarrassed to say, that notebook lasted much farther into adulthood than it should have). Whenever I would get a recommendation for a book from a friend or read a review that piqued my interest, I’d trot out the notebook and make an entry. Eventually this migrated to an Excel spreadsheet, but this also became cumbersome because it wasn’t interjected into the flow of how I lived my everyday life and used the web.

We realized there has to be a better way of doing this.

With the opening of Facebook’s API - Eureka! An opportunity to solve the problem presented itself because 1) Facebook was already in the path of my everyday life, and 2) My friends were already on Facebook.

As other social networks like MySpace, Bebo, and Orkut announced their intentions to allow the social graph to be leveraged, we began to percolate on how we could allow people on various different social networks to benefit from the information created by others. Enter LivingSocial . We think the future of successful products on the web is to create a platform where products can be used where you already go regularly - something that plugs into the flow of your every day life and goes to you and your friends instead of making everyone go somewhere else.

What LivingSocial accomplishes (or aims to):

1) You'll always trust the recommendations of your friends more than you will Amazon or other recommendation engines that don't take into account your personal relationships. Think about how frequently your friend/spouse/co-worker says "Wow, you have to see this movie" or "I had the burger at "x" and it was absolutely the best burger I've had". Based on how well you know the person and your past history with he/she, you quickly can determine whether the recommendation is useful. LivingSocial goes where your friends are already.

2) Go where you are. If you're a Facebook user who likes beer, it's fine with us if you use our Facebook version of DrinkingSocial. If you're a MySpace user who like beer, it's fine with us if you use our MySpace version of DrinkingSocial. Or, if you don't like social networks, you can just use DrinkingSocial. The point is, if you're a beer drinker, book reader, movie watcher, or any of the other interests we support, we don't want to tell you that you need to go to "X" site in order to organize your interest and get recommendations from your friends. You can choose which experience you want to use.

3) Bridge the social network divide. If you're a huge fan of Ayn Rand books and you use our ReadingSocial Facebook app, and there is a vibrant forum discussion on our ReadingSocial MySpace app, we think you should benefit and be able to take part in that discussion. To that end, we've made our content portable to all of our networks.



LivingSocial is very much in its infancy, but we absolutely would love any thoughts or feedback you may have.