Visiting a city for the first time and not sure what to do? Gidsy, which aunched nine months ago, helps you book or create tour activities. Current offerings range from "shop till you drop" to "learn fire-eating."
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Gidsy is already redesigning the site. Or more accurately, Gidsy users are redesigning it. “We need your help," reads the announcement the company sent to its members. "We want to know what you’d like to see in the next Gidsy—what tools [you are] missing, or what things [we can] improve."
When asked what changes were in the works, co-founder and CEO Edial Dekker told TechNewsDaily only, "We’re a very young startup. That means we can… change the direction on where we should be going very fast."
It's this kind of attitude that has made the platform take off since starting last November —when it offered tours only in Berlin and New York City. It's now a 12-city operation offering hundreds of tours. But there’s certainly room to grow. As of today there is only one tour listed for New York City’s “music and performance” category.
Gidsy has already rolled out two new features — a dashboard overview page and better Facebook integration.
The dashboard puts events and tours on one page so users can see what they've organized and booked in one glance.
Facebook integration is a nod to where the redesign is heading. Hitching onto a friend network creates connections for users so that, by association, activity hosts become "trusted strangers." Of course it’s possible to see all reviews, but friend reviews will be the most valuable.
Our take? They need a better search engine. You can search by city and category, but not simply by word. So, for instance, if you want to learn to eat fire, you have to figure out it’s listed as a sport and that it’s happening in Los Angeles. That requires a lot of guesswork.
