Entries from April 2008
The product team is proud to announce the integration of Loki, a location based search utility that allows us to find you with one click of a button and display local businesses that are closest to you. Loki is developed by our good friends over at Skyhook Wireless.
Here is an example of how this works on CitySquares.com. Let’s say you are on your laptop having a cup of coffee at True Grounds in Ball Square, Somerville and you wanted to find a flower shop so you could surprise your significant other with a gift. The thing is, you may not know where the closest flower shop is. What you would do is go to CitySquares and, providing you have Loki installed on your browser, you’d click the “Find me with Loki” button on the navigation bar. See screenshot below.
Loki then finds you, and pretty darn close to your precise location. That information is then sent to CitySquares’ search engine and you’ll taken to a business results page based on your Loki location. So it actually finds where you are and shows you what’s nearby! You can then search for “flower shops” or browse to florists with our useful faceted search feature and you will find that Capelos Floral Design is right down the street. Not bad huh? And this is just the beginning of our location based offerings, there’s more to come.
To make this all happen you do need to download and install Loki on your laptop or desktop computer. Once you’ve enabled Loki you may travel all over the Boston area and find the businesses closest to where you are.
In addition to the Loki integration we’ve really spiced up our city and neighborhood homepages with more useful features such as listing local coupons and special deals in each neighborhood. You can also now read the latest reviews for businesses on the homepage or jump to different business categories without having to navigate to the businesses page.
We are working hard to make your experience on CitySquares a fun and easy way to find local businesses and events in your neighborhood. As always feel free to ping me if you have any thoughts or feedback.
-Bob
Categories: Product
Tagged: Coupons, location, loki, skyhook wireless
The students at the Joseph J Hurley and McKinley schools have been very hard at work, and the final artwork has been selected. You can now vote for your favorite design! There will be posters going up at the end of next week around the South End that show the top 10 designs, and you can find those designs up on CitySquares.com and on the CommuniTee Art Program page. So hop on over there and vote for your favorite designs! The ultimate winner will be announced at our First Annual CommuniTee Ceremony in June, location TBD. Oh, and please be sure to spread the word, get your friends and family to vote! Stay tuned for more information, coming soon!
Categories: Campaigns · Contests
Tagged: communitee
We’ve been hard at work on some home page updates for the past week and rolled them out to CitySquares.com last night. Here’s a rundown of the additions:
Down the right side of each city and neighborhood homepages we’ve got two new sections: “Featured Deals” and “Featured Reviews”
- “Featured Deals” highlights deals and coupons currently being offered by businesses. Watch this section to get some great discounts on local businesses in your area.
- “Featured Reviews” highlights recently posted business reviews in your area. Read what others are saying, or post your own review!
In addition to the sidebar changes we’ve reworked the entire business listing section.
- “Browse By Category” allows you to jump directly to a specific category right from the home page.
- “Browse By Popular Tags” lets you search for the most popular tags in your area.
- You’ll also see a featured video from our video library of local businesses. And keep your eyes peeled for even more videos coming to the site shortly.
Even better, every one of these features is location specific. Love the Back Bay? Every Deal, Review, Tag, and Category featured on the Back Bay home page is tailored specifically to that area. Prefer Harvard Square? No problem, with our true hyper-local focus, you’ll get only the best local business information.
We’re not sitting back and relaxing yet though, we’ve got a number of features planned for the coming weeks to improve the user experience and make it even easier to find what you’re looking for. We’ll be adding amenities information for restaurants, so you can know ahead of time what type of payment they accept, if they take reservations, what type of cuisine they offer, and what the ambiance is like.
Also upcoming on the home page is a section we like to call “What’s Hot.” This will give you a quick look at the top rated businesses in a number of popular categories for your location.
Something else in the wings, and a bit of a pilot test, is a new way to contact businesses directly and search for what you need. Enter your phone number and what you’re looking for, businesses matching your search are automatically contacted to match your needs, and you are automatically and anonymously connected when a match is found. Your phone number remains private, you get exactly what you need, and save time calling them all yourself.
Well that’s all we’ve got for this week. As always, feedback and ideas are welcome, leave a comment or send an email. Check back next week for the latest updates, and keep checking the site for new features!
-Michael
Categories: Product
Tagged: Coupons, Deals, Features, Product, Reviews, Search
As a member of the CitySquares sales team, I think it is important to keep everyone updated on what is new and exciting with our customers and here’s my first of such postings.
Clevergreen Cleaners is an environmentally friendly dry cleaning service in the Boston area with three locations: Beacon Hill, Medford Hillside and Wellington in Medford. The owners, husband and wife duo Roxane and Fashad Sayan are committed to preserving our earth. Check out their video!
done
They really go above and beyond. And this month, in celebration of Earth Day (April 22, 200 
Clevergreen is collecting clothes for donations. From now until April 27th, you can drop off your clothing donations at any one of their three locations and they will dry clean and deliver them to Planet Aid. So everyone, get to your closets and do some well overdue spring cleaning! This is not only a great way for you to take part in protecting our environment, but you can also make room for that new spring wardrobe!
– Kim
Categories: Customers · General · Videos
Tagged: clevergreen cleaners, earth day, beacon hill, medford, dry cleaning
CitySquares had a heck of a party at Vlora tonight, to officially launch of The First Annual CommuniTee Art Project. For those of you who attended the party, which saw over 200 guests, thank you for your involvement and for your donations! We’ve already raised over $2000 for the McKinley and Hurley schools in the South End. Furthermore, congratulations to Jim on winning the Placido Domingo Raffle, which included two tickets to see Placido Domingo, dinner for two at Vlora in the Back Bay, limousine transportation by MVS Limo, and hotel accommodations courtesy of Courtyard Marriott in South Boston. Pictures from the party can be seen here.
The CommuniTee Art Project is essentially a community project that involves the whole community, but begins and ends with the art programs at the Joseph J. Hurley and the McKinley Elementary Schools in Boston’s South End. Here’s how it works:
- Students at the Joseph J. Hurley and McKinley Elementary Schools in the South End are creating designs that best reflect their perspective on the South End - something that captures the essence of the South End, in their own eyes.
- Designs will then be put on display at local businesses in the South End as well as on CitySquares.com.
- People will be able to vote for their favorite designs on CitySquares.com and see real time voting results.
- Once the votes have been tallied, the finalists will be sent to a CommuniTee Committee, basically a group of South End residents, business owners, and others, who will select the winning design.
- The winning design will be unveiled at a party in the South End.
- The winning design will then be transferred to T Shirts, for sale throughout the South End and on CitySquares.com.
- Proceeds from the sale of these T Shirts, as well as from local business sponsorships, will be passed right back to the Joseph J. Hurley and McKinley Elementary School art programs!
If we can be successful with this South End CommuniTee Art Project, we’ll do it again in other communities. So it’s critical that we get as much momentum as we can!
We’re very excited to announce this, and by working with the local media, with local businesses, local residents, students, and everyone else, we can make this a real success. Everyone wins, especially the students - that’s the goal.
We’re also asking businesses to contribute to the project and become an official CommuniTee Sponsor. If you’re a local business and you want to become a sponsor, please contact Caitlin Sullivan at (617) 459-4921 or email her.
Please stay tuned to this blog and to the Official CommuniTee page on CitySquares.com for the latest news. The dates and locations of all events are still being finalized and will be announced soon.
Here’s a video from the party. Sorry about the poor lighting and low resolution.
done
– Ben
Categories: Campaigns · Contests · Events
Tagged: communitee, mvs limo, south end, vlora
Ben Saren
Amber Killingsworth
Justin Leider
Michael LeBarron
bleland
kimmyh
Phillip
caitsully
juliecaroline
chehadej
