CULVER CITY, Calif. — A spinning, slot-machine tour of local restaurants put Ethan Lowry's Urbanspoon on the map in 2008, thanks to a feature spot in an advertisement for Apple's iPhone.
Now, with free downloads of Urbanspoon's iPhone app still at "hundreds of thousands" monthly, Urbanspoon co-founder Lowry has a challenge many Apple developers are facing: what to do for an encore for the new Apple iPad.
Urbanspoon's free iPad app will be out this week, but there won't be a new gimmick like the iPhone app's shakable slot machine that suggests restaurant choices. Instead, he's playing it straight, using the extra real estate of the big, 9.7-inch iPad screen to offer maps showcasing restaurants, with information about local eateries that can be viewed either online or offline.
"We wanted to make it easy to play along and explore without ever having to type a word," says Lowry, interviewed over lunch (naturally) at a local dining spot here.
Lowry doesn't expect consumers to take the iPad around town with them and shake it up to find restaurant choices, as they do with the iPhone. But with maps, "You can really explore your neighborhood," he says. The app shows some 25,000 restaurants in Los Angeles, for instance. "It's lightning fast," he says, "and that would be very hard to do on a Web page."
The app can store basic data about all the restaurants so that even if you are offline you can read about local establishments. The first-edition iPad works with Wi-Fi, so it needs to be near a hot spot to pick up an Internet signal. A version capable of connecting to AT&T's 3G cellular signal goes on sale Friday.
Urbanspoon is one of nearly 200,000 apps that have been created specifically for the iPhone, helping to build what investment firm Piper Jaffray says is a $1 billion yearly business.
Unless they are optimized for the iPad, most iPhone apps appear fuzzy on the bigger screen, because they were created for a small screen. Some 4,000 apps so far have been created specifically for the iPad.
The irony for Urbanspoon is that even though it is best known for its iPhone app, most of its traffic comes from its website, which offers reviews of 800,000 restaurants in the United States and Canada, Lowry says.
On the Web, Urbanspoon offers much of what you find on the iPhone app, but in larger and easier-to-read type — reviews, menus (from the restaurant websites) and photos of restaurants submitted by users.
The foodie competition
Seattle-based Urbanspoon is now a unit of Internet giant IAC, which bought it for an undisclosed sum a year ago.
Lowry, formerly a top executive at Jobster in Seattle, started the company with friend Adam Doppelt, because they shared an intense interest in local restaurants.
The site brought in revenue from ads placed by Google, Citysearch and The Village Voice. The relationship with IAC's Citysearch persuaded IAC to buy Urbanspoon.
Citysearch — well known as a repository of local reviews — competes with Urbanspoon, but that's OK with Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti.
"Citysearch is a broader local site," he says. "We cover all categories, so it's only a partial overlap."
Besides Citysearch, Urbanspoon competes with other local sites, such as Yelp and Local.com, and restaurant sites such as Zagat.
Lowry says the company hasn't changed much since the acquisition. His team has grown to seven from three, but it's still based in Seattle. It has taken advantage of the Citysearch sales force by introducing a new feature to Urbanspoon: reservations.
Surf for a restaurant on Urbanspoon, and you can see which of your choices has tables available. Click a button, and you're confirmed, eliminating the need to make a phone call.
For that feature, available just in Seattle and Los Angeles, the restaurant pays Urbanspoon $1 a person. Lowry hopes to expand across the country this year.
TALKING TECH: Urbanspoon's new iPad app
Like Yelp, Urbanspoon offers local advertisers the opportunity to sponsor its listings, but that doesn't affect their rankings, Lowry insists.
"They can't buy placement," he says. There is a spot for businesses to offer a welcome message.
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, says Urbanspoon wasn't hurt by not having its app out when the iPad went on sale on April 3. "You don't have to be the first," he says. "You can rise to the top as long as you find a way to stand out."
He says Urbanspoon's use of social features and mapping will help it find an audience on the iPad.
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