Today Lunch.com announced its biggest product expansion to date, Communities; a platform that gives people the ability to create their own personal review websites on the Lunch.com site. For their launch they put together a SXSW Community where you can “Rate and Review SXSW Panels and Parties”. Perfect timing! So how does it work.
Each Community has what is called a “Founder” which is the person who started the community and is the one who manages it. They get to curate the content that members add, format the templates used for reviews, pick the top three reviews to highlight at the top of the page, and manage the Twitter account for the community. They essentially guide the conversation and topics.
The page is composed of reviews, featured lists, micro reviews and three featured reviews that usually revolve around a popular topic in the community. You have the ability to search members, see the top contributors and check out recent activity.
The SXSW Community is managed by Thomas Knoll and already has 56 members. With all the over sharing that takes place these days it’s pretty amazing that they were able to keep it quiet. Here are a few members which you might recognize:
They have already added a ton of content and one particular tag that most if not all of the SXSWi attendees will want to check out. A list of all the parties.
When you click on the link of each event it takes you to a page that has a wiki with info on what the event is, where it’s located, the time it starts and photos. You then have the opportunity to write a detailed review or micro one, that will post to the page and can be sent to Twitter and Facebook. Check out some of the top parties ahead of time, the community has thoughtfully added tips for you SXSW newbies.
Needless to say there is some work involved with being a Community Founder, which is why you would want to pick something you’re passionate about if you’re going to sign up to be one.
If you want to become a part of the SXSW community and add your 2 cents about it, sign up to be a member of Lunch.com here. Then visit the community page to become a member. You can also follow them on Twitter at @LunchSXSW.
If you just want to browse the community before signing up for an account, we have a special beta code for you. Click here and enter the code “lalawag”.
Follow Lunch on Twitter @Lunch_com to stay up to date on news, and become a fan on Facebook.
How To become a Community Founder
In order to maintain the integrity of the Lunch community, people interested in creating a community will be asked to fill out a brief application form. This benefits fellow founders and members overall, by ensuring they’re surrounded by people who share Lunch’s brand values and vision for high quality content and responsible participation. Once you have created an account and signed in, enter the private BETA code CURIOUS as your passcode to access the application.
Get To Know Them
Lunch.com is a social media website where people share and discover genuinely useful information, connecting to others with common interests while uncovering common ground with those who may appear to be their total opposites. Fueled by curiosity, Lunch features reviews, lists and ratings created by members of the community, on almost any imaginable topic. Launched in April 2009 by J.R. Johnson former founder and CEO of VirtualTourist.com, which was acquired by Expedia in July 2008), Lunch’s proprietary Similarity Network engine calculates commonalities in taste and opinions among the site’s members.
