Now that I'm married and have two little kids, I have to congratulate and celebrate 4 mothers for Mother's Day: my wife of course, my mother, my mother-in-law, and my grandmother. Wow! Then, I also have to invite all the spouses, fathers, siblings, etc. So, the big question is where should we go eat? The date is obvious....it's a single Mother's Day, but the venue is not so obvious.

So, here comes Zoodango to the rescue. It's time to send a Smart Invite and have every member of the family vote on where they all want to eat. Since it's Mother's Day, I will opt to increase the invitee status of all the mothers to "important" and decrease the invitee status of everyone else to "good to have". This isn't to say that everyone is not important, it's just that I want the mothers' votes to have more weight in terms of where we should go eat.

So now I pick out 3 restaurants after Zoodango calculates and suggests a few good choices based on everyone's "I likes" and then I send out a smart invite and ask each person to vote. Each person votes, and the overall score shows where the majority wants to eat. Since I'm the organizer, I finalize the most popular option, and then a RSVP link gets sent out and everyone RSVP's. Now, no one can complain about the venue! Thanks Zoodango!

A Smart Invite is a combination of an online invitation with collaboration tools powered by a personalized scoring engine. This combination is what helps you make social decisions on where to go and when to meet up.

There are many online invitations sites out there....like Evite of course, but they don't have collaboration tools and smart engines to help you make a decision with a group of friends. With Smart Invite, you can choose up to 3 combinations of location and date/time options and have your invitees vote on each one. After everyone votes, you can finalize the option, and then everyone can RSVP. With a system like this, you will have a much higher attendance because you take everyone's feedback into account.

I'll give you a perfect real life example. One of our users sent a Smart Invite for a "girls night out" event. She invited about 25 friends, but they all had different tastes on what constituted a great girls night out. So, the user put in 3 different types of venues for the Friday night....the first one was a laid back piano bar, the second was a hard core las vegas style nightclub, and the third venue was a combination of a billiards club with a little dancing. She initially thought most of the girls might choose the vegas style club, but when she asked for the vote, it was clear that majority did not want to hit the club, but rather, they liked the billiards club the most. So, she finalized the option of the billiards club, and everyone was much happier!

This is a perfect example of how Zoodango can help you. You can use it for almost any get-together!

So, what's the quickest way to personalize your experience with Zoodango.com? Well, we've made it really simple....all you have to do is search our list of 700,000 venues and find your favorites and click "I like it." If you can't find your favorite places, then email us and we'll add them to the public database.

By clicking "I like it," Zoodango's brain will begin understanding the type of place and location preferences for your profile. Now, when you or any of your friends use "Smart Invite" to meet up, Zoodango will calculate and suggest good places with personalized scores based on your preferences.

In addition, you will also see other people who like the places that you like. Ever wonder who else gets their coffee at your favorite coffee shop, well....it might be a great chance to meet interesting local people right near you!

What in the world is a "Geo-Social Search Engine?" Well, for those of you who have never heard of this term....should we go to Google or Wikipedia to find out? Drum roll.....okay, let's go to Wikipedia!

Wikipedia says:

"A Geo-social network is a geographically aware social network in which members share geographic information in support of a common interest. The term geo-social stems from the web-based concept of online social networks (e.g., MySpace) which self-assemble around an area of interest for information exchange and relationship building.

A geo-social network allows members to interact relative to location and time. This requires the use of mapping tools to express the spatial component of important concepts or events. For example, a geo-social network interested in Jazz music could use free mapping tools (e.g., Google Maps, Microsoft Live) to communicate locations of the best jazz clubs or concert events. A geo-social network focused on natural disasters could use more advanced geospatial mapping tools to communicate detailed over all situational awareness based on an assembly of individual perspectives. This type of geo-social networking is known as collaborative mapping."

Now, that you officially know what a geo-social engine is all about, you can talk to your spouse or significant other about "geo-social" stuff over a dinner conversation. Okay, maybe there's more exciting conversations that you can have over dinner like Barack vs Pastor Wright or the Celtics losing 2 straight games to the Hawks!

Well, for the Zoodango lovers out there...we will be releasing our geo-social search engine very, very soon. We are working days and nights to offer this ASAP. Trust me, it's important to us as well. In fact, our press release isn't going out until we release the first version of this engine. As the CEO, it's tough playing the waiting game. I want to move forward with our marketing/PR initiatives to increase traffic, but I must wait patiently just like the rest of you.

So what will you be able to do with this engine? To put it simply, you'll be able to search for places based on spatial mapping, your social graph, and your personal preferences. So go on the site, find venues, and click "I like it" so the Zoodango system will understand your personal tastes and location preferences.

On another note, I know we don't have every venue in our system...this is a pretty difficult problem to solve. I just spoke with my contacts that worked on the Google Map team, and he also gave me some advice on how to solve it, but he admitted that this is a big problem...local data that's 100% updated and accurate. So, we're not the only ones battling this problem. Google is actually allowing users to edit venue listings...trust the user, right? Well, it's worked for Wikipedia. Okay, so we'll do the same. We'll provide you with tools to edit and add your favorite venues too.

Don't be stranger, and please continue to give us your feedback. Thanks.