Breaking Out of the Recommendation Bubble in the Age of Digital Discovery

Back in 2006, I would joke with my friend Naveen that all I wanted was a location-based del.icio.us. A way to save a bunch of places you wanted to try in a city, similar to how the old bookmarking service let you save web pages of interest, but with an added, location-aware twist. So, walking around the East Village and being reminded by SMS of that interesting espresso place that you read about, or the great hidden Dim Sum that you kept meaning to try. Naveen went on to found Foursquare with Dennis Crowley and created a mobile platform for this type of urban loving exploration. Though sometimes I felt the best utility of the service was buried under other layers of sticky functionality (check-ins, etc). I found the most compelling feature to be the ability to annotate the world with what is interesting and worth your time, city after city. I still get a chuckle when someone tells me they came across a tip of mine in Hong Kong or further afield. Little ambi