MyMetroTalks Brings Community-Focused Venue Recommendations to Dubai
I was feeling pretty relaxed the other night,
channel surfing on my own, but I felt like being outdoors without
having to get all dressed up to go somewhere. Mymetrotalk’s Talk Finder
suggested I make my way to The Pavilion, or The Archive, or even to
The Badia Golf Club. I may have been feeling too comfortable on my
couch to make it anywhere that night, but it was nice to know I
didn’t have to do all the thinking by myself next time I wanted to
go out somewhere.
The Talk Finder is the flagship feature of Mymetrotalk, a
community-driven lifestyle portal and city guide for Dubai that
officially launched with an event this Tuesday at MAKE Business Hub. Similar to Time Out Dubai,
Mymetrotalk offers suggestions for “what’s hot and what’s not” in
Dubai in a variety of categories from Restaurants to Well-Being.
The Talk Finder goes a step further to make personalized
recommendations based on your mood and situation on any given day,
a highly useful feature in a city that rarely stays in.
The sheer number of options in the city were what inspired founder
Saman Darkan to launch the platform. After being faced often with
the question: “Where do I feel like going?”, he wanted to design a
platform that could “give really strong guidance to people, to
enable them to make quality decisions and have quality outings.”
And so, mymetrotalk was born, with a focus on accessible,
interactive content.
To make recommendations user-friendly, the site offers videos of
venues to give users a sneak peek, QR codes that allow consumers to
scan and save contacts, and, of course, dish recommendations at
restaurants around town as well as community generated articles.
With more than 7000 listings to its name, the site prides itself on
being community driven – an aspect that sets it apart from similar
ventures.
The mymetrotalk team includes Darkan, the “founding
talker,” and his sister Suzanne, the video talker, Ranime Loutfi,
the managing talker, and Mohammed Mirza, the tech talker. The site
is currently capitalizing on word of mouth to get the word out and
offering services for free. “We’re not using banners to advertise,
rather we are driving engagement through the content,” he explains.
One option for monetizing is offering venues different tiers of
exposure on Talk Finder. “Let’s say you are given 30 different
venues as a suggestion; the first five can be included through a
paid sponsorship.”
Mymetrotalkers will eventually be rewarded with an incentive scheme
that Darkan and his team are still finalizing, and the startup has
its sights set on Abu Dhabi after their Dubai venture matures.
While they’ve done little marketing thus far, Darkan says word of
mouth and social media have been essential for building their brand
since their soft launch. “It’s been phenomenal to see the response
we are getting so far, especially on Facebook,” he says. This puts
the pressure on mymetrotalk to provide users with more than just
mere listings. “We’re not Yellow Pages; we want to give users an
experience, and that’s our biggest challenge”, says
Darkan.
Find more on MyMetroTalk in their promo video below: