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Name: Lunchwalla
Quick Pitch: Social planning website that offers restaurant suggestions, organizes plans and allows friends to vote on where they want to go.
Genius Idea: Lunchwalla takes the best Yelp, OpenTable and Evite and mashes it up into one tool for planning group get togethers at restaurants or bars.
Signing up for Lunchwall is a simple process — you can use Facebook Connect to easily create an account (just verify your e-mail) and then import people into your address book from multiple web services (like Gmail, LinkedIn, Yahoo! mail) to invite them to join.
From there, you can select your participants, choose a selection of restaurants and then have people vote on places they want to eat. This makes planning lunch with co-workers much easier than playing e-mail tag. People can accept or decline invites, which also makes this a good option for non-work related gatherings.
Because it integrates with OpenTable at participating restaurants, it’s easy to make reservations at sit-down places. We also really like that Lunchwalla displays coupons for restaurants nearby. That’s slick, and a nice feature that other eatery based services lack.
Check out this video that explains how Lunchwalla works:
We’d love to see Lunchwalla create an iPhone app or a mobile optimized site that would make sending and creating invitations from the go really, really easy. As it stands, I look forward to trying Lunchwalla with some of my local friends.
How do you plan where to eat with friends or coworkers? Let us know!
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”
Reviews: Gmail, LinkedIn, PHP, Yelp
Tags: evite, lunchwalla, opentable, yelp
