Help / Frequently Asked Questions

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What is Nowntown?

Nowntown is a social network and content aggregator. Our goal is to help you find cool stuff nearby, showing relevant information about events, places and friend's activity. [Top]

How does it work?

It is easy! To start with, we have a huge amount of feeds providers like restaurants, clubs, concerts, events, POI... (check the full list here). What makes Nowntown different from the rest is that all this information is combined and sorted by geographical, temporal and social distance, based on our "awesome" algorithm.

Additionally, you can always choose what do you want to see. This way, we show always at the top the most interesting stuff for you — the nearest, most recent and most popular events and locations in your area. Nowntown uses your preferences to show you the most interesting content around the position you choose. [Top]

What is the stream?

What is the so called stream? In few words, it is all the relevant information associated to a particular place or user. Based on your own preferences and our "awesome" algorithm, the stream is generated providing such information sorted by importance/"awesomeness".

For example, a generic search on Amsterdam will provide weather at the top of the stream, because it is always relevant. Secondly, some events like last FM concerts or very famous wikipedia places might appear in the top spots. Later on the stream important places or user activity would appear.

On the other hand, if we searched on a particular address, then the algorithm would work differently. The distance to the provided address would become more important and then we would get on the top spots places close to it, like restaurants or user locations. [Top]

What are the sources of information available?

Currently we have the following feeds available:

  • Worldwide
  • Weather & local time information, provided by Google
  • Places of interest, provided by Wikipedia and Geonames
  • User generated locations, provided by other Nowntown users
  • Concerts, provided by Last.fm
  • Local events, provided by Upcoming
  • Local group meetings, provided by Meetup
  • Twitter local search, provided by Twitter


If you are a content provider, contact us if you want your feed to appear in Nowntown. [Top]

How can I change my stream preferences?

On the stream page, at the right of the main section, there is another one called Content filter. It is organized by main categories, such as Local info, Social activity or Going out. Inside those categories you can find each information provider, as for example Iens Restaurant Guide or Wikipedia.

You can personalize the stream results by selecting or deselecting both whole categories or individual items, depending on your likes. Press the Go button to reload the stream according to your new preferences.

Additionally, there is a shortcut at the top of the filter for quick changing the address you want to search in. [Top]

How can I find friends in Nowntown?

In the top menu, select the option Invite friends.

With our friend finder you can find and invite people in several ways. You can search for users in Nowntown, send invitations directly by email or import your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, Hyves, Facebook, Twitter or Hotmail. Of course, we always play nice. We would never store your password or personal information, or sneak into your address book. [Top]

How can I add content to Nowntown?

In your profile page, select the Locations tab.

In Nowntown, you are the most important value, so all the content that you can add to us is welcome. In the Locations section, click on the Create location button to open the form. You have to provide us the name and a short description of the location, besides locate it on a map. Thanks in advance for collaborate with us! [Top]