Friday, May 8, 2009

QYPE : A Review

What do you do when you are going to visit a foreign city or are already in one and would like to find more information about the places you want to visit? A normal thing to do would be to use one of the more popular search engines like Google





or popular guide books such as lonely planet.





However, there is an online site that takes you a step further when you are in a foreign city and would like to see, feel and enjoy like what a local would.

Qype is a one-stop infomation centre for leisure, entertainment and tourist guide. The site gives information about Restaurants, Bars, Hotels, Events and more....

Whether it be Shopping, Eating / Drinking, Arts or anything else that you are interested in. This site will show you where to find the best places and deals.



Any internet surfer from anywhere around the world can browse the site but the fun way will be to sign up as member and participate by sharing the knowledge and providing comments or participate in the forum or even creating guides on a particular place frequented within any particular city. There are different categories of members (Qype newbies - no star; Qype insider – blue star and Qype ninja – red star) depending on how active one is.

Qype is easy to navigate, user friendly and clearly understandable.

Besides English, the website offers information in five other languages i.e. German, French, Spanish, Brazilian and Polish for worldwide users.



You can search information by clicking based on the different categories eg Eating & Drinking or Shopping. You can also access information by using the search engine provided at the top and bottom of the homepage. Eg. pubs london or restaurants london



Whilst information for cities worldwide are found, more information can be obtained from major European cities such as London, Paris Berlin, Madrid than those outside of Europe such as North America or Asia but the information is growing. For the four largest cities in Europe, you can search for information based on the administrative areas: London (32 boroughs plus City of London), Paris (20 arrondissements), Berlin (23 bezirke) or Madrid (21 districts).









Location map is provided as well as useful transport information on how to get to the place.



Another good feature about the site is it gives information about what is nearby the place you are looking for:



The site has a very appropriate tagline: "Find it, share it".