Flook was a location-based browsing application and website developed by
Ambient Industries located in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, initially for the
iPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
. Users of the application created virtual cards, or "Flooks", which were made up of a photo of a particular location and a small piece of text describing that location. These Flooks were then recorded with their geographic coordinates so that other Flook users could see where they have been posted when they are using the app. Users typically upload local secrets, places to go and things to see. The application was therefore a wiki of sorts, but was also a combination of
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...
,
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon was a website, browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine. Users were able to ...
and review websites such as
Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor is an American company that operates online travel agency, travel agencies, comparison shopping websites, and mobile apps with user-generated content.
Its namesake brand, Tripadvisor.com, operates in 40 countries and 20 languages, and ...
or
Toptable
Toptable (styled toptable) was an online restaurant booker covering the UK as well as major cities in Europe and New York City established in 2000 and bought by OpenTable in 2010.
History
Toptable was founded in 2000 by entrepreneur Karen Hant ...
.
Ambient Industries was founded by two former
Symbian
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...
programmers,
Roger Nolan and
Jane Sales, who assisted in the construction of much of the Symbian mobile operating system, together with
Tristan Brotherton, formerly of
Synapsim,
Roo and
Fluidjuice, and who assisted in the creation of screening software that is now used by
Kroll
Kroll or Kröll is a German, Anglo-Saxon, and Scottish surname.
Notable people with the surname include:
Academia
* Josef Kroll (1889–1980), German classical philologist and university rector
* Judith F. Kroll, American college professor in ...
. Flook was launched in December 2009. Ambient Industries had received funding from UK tech investment houses Eden Ventures and
Amadeus Capital Partners
Dame Anne Margaret Glover (born 6 February 1954) is CEO and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies.
Career
Prior to founding Amadeus in 1997, she was with Apax Partn ...
.
In February 2010, Flook won the Mobile Premier Award in User Experience awarded by Mobile User Experience.
In June 2010, Ambient Industries partnered with Geocast to make flook cards from Geocast's local offers.
According to the email sent to their users, Flook ceased service after 25 February 2012, and its
official website
A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, ...
is no longer available.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Official website(offline)
IOS software
Geosocial networking
Mobile social software