• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 9, 2014

Apple may look to integrate Spotsetter technology into its wearable devices and mapping software. The Cupertino, Calif. company has reportedly acquired the technology that supports personalized recommendations for places to go. The app presents personalized or friend-related search results for places, categories or keywords. Tagging someone as an expert influences results.

The indexes are based on data in posts from people's social networks on Facebook and Twitter. Among the data pulled into the app, results were ranked based on a person's location, searches and friends tagged as experts.

No doubt Apple will continue to spend more time perfecting search and query results. A blog post that Spotsetter published last week explains shuttering the company. Prior posts detail a more visual home screen, along with features based on local search, personal data and wearable electronics. Recommendations play a key role.

Obviously, the search on a mobile or wearable device differs from that on a desktop. Mobile means looking for a place for lunch in an hour versus planning for a happy hour tomorrow night. The user simply expects to spend less time arriving at an answer. "We foresee a similar transition as users migrate from mobile to wearables when looking for places," per Spotsetter. "With wearables, we’ll focus on using even fewer, but stronger, positive signals to separate the most relevant places from the rest. These signals come in the form of personalization, such as a recommendation from a trusted friend or a great review from your favorite professional chef."

Spotsetter's developers had already begun to develop services on a few wearable platforms. The company officially launched version 1.2 about 10 months ago with features that allow users to search for places, categories, or keywords for personal results. It built private indexes of search terms for quick lookups, and allows users to type a few letters to see what friends say about close-by places.