Whrrl Brings Seattle International Film Festival 2008 into the Social Networking and Mobile Web 2.0 World

Whrrl, the new social networking and discovery service from Pelago, Inc. announced today that it has partnered with the Seattle International Film Festival to transform the festival’s entire schedule and event details into a completely interactive online discovery experience. Festival-goers will be able to type “SIFF” into Whrrl, either through a Web interface or via a mobile device, and have access to the festival’s most important information in seconds from anywhere.

Along with finding and sharing movie show times, locations, and film descriptions, SIFF attendees will be able to invite friends to attend a particular show, search for places to go for drinks or dinner before or after a show and then schedule a rendezvous at the chosen restaurant, bar or other fun local destination.

“Whrrl is a great way for festival-goers to find and share with friends anything and everything about the event, anytime and anywhere,” said David Heurtel, Chief Marketing Officer for SIFF. “And, the mobile component of Whrrl makes it especially helpful for attendees to pull up specific details, times and locations of various films and share them with their friends while on the go during the festival.”

The Seattle International Film Festival is the largest festival of its type in the United States. It is estimated that 160,000 people will attend over the course of its three-and-a-half-week run.

“With more than 400 feature, documentary, and short films, honored guests, special events, forums, and panel discussions taking place at a dozen venues across Seattle, Whrrl provides a perfect way for festival-goers to discover and share with others in real-time all kinds of information relevant to the festival,” said Jeff Holden, co-CEO and co-founder of Pelago. “And since Whrrl users can broadcast their location and status in real-time, it will make it easier for friends at separate venues to not only find each other, but also to share information on films, discussions and even the crowds at various venues.

At the nexus of social networking, local discovery and user-generated content, Whrrl combines mapping and micro-blogging technology into a unique social discovery experience. The Whrrl experience captures a person’s activities, cataloging an individual history of places visited and events attended through icons pinpointed on Whrrl’s built-in mapping application.

In addition to sharing ratings and reviews, users can also instantly update others on their location or status through their Whrrld Feed by checking in via SMS, the Whrrl mobile application, or the Whrrl Web site. To ensure privacy, users themselves set the specific group of friends that can see their actual real-time location; other users, even other friends, cannot see their location unless given specific permission by the user.

The Whrrl service is available nationally with an initial, deep content focus in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Kansas City, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Denver, Columbus and Miami.

About Pelago

Pelago, Inc. is an early-stage company based in Seattle developing a new generation of consumer experiences based on breakthrough technology, including Whrrl, a new mobile and web-based service at the intersection of social networking and local discovery. Pelago was founded by former senior executives from Amazon.com and is backed by leading venture capital firms, including Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, Trilogy Equity Partners and Bezos Expeditions.

About Seattle International Film Festival 2008

For over thirty years, SIFF — the Seattle International Film Festival has been one of America’s preeminent showcases for innovative and influential filmmaking. Just to drop a few names: The Coen Brother’s Blood Simple, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, and Mel Gibson’s Braveheart — all had their World or U.S. premiers at SIFF. We even once played a rhyme-laden first short film entitled “Vincent” by an unknown Disney animator named Tim Burton.

SIFF is proud to announce the 34th Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly attended event of its kind in the United States. Running a full 25 days, SIFF will present 191 narrative features, 57 documentary features, and 170 short films from 69 countries, including 43 World Premieres (16 features, 27 shorts), 38 North American Premieres (19 features, 19 shorts), and 19 US Premieres (10 features, 9 shorts).

SIFF 2008 will unspool from May 22 through June 15 at multiple venues throughout the city, with a stellar lineup of actors, directors, and film industry professionals as honoured guests over the course of the Festival. The full schedule will be available in The Seattle Times and online May 8 at www.siff.net.