Feedback: Experts weigh in on Socialight

(Reuters) - Imagine you leave a restaurant and would like to share your thoughts with anyone nearby, or picture yourself standing in an unknown place while reading notes that have been left there from previous visitors or even your friends.

By leveraging existing technologies, <www.socialight.com> offers a platform that allows people to connect and share the content that is important to them, and allows brands to provide content related to the areas they and their customers inhabit.

The following panel of experts critique Socialight's business model and opportunity for growth:

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EXPERT COMMENTS:

John Jantsch is founder of Duct Tape Marketing and a recognized marketing and digital technology expert. He said the technology has been creating buzz for a number of years.

"Location aware devices and services offer so much promise for a marketer, but the promise and the adoption don't seem to be coming together as romanticized," said Jantsch, who fears that Socialight is playing in a space where someone will get hot and become the content provider of choice, making it hard for the rest to catch up.

"I do think that the work they've invested in their platform and the very nice integration with Google Maps is an advantage if they can somehow capture some high profile communities and prove the platform drives sales," said Jantsch

Brian Moran is president of Moran Media Group and spent the last 19 years publishing magazines for business owners. He said the two biggest problems will be attracting enough users so they can create significant revenue-generating opportunities, and having enough trustworthy reviews.

"If the company can generate critical mass in terms of users, finding sponsors for their platform should not be very difficult," said Moran, who suggests several levels of sponsorships - by time, city or overall exclusives.

"Partners will play an integral role in building a critical mass for the company. They will spread the word to their members, customers, clients and supporters," said Moran, who said those partners could also add credibility to the user reviews.

Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media and is a respected authority on entrepreneurship, covering America's entrepreneurs for more than 26 years. She said the target users of Socialight should be broader than local.

"I myself have been walking down the street in NYC and wondered where should I go for lunch and would love an easy to use technology that would provide the answer," said Lesonsky who thinks targeting tourists makes great sense.

She suggests affiliations with travel sites, tourism offices and local chambers or neighborhood associations, but cautions that ad content could be confused with the opinions of users.

"I think this will work, but they need to broaden across all mobile applications," said Lesonsky.