You know me. I’m all about helping people explore the Triangle. It’s the whole focus of my blog. That’s why I’m loving this new TrioutNC.com site AND iPhone app created by Triangle resident Lawrence Ingraham. I went to the launch party at Research Triangle Park HQ Wednesday night and here’s what I learned:

TrioutNC.com allows you to search by keywords for places to go and things to do. Type in “coffee and Chapel Hill” and you’ll be presented with both an alphabetical list of all the coffee shops in the town and a list of the most popular coffee shops based on a fancy algorithm that factors in how frequently it was visited, how it was rated and reviews by visitors. From there, you can select a coffee shop, see user-generated pictures, reviews, recommendations, etc.

So who are these visitors? Well, if you download the iPhone app, you can check-in anywhere in the Triangle area (from Chapel Hill to Raleigh to Durham to Fuquay-Varina to Clayton and beyond) and post pictures, review it, etc. If you’ve heard about the popular location-based app called FourSquare, then you’ll get the concept the TriOut app.You can even cross post to FourSquare from TriOut, so you don’t have to update your location with two apps.

trioutapp

But one thing that makes the TriOut app and TrioutNC.com different than FourSquare or Yelp is that it’s beautiful. The design is outstanding! Seriously, the website and the iPhone app are gorgeous.

Triout

I’ve been a Beta tester for the TriOut app for a several weeks. I’m not obsessed with location-based apps yet, but when I have an extra minute or when I’m super impressed (or unimpressed) with a place, I take a moment to check in. There are still a few bugs with the app, but Lawrence has been crazy responsive in addressing them. So if you try it out and run into an issue, don’t give up on it, just send @triout a Tweet or click the feedback form on the website.

A big congrats to Lawrence and Wayne Sutton, who has been crushing it to help bring attention to Triout through social media and other outlets.

The Triout blog has more details on some of the promotions tied to checking in to various locations you visit. The current promotion is a buy one, get one deal at Dairy Queen.