Yesterday I just pushed to production the first installment of a series of steps to change askaro from a hyperlocal q&a site into a place recommendation and discovery service. Started the process by redesigning the question detail page (with the help of Lasse and Richi). For example, here is a pretty successful page about finding the imposible good paella restaurant in barcelona.

You can now respond with a place, optionally explaining why you'd recommend it.  Askaro now uses the google local search api, relying on google places. Google places has a long way to go, lots of places are missing. Today, I was trying to recommend Au port de la lune, a french restaurant near La Boqueria, in Barcelona, but the restaurant isn't in google maps, go figure. Obviously, coverage of US, UK, etc is much better. There seem to be competing efforts to build databases of places, now that the space it hot (foursquare, et al) but I haven't found one with decent terms and comprehensive data. It's a very hard problem, understandably.

So, askaro is narrowing down the focus, from a an anything goes local Q&A service to a site where to ask (and provide) recommendations in your local area, i.e. where to get a haircut, find a good bike repair shop, have MSG free dim sum, by halloumi cheese, etc. You could also save recommended places for future references.

Next on my plate is to fix the question list page, which is a royal mess, FB integration, etc. Let me know if you bump into bugs, have any suggestions, etc 

NOTE: translations are now back to 90%. Patience.