Lunchbattle.com is a handy little website, that uses Qype’s API to help you and your mates decide on where you should go for lunch today.

All you have to do is enter a WHAT and a WHERE (sushi in Soho, pubs in Paddington, chippies in Chipping Norton… you get the idea), and the site brings back the best choices based on our reviews. Then comes the clever bit.

Select the options you want to send to your friends (the top three pubs for example) and then share the voting page with them via Facebook, Twitter or email. Then sit back and watch the votes come in.

It’s lunch democracy for the masses, and Qype’s reviews are a click away if you need a hand making up your mind. Brilliant.

We just wanted to let you know about some new terms and conditions we’ve introduced that relate to how Qype syndicates it’s content to external applications.

Why are we changing the Terms and Conditions?

We wanted to make the information about the use of Qype content in external applications (like Qype Radar, for example) a little bit clearer. This content is distributed through our API (application programming interface), which gives developers the ability to build tools and applications based on our data.

So what is changing?

The new T&Cs clearly state to what extent publicly available Qype content can be used by partners using the API.

External applications are all verified and authorised by Qype so you can be sure that Qype content is always being displayed in a high-quality environment. This also ensures that handling of user-generated content is always fair and within our guidelines.

Other requirements that partners must comply with are: content from Qype must be clearly marked as such, and the content’s author must be acknowledged; also the content must be routinely updated and must be linked to the Qype website. These additional requirements have been added to our Terms and Conditions which you can find here.

Do you have to do anything?

No. If we don’t receive any communication from you then you will it is assumed that you have automatically acknowledged the new T&Cs. No further action is required on your part.

If for some reason you do not wish for your Qype content to be distributed to API partners please send an email to feedback@qype.com with your Qype username. Please note however, that to comply with this request Qype will be forced to delete your Qype account, as this is the only way to make ensure content will not be distributed to external applications.

Only three weeks into 2010 and we’re already back into the swing of things and releasing a few extra Qype features.

This time we’ve polished up our commenting system a little bit. Whereas before you had to leave the place page to comment on someone’s review, now you can say what you have to say right where you are, plus you can see other people’s comments right there on the page too. We figured if someone’s gone to the trouble of leaving a comment the least we could do is make sure as many people as possible get to read it.

You’ll also notice that any review which has received ‘helpful’ votes now has a link marked ‘Who?’ next to it so you can see which users have given that feedback.

Have a play around with the new features, leave a few comments, and let us know what you think.

Over the Christmas period we sneaked in a new Qype feature called ‘People who liked…’.

This new feature appears on place pages, and very simply shows you some other places that you might want to take a look at. We work out which places to show you based on a whole bunch of information including similar reviews from users, tags, and your personal taste (so if you want really personal recommendations make sure you’re logged in to Qype).

On any place page you might see zero, two or four ‘People who liked…’ recommendations, depending on how much information we have on the place in question and the people who have reviewed it. If we don’t have enough information on a place to bring back some really useful recommendations, then we won’t show anything.

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that we have done away with out ‘Great things nearby’ module that used to sit in the right hand column of place pages. That’s because the ‘People who liked…’ moduel replicates a lot of the same functionality (only it’s lot smarter).

We hope you find the new feature useful. As always you can let us know what you think right here in the comments or by email on feedback@qype.com.

In case you were too busy munching mince pies over Christmas to notice, the new version of Qype Radar has hit the iTunes store.

Version 2.3.1 introduces two brand new features: mobile vouchers and real time updates.

Real time updates was one of the most requested features from the Qype community and comes in the form of the I’m Here tool, which allows you to broadcast your location to your friends and contacts using email, text message, or Twitter. Every I’m Here message is fully editable, and includes a link to all the info from Qype, so recipients can view reviews, address details, phone number, and a map.

Qype vouchers have also been included in this new version of Radar, so you can track down exclusive discounts and special offers from while you’re on the move. There are already over 10,000 vouchers for you to use, and more are being added every day.

The new version is out now, so go take a look and let us know what you think.

The Qype Gurus are our team of intrepid Qypers who roam their home cities discovering the best they have to offer, before bringing it all back to you in the form of delicious, bite-sized blog posts. They host our events, rewarding hard working Qypers with free food, drink and unique experiences from some of the city’s finest venues.

Right now our Gurus can only be found in London but we’ve decided it’s high time we rolled out the red carpet to Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester and Edinburgh as well, which means we are recruiting!

If you have a blog, know a blogger who fits the bill, or just think you have the passion, street smarts, and the gift of the gab to be Qype’s most successful Guru to date, get an email in to Rachelle, with some examples of why you’d make the perfect candidate, and expect to hear all the details from her shortly.

Just want to be involved in events in your area? Join our Group Qypers Love Events for all the updates.

Since it’s release at the beginning of 2009, our location-aware, mobile application, Qype Radar, has been downloaded 290,000 times. Today sees the latest iteration of the application, launched for Android phones (and coming soon to Apple’s iPhone), which introduces a suite of new features including the availability of special offers, a redesigned interface, reviews from Italy, and real time updating.

The I’m Here tool was one of the most requested by the Qype community, and allows users to broadcast their location in real time using email or social applications such as Twitter and Facebook. Each I’m Here message includes a link to the place data on Qype, so recipients can view reviews, address details, phone number, and a map.

Stephan Uhrenbacher, founder and chairman of Qype, said, “Radar’s real time updating combines a sharing and social component with a very practical approach. It allows users to not only track where they’ve been, but to also broadcast their location on the go, along with a wealth of information such as the Qype reviews. It makes meeting up with people that much easier.”

Qype vouchers have also been included in this new version of Radar, so you can track down exclusive discounts and special offers while you’re on the move. Plus the whole interface has had a makeover, making the whole thing that bit slicker; and of course we’ve added all the reviews from the recently-launched Qype Italy.

The new version of Qype Radar is available today for Android handhelds and will be released for the iPhone soon.

Everybody loves Twitter, and that includes the development team here at Qype. To show their love they’ve been working on a project code named Dr Qype. Dr Qype is a very smart Twitter bot that can tell you where the best places are near you through the medium of Twitter.

So, let’s say you’re in London and you want to find real ale in the area. You could of course launch Qype Radar on your iPhone or Android. But if for some reason you’re using a different phone that only has a Twitter client, that’s when you turn to Dr Qype…

1) Typing @drqype real ale, London into Twitter will get you a reply containing the top three real ale places in the capital.

2) Typing @drqype real ale, Richmond Road London will find the best real ale pubs on or near Richmond Road.

3) Even typing just @drqype real ale will get you something. If your Twitter client is smart enough to update your Twitter profile with your current location then Dr Qype will find real ale near you. If your coordinates are not set, then Dr Qype uses the city you’ve selected in your Twitter profile.

One more thing: By default @drqype will give you www.qype.com urls, which are in German. If you need to select a different language then tweet the following to the doc:

@drqype set lang en

and that will set your language to English, and next time Dr Qype gets in touch he will use co.uk links. Other supported languages are: de, en, fr, it, es, pl, pt

Have fun with Dr Qype and be sure to give us your feedback.

Ever wondered what a map of Europe would look like if you overlayed it with all the Qype reviews?

Well, wonder no more. The image above only shows all the four and five star reviews we have across Europe (we compiled it in Excel and it couldn’t handle the load if we put ALL the reviews in), but it still gives you a great (and very pretty!) idea of how much of Europe has been explored, rated and reviewed in the past few years.

A few weeks ago we introduced social publishing tools to Qype allowing you to share your reviews across Facebook and Twitter.

Today we’ve added a few more big names to that list. So as well as being able to login to Qype with your MySpace and Yahoo accounts you can now also publish your reviews there too.

To get started just log in to Qype and go to your account settings page. There you’ll find a section called ‘Linking your account to other sites’. Click the ‘Connect your Qype account to a new site’ link and choose the site you want to share your reviews on.

Once you’ve authorised that then your reviews will automatically be posted to that site (unless you uncheck the ‘publish this review’ box for any given review).

We hope you like the new feature. As always give us your feedback right here or by email on feedback@qype.co.uk.