FAQ

What is Sponto?

Sponto was founded to change the way you go out. The Sponto mobile app detects all the hottest events, concerts, and happy hours near you, and lets you connect with other people on the scene: chatting, sharing photos and sharing who you’re hanging out with.

Sponto connects you with the real-life, social world around you, and lets you spend less time planning… more time playing.

How should I use Sponto?

Sponto is designed for busy people who want to get the most out of their fun time. If you find yourself looking for something to do close by, Sponto is the fastest, easiest and most social way to discover what’s happening now, in the real world, near you.

How does Sponto decide what I see?

Sponto shows you all the events happening within 15 miles of you, as well as everything your Facebook friends connect with. The top of the list shows events that are happening right now, with the recently curated parties and concerts at the top. As you scroll down, when there are no more events happening now, Sponto will start showing you what’s coming up soon. To see further out into the future, hit the “get more events” button.

How can I interact with and help curate events?

You can post pictures, comment, and add friends to any Sponto event. If you curate or add content to an event, you will be automatically added to the event as a participant. If the event comes from a partner site, you can get more details by clicking on the name of the event (in Orange).

What does the big orange button do?

That’s the “Start an Event” button. Use it to publish events that would be of interest to your friends and other Sponto users around you. After you start an event, you can curate it (chat, share photos, and add your Facebook friends). Your event will be seen at the top of the feed by your Facebook friends and people near you.

What events should I publish on Sponto?

Sponto is a public space and you should start events in Sponto that you want to be seen.

All events in Sponto are visible to other Sponto users near you and also visible to participants’ Facebook friends (who join Sponto), all over the world.

Is posting to Sponto an invitation to come and join me?

Only if you want it to be! In practice, most events published to Sponto are not invitations, but rather designed to let the community check out the scene from a distance.

Where does the event stream come from?

Sponto’s events are published by our mobile users and harvested from the Internet through other sites. Sponto currently focuses on fun: concerts, parties and food events.

Who can join Sponto?

Anybody with an Android phone and a Facebook account in the United States.

Why do I have to login through Facebook?

By connecting through Facebook, we’ll get you on quickly and personalize your experience without hassling you. It also allows us to personalize your events to show you what your friends are doing, which makes the product fun.

Are you ever going to have another way to get on besides Facebook?

If our users ask for it, we will do it! We anticipate letting people login using Twitter and Foursquare as well.

How do you use my Facebook information?

We use it to personalize your Sponto experience, to show you your friends activity and populate your user profile. If you publish an event, you can opt in to post it to your wall. We do not use your data for any other purpose. We will not spam you or your friends or auto-post to your walls, ever.

What about privacy?

Sponto never shows where you are unless you explicitly publish your own location by starting an event. It is important that you realize that Sponto is meant for public events and can be seen by the Sponto community near you.

Will this chew up my battery?

Nope. We use less battery than the Android Facebook app.

When will we see an iPhone version?

We want to make sure we’ve got the core interaction right for Sponto on our current platform. When we see the engagement get where it needs to be, we will get an iPhone app out the door quickly.

How do I go back in time and see my events from the past?

One of the most requested features is keeping a history of your events. For now, if you want to be able to look back at your events you should publish them to your Facebook wall so they’ll be stored on your timeline.

How can I give you feedback about what I want Sponto to do?

The best way is to join our open alpha Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/214592675299129/ to participate in the conversation.

News

Sponto will be presenting at the DC Tech Meet-Up during Social Media Week on Feb. 15th.