Twenty five thousand up - Fast-growing service for mobile workers hits major landmark

WorkSnug, the service that connects mobile workers to laptop friendly cafés, has hit 25,000 user reviews.

Often described in the media as "a specialist Yelp", WorkSnug is a reviews engine and set of tools for the modern day, laptop-toting road warrior. WorkSnug's global reviewers visit and assess the world's coffee shops, business lounges, co-working centres and other mobile working hotspots. They review each place, concentrating on noise levels, comfort, power-provision, even the quality of the coffee. Review data is captured and shared with the rest of the WorkSnug community through apps for iPhone, Google Play, Nokia and the website at worksnug.com.

WorkSnug first launched in 2009, employing teams to pound the streets of major world cities, including London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and many more. These reviews were shared in one of the first augmented reality apps ever to launch, described at the time by noted technologist Stephen Fry as "so cool it sizzles".

With a base of reviewed workspaces in place, WorkSnug opened up to user-generated reviews, and very soon an active community of workspace reviewers emerged. Today's announcement is that WorkSnug has exceeded 25,000 user-reviews.

Those 25,000 reviews come from more than 50 countries, across every continent in the world. WorkSnug reviews share personal, 'had to be there' knowledge of the world's laptop-friendly workspaces. A typical review might focus on which seat has access to power sockets, where to locate a quiet corner, and a recommendation on the best coffee choice. In this way, WorkSnug and its community have curated a unique, specialized and powerful pool of knowledge on the best laptop friendly workspaces.

WorkSnug has shown an instinct for innovation. Initially WorkSnug launched as the first free of charge augmented reality app in Apple's app store. Next, working in partnership with audio and communications specialists Plantronics, WorkSnug integrated a decibel meter into the mobile app. This allows the user community to take a reading of the ambient noise levels in a given location, and to share that reading with the community. Subsequently WorkSnug and Plantronics developed a sophisticated VoIP Checker tool, which tests a public WiFi network against a variety of parameters in order to determine its suitability to support a VoIP call. The results are converted into a 'red, amber, green' traffic light system, and shared with the wider WorkSnug community.

Finally, WorkSnug has begun experimenting with connecting its community of mobile workers with each other, with the goal of creating communities of interest in the real world. Users of WorkSnug's iPhone app can authenticate their LinkedIn account within WorkSnug, and share their location alongside their LinkedIn profile, for a defined period. This allows users searching for a workspace to also see the professional profile of people who may already be working in those workspaces. The ultimate goal is to allow WorkSnug users to locate and connect with like-minded strangers in their laptop friendly café of choice.

WorkSnug and Plantronics

WorkSnug's user community has always reported that noise levels are the single biggest barrier to productive work in co-working spaces & coffee shops. This, and the two companies' shared vision around distributed work, has led to a close partnership between WorkSnug and Plantronics.

"We congratulate WorkSnug on this milestone of 25,000 user reviews. For the past 50 years, Plantronics has helped people work smarter through audio innovations that enable more efficient communications," said Stuart Bradshaw, Head of Consumer Marketing, Europe & Africa".

"According to IDC, 34 per cent of the world's working population will be mobile by 2015, an estimate of 245 million workers in EMEA. With such a powerful, growing mobile workforce, long gone is the eight-hour workday. Instead today's workers dip in and out of conversation, media, meetings and music across multiple devices in hugely demanding environments in every waking hour of the day. No matter the situation, Plantronics has the tools that can cancel out the noise, keep your hands free and enrich your connections".