Localmind came out of Year One Labs (where I’m a Founding Partner.) They raised a seed round in July, 2011 after graduating from the accelerator. Since then they’ve been working on a lot of interesting stuff, and today they launched one of their biggest updates yet: Localmind 2.0.

Elevator pitch: Localmind allows you to tap into real-time, local knowledge by asking people (who are checked into locations) questions.

That’s how Localmind started. With the new release, they’ve expanded Localmind’s functionality and potential use cases significantly, based in large part on what they’ve learned from the community, and their overall, long-term vision for the company.

Localmind now allows you to ask “area questions” instead of targeting questions to specific people at specific locations. They found that a lot of questions people were trying to ask were in fact about areas and not specific places. People found someone at a specific place but then asked for broader recommendations about the area. Localmind now makes this a lot easier with area questions.

The team is also bubbling up some of the back-end expertise tech that they’ve been working on. They’ve put a lot of thought into how questions should be routed – who they should go to, why and when – and the app provides a cool UI and explanation for why people are receiving questions. This makes the experience friendlier and more social, without breaking into becoming another social network. I still value and appreciate Localmind’s focus on utility. Local expertise is tricky to assess and measure; Localmind’s taking a solid crack at it.

You can read more about Localmind 2.0 on their blog: Meet the New Localmind. And here’s a video they put together with some additional details:

Localmind 2.0 is the culmination of numerous iterations, testing and learning. That’s not going to stop either. The team is launching Localmind 2.0 with the intent of learning as much as possible, growing the user base and continuing to deliver a valuable and fun experience.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, download it on the App Store and give it a whirl.