> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.protein.xyz/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Now
- URL: https://www.protein.xyz/now/
- Published: 2013-01-24T21:14:00.000Z
- Updated: 2016-06-08T15:12:47.000Z
- Description: Discover your city with a live guide app.
- Author: Protein
- Tags: Seeds, Travel, #protein, #Import 2024-06-11 13:15

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/71/fc716215-5729-441a-bd07-e2b50bc413b1/content/images/S3/protein/3559/ac400d9f-a7f6-4035-bf09-25fc1f4be4f3.png)

![Now](https://www.protein.xyz/uploads/feed-posts/nowtop.png)

A good guidebook is hard to come by. Even the best hard-copy Where-To's have an achilles heel: destinations open up and shut down overnight. Guidebooks become outdated before you can finish flipping through them. Digital guides, which can be updated, still require a diligent editor.

Ben Broca hopes to solve these problems and improve upon the traditional guidebook with a new app. [Now](http://checkthis.com/aboutnow?ref=protein.xyz) works by culling data from Instagram to direct users towards gallery openings, popular restaurants, exclusive parties, and other happenings in their vicinity. The app pulls location data and photos to assemble a geo-pinned albums for each destination.

While Now is definitely worth browsing, there are a few potential problems. Many of the locations presented by the app host one-off events. So for example, once you see that Shuggie Otis is playing live at the Highline Ballroom in NYC, it's probably too late to rally your friends and buy tickets. In fact, a lot of the albums featured are tagged with a stale time stamp, like "17h". And if Now does tip you to Nick Diamond's birthday party in Downtown Manhattan with enough time for you to get there, there's no guarantee you'll be invited inside.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/71/fc716215-5729-441a-bd07-e2b50bc413b1/content/images/S3/protein/3559/771b8a66-9876-4f0b-856b-bf697eacd7a5.png)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/71/fc716215-5729-441a-bd07-e2b50bc413b1/content/images/S3/protein/3559/9a21a88a-8aa1-4be1-836b-d3ece909fcc3.png)