The holy grail of search — and some say the web’s next phase — is natural language search. It was Siri’s unfulfilled promise, Cortana’s ongoing goal, and Google Now’s (sort of) proposition. At its heart is a data science challenge, and that’s where Weotta comes in.

Known in the industry as having the best natural language chops, Weotta has applied it to the sticky, but potentially massive area of local search & discovery. This includes being able to search for “classy Friday night date” and get results in context… not listings with “Friday” in the title (TGI Friday’s… not so classy).

We discuss the ins and outs with Weotta founder and CEO Grant Wernick in the video below. We even get to see it in action with some real life local search comparisons through a live app demo (one of those search results got me out of the dog house later that night). Enjoy.

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Ticketmaster-Citysearch once had the idea that it could spur local commerce by matching concert goers with nearby restaurants, bars and even parking lots. AOL Digital City and Sidewalk explored similar concepts. But no one got it totally right. Now, Weotta, a five-person start-up that launched at the last TechCrunch Disrupt, is making a go of it, using social media ratings to personalize results.

“We can tell you what is good for your girlfriend, or your parents, or out of town guests,” says founder Grant Wernick. “Long term, it is an intelligent local platform, matching and ranking what goes together,” he says. While similar systems have already been built for various verticals, but Weotta is focusing specifically on local.

Wernick tells us that the company has basically built a classification system of various media that blends user rankings and personalizes each result.

“We have a lot of affiliate relationships,” says Wernick. But that isn’t the key to making money. Instead, he anticipates a lot of highly targeted advertising.

Wernick cites a recent Fast Company article about Ticketmaster stating, “40% of tickets go unsold and 60% of event-goers would attend more shows if they knew they were taking place.” Weotta can theoretically solve this problem by sending inventory to the right people at the right time.

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