Comments on: TripAdvisor Travel Maps - Socializing Your Vacation History with Friends http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/ Expanding the Vacation Rental Market Through Insight and Community Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:31:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Carl Query http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-33 Carl Query Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:55:49 +0000 http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-33 Stephanie and Vanessa - thanks for sharing the sites. There certainly are a number of other players in the social travel space - but for a market the size of travel, I don't think anyone has yet come close to a critical mass. I checked out Gusto a while back and it certainly looks much improved from what I remember, but alas, they do appear to be tailing off. We do like world66 and wikitravel quite a bit. Stephanie and Vanessa - thanks for sharing the sites. There certainly are a number of other players in the social travel space - but for a market the size of travel, I don’t think anyone has yet come close to a critical mass.

I checked out Gusto a while back and it certainly looks much improved from what I remember, but alas, they do appear to be tailing off. We do like world66 and wikitravel quite a bit.

]]> By: Vanessa http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-32 Vanessa Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:54:29 +0000 http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-32 A cool map interface has been used for a while now by World66 (www.world66.com). In fact, I think they are the website that has been successful at cracking the user-generated travel guide network, and to some extent the social networking of it. Their map is generated by countries as opposed to cities- I guess it is because this is a more internationally-focused website with a lot of traffic from Europe. You can also put the widget on your own website. A cool map interface has been used for a while now by World66 (www.world66.com). In fact, I think they are the website that has been successful at cracking the user-generated travel guide network, and to some extent the social networking of it.
Their map is generated by countries as opposed to cities- I guess it is because this is a more internationally-focused website with a lot of traffic from Europe. You can also put the widget on your own website.

]]> By: Stephanie http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-25 Stephanie Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:51:21 +0000 http://blog.flipkey.com/2007/08/06/tripadvisor-travel-maps-socializing-your-vacation-history-with-friends/#comment-25 Carl, Agreed. A good effort, but there's so much more they could be doing. At minimum, they need to let users integrate a Flickr feed, so that one or more thumbnails appear in the bubble that pops up when you hover over a location. And why haven't they integrated their TripAdvisor Inside wiki functionality? Re: social travel sites, have you checked out any of the following? 1) Yahoo Trip Planner (http://travel.yahoo.com/trips) - users make their trips public and view other people's trips to create a collective travel guide. Integrated with Yahoo Travel Guides, Yahoo FareChase, Yahoo Maps, Flickr, and Yahoo 360 blogs. The top trips are selected by the Yahoo community and plotted on a Yahoo world map. 2) Triporama (http://www.triporama.com) - provides a bookmarking button so that any member of a travel group can tag pages on the fly as they research an upcoming trip, automatically saving them to the group's travel page. Trip planning tools include destination articles, invite lists, polls, and a calendar function. 3) Gusto (http://www.gusto.com) - a community based travel web site that connects travelers with each other and with personalized travel info. Triporama's numbers look lackluster (per Compete data) but Gusto's had a respectable showing (although trailing off of late). Carl,

Agreed. A good effort, but there’s so much more they could be doing. At minimum, they need to let users integrate a Flickr feed, so that one or more thumbnails appear in the bubble that pops up when you hover over a location. And why haven’t they integrated their TripAdvisor Inside wiki functionality?

Re: social travel sites, have you checked out any of the following?

1) Yahoo Trip Planner (http://travel.yahoo.com/trips) - users make their trips public and view other people’s trips to create a collective travel guide. Integrated with Yahoo Travel Guides, Yahoo FareChase, Yahoo Maps, Flickr, and Yahoo 360 blogs. The top trips are selected by the Yahoo community and plotted on a Yahoo world map.

2) Triporama (http://www.triporama.com) - provides a bookmarking button so that any member of a travel group can tag pages on the fly as they research an upcoming trip, automatically saving them to the group’s travel page. Trip planning tools include destination articles, invite lists, polls, and a calendar function.

3) Gusto (http://www.gusto.com) - a community based travel web site that connects travelers with each other and with personalized travel info.

Triporama’s numbers look lackluster (per Compete data) but Gusto’s had a respectable showing (although trailing off of late).

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