TravelAvenue wants to be the Pinterest for travel, with a few twists. Pinterest launched quietly into the world of social networking in 2010, but then made one hell of a thud a year or so later – with obvious ramifications for travel. TravelAvenue has seen this movement towards pinning and sharing content by way of images and has been working almost in tandem along the same time-line (no pun intended, Facebook fans). Brainchild of three founders, Loic Dupont (president), Stephane Pinatton (executive director) and Stefan Surzucki (CTO), TravelAvenue now has a total of 15 people based in Paris, France. The company says it is an intermediary, in that wants to position itself as the middleman between discovery of products and booking, with a major focus on inspiration by way of images and allowing users to essentially bookmark ideas of where they want to go and what they want to do.
It enters a growing but increasingly crowded space, going up against the likes of Trippy (“US-centric”) and, of course, Pinterest and the “Pinterest clones”. Tnooz view: Snap poll: Personalized Travel Recommendations | Online Travel Guide | Travel Tips | TripSay.com. Uptake.com - Your First Step to a Great Trip. The Best Way to share and showcase your travel. - www.tripntale.com. [Social Travel] Wipolo, la plateforme française choisie par Facebook. Un site – un seul en Europe – a été choisi parmi trois autres partenaires voyage par Facebook sur sa nouvelle plateforme : Wipolo. Le site, disponible sur le web ou sur mobile, connecte les e-voyageurs, et permet de partager ses expériences de voyages entre amis, de retrouver les infos de ses voyages passés et futurs, de les partager en temps réel, et recommander les bons plans: hôtels, avions etc… Le procédé, qui, on le devine, a séduit Facebook, est astucieux: Wipolo propose un lien sur les autres sites voyage, et rassemble l’ensemble des infos que le voyageur a renseigné.
Wipolo concentre alors une grosse capacité de datas, intégrables dans la timeline Facebook. Le business modèle est calé à 75% sur l’affiliation avec les partenaires. Lancé en 2008, Wipolo a récemment signé plusieurs accords avec des acteurs du voyage, comme Go Voyages, Good Planet et Mondial Assistance. Entretien avec Matthieu Heslouin, co-fondateur de Wipolo. Gogobot. Gogobot Partners With Flipboard To Turn Your Travel Photos Into A Digital Magazine. Since launching early last year, young social travel site Gogobot has been off to a pretty good start, or at least it has, shall we say, been hitting all the stops. As Jason pointed out recently, it was named one of Time’s top sites for 2011, won a Crunchie for best design in 2010, and brought its total funding to just under $20 million with a series B raise from Redpoint Ventures, Battery Ventures and CrunchFund.
It launched a good looking iOS app in October, and has seen its user base grow 10x in the last six months. But, so what, right? As we’ve written before, the travel space is rife with newcomers. And TripAdvisor, the leader in the space and the veteran incumbent is on its way towards an IPO, but there are still a few things it doesn’t do as well as some of the younger travel sites. The integration will take a realtime stream of travel photos and experiences from around the globe, generated using Gogobot’s iOS app, and transform them into a travel magazine.