When I was in Amsterdam a week ago, a startup founder from Finland named Leo Koivulehto showed me his travel site TripSay, which is in closed private beta. The first 200 readers to send an e-mail to info [at] tripsay [dot] com with “TechCrunch” in the subject will get a beta invite.
TripSay combines social recommendations with a travel search engine that auto-suggests cities, pubs, hotels, and the like as you type them in. They appear as icons on a map, with a photo (pulled from Flickr) and description on the side, a tag cloud below, and minifeed of all the places you and your friends have rated or recommended. The detail page for each city shows other TripSay members who have visited, tips from members, the most interesting Flickr photos tagged with the name of the city, links elsewhere on the Web, and a list of the top-rated places shown on a map.
On TripSay, the more people you connect to, the more places you can find that they’ve rated or tips they’ve shared. Everything can be rated with a five-point system (smiley face to butt). The site design is intuitive and pleasing, and once more people start adding their ratings, tips, and tags, it will become more useful. My biggest quibble is that if TripSay’s search engine cannot find a place (like teh Gramercy Tavern restaurant in New York City), there is no way to add it so that it appears on the map. But you can add it as a tip, and link to a blog post about it if you like. And, in general, the search is pretty good. (Update: It turns out you can add a place by simply clicking on a map, but you have to discover that for yourself. It would help if they somehow made that clearer. Update 2: The business model, which I should have mentioned, is highly-targeted travel-related ads and affiliate fees to travel booking sites).
Travel, by its nature, is normally a very social experience. Most of us need help from other humans when we are in a strange place. TripSay joins a whole new group of social travel sites that are now emerging , such as Driftr, HereOrThere, and YowTrip. It also adds elements of guided vertical search like Uptake (formerly Kango). Travel sites that don’t make social connections a central part of their experience will have to continue to compete on more utilitarian grounds such as price and place discovery. And that is a very competitive business. The new social travel sites will compete not so much on how good their pricing data is, but rather on how knowledgeable their community is. Which social travel would you want to be a part of?
This is truly awesome; as one who travels a lot, this will come in quite handy for avoiding disasters and discovering new, hidden gems.
Kudos to this site
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I am looking to start a new venture and I was wondering if any of you out there had suggestions for finding partners (tech-savvy). I’ve exhausted my options currently.
“Images from Flickr, view bigger size for authorship information”???
What a bunch of crap.
Best. rating. system. ever. (smiley face to butt).
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I was wondering how I could get you to give me a foot rub. I’ve exhausted my options currently.
Adding info by users is always a risk, our solution was to hold that changes untill one of the webteam members took a look at it. The other thing that we did to overcome the problem of finding similar users, or taste twins was to show places that your friends would go to + best of group options.
This is definately where travel is going. I’m always looking for good places and good deals when I travel. I usually ask fellow tourists who look like they have “been there” for a week (nice tan, fully relaxed) or else I look for where the locals are eating. This tool will far exceed those type of travel tricks.
Seems like a tool for people who are already in their destination. They already booked their travel. How will this company monetize this site? Will people click on ads for local restaurants if they are looking at user generated recommendations for those same restaurants.
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Shonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I am stuck in mid-town traffic and was wondering if you could recommend an alternate route. I’m currently at Hudson heading towards the Holland Tunnel and have exhausted my option currently.
Good travel 2.0 site, but how to monetize this site ?
Good to see another Finnish startup covered on Techcrunch.
Hope to see boost in user generated content on Tripsay as a result of the Techcrunch invites. Tripsay’s recommendations engine looks rather good, but more contributing users would feed in some of the more interesting and off the beaten track destinations.
You forgot to include travbuddy.com as one of the competitors.
Nice article about TripSay. Wish you guys all the best with this. Travel is certainly a field that has not yet been ’solved’.
Hey, perhaps it’s true what some people said and Helsinki will become the new European Silicon Valley
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Shonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I’m having trouble deciding what to have for lunch today, and I was hoping you could offer a suggestion. I usually have burritos, but it always gives me gas and i’ve exhausted my option currently.
We’ve been in a quiet beta for some time now as well, with some similar but differentiating factors. It’s an exciting space to be in, and there are some pending developments on the monetization front for us (which is a recurring and proper question raised here several times).
Isn’t wayn.com the biggest and oldest of these sites with tens of millions of members?
@9 travel 3.0 – the monetization works when you think micro not macro…ie local not the whole world…see something like mapfaced.com where they have eating and drinking crawls for nyc on maps made by editors and community
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I am looking to purchase some new dentures and I was wondering if any of you out there had suggestions for finding dentists (teeth-savvy). I’ve exhausted my options currently.
Yes, Wayn is the biggest. Many of the other travel 2.0 sites, all much smaller in size, are often exploring niche markets. Such as Extravigator for luxury travel and MyGreatRides for motorcycle enthusiasts.
Unfortunately you also forgot to mention Flagr, a yCombinator graduate from 2006 that has been doing something pretty similar for quite some time.
I know you can’t profile every single competitor in travel networking, its a pretty crowded space, but there is a startup called planeteye http://www.planeteye.com that is doing some similar work and deserves some recognition. Toronto based outfit, cool product. Just FYI.
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I wonder why did the chicken cross the road?
I was wondering if any of you out there had suggestions for a good answer. I’ve exhausted my options currently.
Hey people, keep up the flame – it may become famous!
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I wonder if you can tell me of any Web 2.0 gossip sites that publish extremely reliable but also highly entertaining information about tech-savvy celebrities. Preferably the site would be part of a network that is peeling off properties as we speak.
I was wondering if any of you out there had suggestions for a good answer. I’ve exhausted my options currently.
And a new breed of comment-joke is born: the Mr. Arrington and Mr. Shonfeld …
My vote goes to Paul. (teeth-savvy)!
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Schonfeld, this is related to the piece, and I am wondering if any of you out there had suggestions (tech-savvy) to it. I’ve exhausted my options currently.
(late to the party)
Hahaha!! that “ass” rating is awesome!!
Mr. Arrington and Mr. Shonfeld, this is not related to the piece, but I have no life and was wondering if you had any suggestions for finding one. I’ve exhausted my option currently (with this post).
There is a project which is now at its beta state which is very similar to tripSay. It even goes to documenting one experience around the globe (born, raised, school, work, travel, collection) and it also help people meet by playing a very good social networking site. It is called geoglog http://www.geoglog.com. geoglog can also be useful to travellers by connecting them to the local people of their destination…
Hahaha, sorry all! I’m just a student right now and I’m trying to learn.
really fun to use and to add new places is pretty simple after all!
WooT! Nice (tech-savvy) work guys.
This would come in real handy on my upcoming RTW trip. Here’s hoping for an invite.
very nice work nice site for trip
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Reviews are useful, but can take a long time to sort through. Usually the advice from a travel guide is sufficient for all but the most obsessive. As the creator of iGuide (http://iguide.travel), I’ve brought together much of the web’s best travel information and booking tools so travelers won’t have to sort through the mess!
I love the idea of User generated tips for travel. Until recently, we have only really had the traditional travel guides (i love LP), but to get some ideas, stories and tips from some other traveler who has been to my future destination already… I like this site http://itineraryshare.com
It seems simpler than others, not much content yet, but it is along the lines of good useful resource for travelers..
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