TripIt

Google Social Search – a big step toward the traveler-centric future

Last week we blogged about social networks, and how they are becoming more portable over time. This week, Google released Social Search, demonstrating this idea in action, in the context of the most popular activity on the web.  

Social Search is Google’s name for the ability to add the activity of people you may know to your search results. Google does this by looking at your Google contacts, and your networks on social sites like Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Google Reader. Without digging too deeply into the technology, it's plain to see that there are some benefits here for travelers. 

One of the biggest benefits is that you can get trip ideas and travel tips from friends and acquaintances without going any further than the search engine you’re likely to be using anyway. By applying a social filter to search data, the results should be much more personal and relevant, making it easier than ever to learn about travel from other travelers you know and trust.

Social Search has the potential to be a game changer for the travel industry and is a big step toward the traveler-centric future. You can learn more about this exciting new social development in the Google blog. 

The Traveler-Centric Future - Part Two - Social Networking

Social networking isn’t quite everywhere yet, but it’s definitely getting there. The numbers are massive–Gartner projects that the number of people around the world participating in social networks will grow from 118 million in 2008 to 800 million by 2012. Facebook alone has over 300 million users, which means if it were a country, it would be the fourth largest in the world!

Much like the mobile phenomenon, the most interesting thing about social networking is not its size, but how it is changing human behavior. Before social networking came on the scene, people were restricted to one-on-one communication with each other. Today, anyone who wants to can communicate one-to-many, using tools like Twitter. Determined individuals have amassed millions of followers on their networks and have nearly the same influence as institutions. This has implications not just for media but a host of other industries, including travel. 

Leisure travelers are finding services like Facebook and Twitter increasingly useful for research and trip planning. Business travelers are using social networks like LinkedIn for business networking, too.  As technologies like Facebook Connect and Open ID become more widely adopted, your social network is becoming portable. In an interesting twist, the social graph is becoming ubiquitous. The first services to take advantage of this development have been leisure applications that allow people to interact with their networks using third parties outside their network environment. In the future, we’ll see business applications doing the same thing with business networks like those built on LinkedIn.

What does this mean for travelers?

• You’ll be able to see where the important people in your life are going and where they have been.
• They’ll have more visibility into the same information about you.
• It will easier to communicate with fellow travelers and connect with people while you’re on the road.
• Over time, travel planning will become easier, because the likes and dislikes of other travelers will be more accessible.

There is no doubt that social media is here to stay, and it’s changing travel in ways we have yet to fully realize. Stay tuned to see how this fits into the even bigger Traveler-Centric picture!

The Traveler-Centric Future - Part One - Mobile

Last month, I had the great pleasure of delivering the guest keynote at The Beat Live conference in Austin. As promised, here is the first in a series of posts that more deeply explores how the convergence of mobile connectivity, social networking and the evolution of the Internet is driving the “The Traveler-Centric Future.”

Trend #1: The Mobile Phenomena

 

It’s not exactly news that mobile technology is experiencing staggering growth. Currently, 80% of business travelers use smartphones, and it’s projected that there will be 2 billion smartphones by 2012. Smartphone sales are growing at an incredible twenty times faster than personal computers. We’re in a perfect storm of better devices, faster mobile connections, and heavy investment in services that make mobile devices more useful to us.

 

The mobile phenomena isn’t just about smartphones. Mobile really refers to any portable device that has wireless access to the internet and multi-media capabilities. The form factors are evolving and mobile is taking on all sorts of new shapes and sizes. Wireless netbook sales may soon get a big boost, with more devices coming to market, like the rumored Apple Netbook. My favorite mobile device is Intel's now famous wireless surfboard. That's the kind of day at the office I dream about!

Mobile is a powerful trend not just because it’s big, but because it’s changing how people behave. Everywhere, we’re spending more and more time on our phones, and not just for talking. Mobile technology helps us manage our daily lives in a variety of ways. The iPhone app store is a great glimpse of this concept in action, with over 85,000 apps and more than two billion downloads in a little more than a year. 

 

Mobile technology is particularly useful for travelers, which makes it a cornerstone of the Traveler-Centric Future. The mobile traveler can get apps like Google Earth for maps, Yelp for activities, Lonely Planet for pocket guides, and TripIt’s iPhone app for managing travel itineraries.

 

TripIt is making a big investment in mobile technology. Our mobile site, m.tripit.com, is accessible from any mobile device. Our free iPhone app is available now, and other platforms like BlackBerry will be supported soon. Perhaps most significantly, our open API makes it possible for any developer to integrate their travel app with TripIt core service.

Of course, mobile technology is only one piece of a much bigger, traveler-centric world. There will be more to come on the rest of that soon.

Hotwire partnership and new TripIt developer program

This has been an exciting week for TripIt! Wednesday, we announced our new partnership with leading discount travel site Hotwire, who will help travelers organize and share their plans using TripIt’s open itinerary platform. Now, travelers who book a trip through Hotwire will be able to click an "Add to TripIt" button and automatically add their plans to a TripIt itinerary. For some fun coverage and interesting insight about the partnership, check out the Hudson Crossing blog and CNET.

In addition to the Hotwire partnership, we launched a brand new referral program for API developers this week. The program, which was first announced at our private API Developer Event in August, offers developers a commission of up to 20% on sales of TripIt Pro. Details are available on our Developer Referral Page, and also in a great article on GigaOm that discusses both the referral program and the Hotwire partnership.

The week’s events are significant to us in a couple of different ways. First, it’s wonderful to be working with Hotwire to make things easier for travelers. Also, it’s satisfying to be able to offer some rewards to our API developers, who regularly create innovative and new ways to make travel easier and more fun.

The Beat Live is one smart conference

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being the guest keynote speaker at Promedia’s The Beat Live conference. The title of my talk was “The Traveler Centric Future”. It was about how the convergence of mobile, social networking and interoperability of services is creating an opportunity to dramatically improve the travel experience. This is something at TripIt that we’re calling The Traveler Centric Future and I’m looking forward to discussing it in upcoming blog posts in more detail. 

The Beat Live is a small, invite-only gathering of senior leaders from across the corporate travel world. Neither Scott nor I had been before, and I have to say I was very impressed. It was one of the most intelligent and open events I’ve attended. It’s exciting to see that even in an established industry like corporate travel, there is genuine excitement about innovation, traveler-driven solutions and a realization that social networking tools have a role to play in the business travel world.   

The quality of the invitees was outstanding and had much to do with the success of the event. Participants included senior leaders from across the corporate travel world, including the major TMCs like BCD Travel, Carlson Wagonlit and American Express, the GDS companies like Sabre, TravelPort and Amadeus, airlines such as Continental, United and Delta, large corporate buyers like Wellpoint and Accenture, as well as technology providers like Rearden Commerce and Concur. 

Congratulations to Tim Reid, Jay Campbell and the whole team at Promedia Travel for organizing such a terrific event. Well done!

TripIt at TechCrunch50

Our team just got back from the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco and it was a blast. Thanks to Michael, Heather, Jason, and the TC50 team for another great show.

TripIt was one of the original TechCrunch 40 back in 2007, which makes us the old kids at the party this year. But we’re excited to see other alumni like Yammer and Xobni also doing so well. And big congrats to Mint (another alum from TC40 in 2007) on their $170M acquisition by Intuit; read founder Aaron Patzer’s comments here.

Another alum from 2008 was Expensify, a startup that streamlines expense reporting all the way through reimbursement. Both expense and travel data can be a pain to organize, so we understand and admire their efforts. Outright was a first-time exhibitor at this year's show that impressed us, in part because they've built expense reporting into their cool, free bookkeeping service, using Expensify's API. 

This is an area that we've gotten some requests about (including this one from our friend Sean Ellis). We’ve been fortunate to have several other companies integrate their services with TripIt's API, including ExpenseBay which is worth checking out.

On the fun side, we were impressed by Clicker which describes themselves as "a TV Guide for the Web" that helps you find videos online.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say Hi and see a demo of TripIt Pro. We handed out a lot of luggage tags and promo codes today, and are already seeing a lot of new users. Thanks!

Will Aldrich

New, improved TripIt itineraries

We’ve made some improvements to TripIt itineraries, so now it’s easier than ever for you to organize and share your travel plans.

New design

We updated our itinerary layout based on some great suggestions from TripIt travelers. Travel dates and times have a new format, and your trip information is easier to scan when you’re in a hurry. Go to your trips to experience the difference first-hand.

Easier to share, print, edit and see who’s close

We’ve added see some big new buttons that make it super simple to Share, Print and Edit your trip. Plus, you now have easy access to calendar sync and other handy tools.

There is also a new "People" section that shows you which of your TripIt connections will be close to you on your trip. It's a great way to set up meetings, connect with friends and colleagues, and much more. The more connections you have, the more useful this is, so add connections to make the most of who’s close!

We hope you enjoy your new and improved itinerary page.  Your suggestions made these changes possible, so please - keep them coming. 

Let TripIt help you enjoy Labor Day

Take the labor out of your Labor Day travel plans- use TripIt to organize your trip details into an itinerary and share your plans with friends, family or colleagues before you hit the road!

Quickly organize your itinerary

Forward travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com to create an itinerary for your Labor Day weekend travel plans. TripIt supports over 500 different travel booking sites – you can forward confirmations from airlines, hotels and rental car companies, but it doesn’t end there. You can forward restaurant reservations, event tickets, campground reservations and much more to plans@tripit.com. You can also customize your itinerary with maps, directions and personal touches like pictures and notes. Once your itinerary is created you can access it anytime online, or using your mobile device.

See a fun summer road trip itinerary here.

Easily share your plans

Let your friends, family or colleagues know your travel plans by sharing your TripIt itinerary. Click the “Share trip” button under the picture at the top of your itinerary and choose the method you’d like to use.

• Send email –email your itinerary to the people you want to share your trip with.
• Get a link – create a public URL for your itinerary, then cut and paste it to share your trip.
• Share on social networks - post your itinerary on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter in the click of a button.

Once you create and share your TripIt itinerary, it’s easy to sit back, relax and enjoy your long holiday weekend. Have fun, be safe, and happy travels!

Report from NBTA travel conference

Earlier this week, Gregg and I attended the National Business Travel Association conference in San Diego to help BCD Travel launch their new partnership with TripIt. More than 5,000 travel managers and travel suppliers were at NBTA, making it the biggest business travel conference in the world. The mood was optimistic, and the conference was full of encouraging signs that travel is starting to rebound. There was a lot of talk about lobbying state and federal governments to support the valuable role that travel plays in the recovery of American business.

BCD Travel, the world’s third largest travel agency, featured a TripIt demo video in their tradeshow booth. While we were at the booth, Gregg and I had the opportunity to meet with many of BCD Travel’s top corporate clients, and talk about how social and mobile travel tools could be a part of their managed travel programs. Ten years ago, these companies were only just thinking about moving their travel programs online. Now, with so many business travelers using tools like TripIt, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and LinkedIn, they’re finding ways to use these same tools to help travelers share information and be more productive on the road. It was fun to show them how many hundreds (sometimes thousands) of travelers at their companies are already using TripIt.

It was amazing to see how much things have changed since last year’s NBTA conference, where TripIt was still mostly unknown in the corporate world, and this year’s conference, where most of the people I met at the show not only knew about TripIt, but were actively using it. I was thrilled to see several people pull out their mobile phones and fire up the TripIt app to show me that they are indeed users!

Everyone enjoyed the great keynote speeches delivered by Bill Clinton and Jay Leno, but my personal favorite was Dara Torres (pictured here) a competitive swimmer who, at the age of 41, won three silver medals at the 2008 Olympic games. She was quite an inspiration, delivering the message that it’s never too late to accomplish what you set your mind to. It was great to bring this message back to the TripIt office, where we’re already thinking about all the things we’ve set out to accomplish before next year’s NBTA conference!

TripIt featured in TIME and the TODAY Show

This morning, TIME Magazine launched their list of the 50 Best Websites of 2009, and we’re thrilled to report that TripIt was one of the sites selected!  It’s a great honor to be deemed “indispensable” by the editorial staff of TIME, and to be listed along with sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google that we find indispensable, too. We extend our congratulations to these sites, and to all the other sites that made the list. 

As if being on the list wasn’t enough, TripIt was also one of five sites that TIME featured on NBC’s TODAY Show  on national television this morning. In a segment highlighting new sites on the list that “make the lives of web users easier and more fun”, they described TripIt as “a great site for the extremely organized traveler, or for the traveler who needs a little extra help organizing their itinerary”. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves! 

Being in TIME and on the TODAY Show in the course of a single Monday morning is a pretty amazing way to start the week – we’re thankful for the recognition, and even more thankful that we continue to provide a useful service for all of you travelers out there!