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Let's Talk About Tripadvisor's 'Friend of a Friend' Thing for a Sec

April 11, 2012 at 3:31 PM | by | Comment (1)

Not only have some travel companies ignored our advice and rushed to develop Facbeook applications even though their business models have nothing to do with social media, but now there are entire sub-industries devoted that nonsense. We have no idea how that happened, or why people are building startups on the assumption that you're going to share your travel details with the friends of your friends, but apparently the era of "social travel" has arrived. For at least the next few months.

"There is a trust forged in that tribal mentality that traditional travel companies or guides can't tap into," says one startup entrepreneur in New York City, who suggests that people will go where their online friends tell them to. That's an interesting point inasmuch as, first, we don't exactly know what it means ("tribal mentality"?) and, second, it's almost certainly untrue.

Just ask the people who launched social travel site Gtrot, and who are now trying to change the site into Foursquare because social travel is a really hard sell. 40% of travelers already flat out ignore social media, and the ones who are interested are mostly reading reviews, which isn't social media at all.

So naturally today's news is that TripAdvisor is integrating more closely into Facebook, now allowing you to get travel advice from "Friends of a Friend." The new feature will add "ten times the amount of content" and several heaps of poor decision-making. Not only can you now share your travel plans with the creepster who friended you because you were both randomly in Intro to Anthropology together, but also with all of his friends.

Listen. Obviously we're in no position to give TripAdvisor advice. The tech company has the 11th most used app on Facebook and is always justthisclose to getting bought by Google or Yahoo. But we're not sure they've thought their clever plan all the way through.

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Friends-of-friends are key to social travel

Exciting to see TripAdvisor joining us at Twigmore in discovering the power of friends-of-friends to make the world a smaller place! Discover friends around the world at http://twigmore.com.
Stephen Smyth on April 12, 2012 at 3:59 PM #Permalink

Return to » Let's Talk About Tripadvisor's 'Friend of a Friend' Thing for a Sec

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