Facebook acquires Social Travel site

HOME

Technology

by Gianluigi Cuccureddu

Techcrunch reports that Nextstop, a Social Travel Recommendation site, has been acquired by Facebook. Nextstop mixes social recommendations with search and adds a reputation system and gameplay elements.

How do you think Facebook will evolve for the travel industry? Read more....

The announcement on Nextstop's site: We're joining Facebook

When we started Nextstop just over two years ago, our goal was to make it dramatically easier to discover great things to do anywhere in the world. During that time, we've been amazed and delighted by your enthusiasm for this project, and it's strengthened our conviction that information from friends and passionate locals is a much better way to discover the world around you.

It's with that goal in mind that we have some big news to share today: Nextstop has been acquired by Facebook. What this means is that we'll be joining Facebook and that Facebook has bought most of our assets.

This creates a number of big changes for the nextstop product and our community, but we believe it's an opportunity for some of the ideas behind nextstop to reach Facebook's audience of more than 400 million users and have a much bigger impact on the world than we could on our own.

The last paragraph is interesting for three reasons. First, social technologies become increasingly important for companies to expand and broaden their product/market scope, in ways that weren't possible before. Secondly, in terms of investments and acquisitions, it becomes much more important for companies to have a large user base, than to have revenue streams. Sure, Facebook has both, but many other companies and start-ups have not yet defined a revenue model, though, the attractiveness to target markets is a more important determinant.

Thirdly, it sustains that Social is becoming the new "Search". Contextually enhanced recommendations based upon people instead of websites which offer information is a more relevant and personalized way.

Facebook is a potential goldmine for many companies within the travel space. Do research if your target market has a critical mass on Facebook and explore the opportunities it has for your brand.

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Comments (0) add comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Write comment

Related articles:

Online Travel Communities - who will survive? (2010-06-04) Gowalla used by InterContinental Hotels Group's loyalty promotion (2010-05-22) iTravel: Apple's way of revolutionizing travel? (2010-05-09) Google + ITA: Will it change the travel value chain? (2010-05-07) iPad App – Media Strategy Launched by Lonely Planet (2010-04-08) Personalization, Customization, Collaboration – Future Business Trinity (2009-12-04) Creativity is the answer in hard times. (2009-04-28) Twitter: the SMS service of the Y generation! (2009-04-06)