Travel, then, is a voyage into that famously subjective zone, the imagination, and what the traveler brings back is — and has to be — an ineffable compound of himself and the place, what’s really there and what’s only in him.
-Pico Iyer
In March of this year, I wrote a post titled, “Why Gogobot makes Google and TripAdvisor look like folding car maps.” The service is fast-becoming a much-loved, travel savvy community. Gogobot is a San Francisco based travel planning startup founded by MySpace’s former GM International Travis Katz and Ori Zaltzman, the former Chief Architect of Yahoo Boss, that opened up its public beta in November 2010 after raising $4 million from Battery Ventures.
Later this spring, Gogobot announced major partnerships with the top travel booking sites including Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, Priceline and Hotels.com, gearing up Gogobot to be the #1 social platform for travel and wanderlust exploration. On Gogobot, users can search for travel recommendations from their friends via Twitter and Facebook and look at the top recommendations (e.g. London restaurants) from the entire Gogobot community. You can also post questions within the Gogobot community and out to friends on your social networks and filter travel results by who you’re following as opposed to the general Gogobot community.
Today, Gogobot released its much-anticipated mobile app – a tool for iPhone users to explore nearby areas, discover new restaurants, bars, activities, hotels and access itineraries created on the main site. It’s a beautiful trip planning tool in your pocket.
“Travel is all about discovering new experiences and sharing them with your friends and family. With Gogobot’s mobile app you can capture, personalize, and instantaneously share your favorite moments with as richly-styled digital postcards. You can also use the app to explore what’s nearby, and check out places your friends have recommended,” said Travis Katz, Gogobot co-founder and CEO.
To use the app to document your travels, select your current location, snap a picture, and choose from more than ten different styles and filters to transform your photos into geo-tagged digital postcards, which you can then share with friends via Facebook or Twitter. Each postcard is added automatically to your Gogobot Guide on the site.
I’ve been completely sucked into playing on Gogobot, but it’s hardly time wasted compared to an hour playing Angry Birds. I’m helping to build a community I care about, for a future of better travel planning while also keeping a record of my own travels. And now that it’s on mobile, I’m that much more apt to use it to plan and keep record of my trips. Where will you go next? Download the iOS app here.
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