Facebook Timeline lists your travel experiences and preferences

In the electronic version of your life story, known as Facebook’s Timeline, now you will be able to show all the places you have visited on an interactive map, list your favourite destinations, share customized postcards, or even asks your friends about recommendations on upcoming trips.

Since Facebook announced that its new Timeline would allow external applications to participate on the storytelling of users, developers started creatively to design how to enhance their visibility. One of the first travel app for Facebook’s new interface has been developed by Gogobot, a social travel site that has seen a stunning growth since their launch in November 2010. As mentioned on the website techcrunch.com, Gogobot has been named one of Time’s top sites of 2011 and winner of the 2010 Crunchie award for Best Design.     

Travis Katz, CEO of Gogobot, explained in a press release that the firm “is proud to be one of the first travel companies featured in Facebook’s launch: this highlights how travel has become a core social behaviour and how Gogobot is leading the category.” As Gogobot, TripAdvisor, too, displays Cities I’ve Visited on Facebook, and Wipolo allows to share user’s itineraries in real-time.

The example of Gogobot

To start adding travel content to Facebook, users have to register at www.Gogobot.com, create a profile and opt-in (expressing permission to automatically access and update) to add their travel activity from Gogobot and its mobile application. All the tools that people love about the Gogobot usage have become a part of Timeline, those mentioned at the beginning of the post and others like links to Gogobot reviews, travel expertise score and badges and places you want to visit.

The company declared that the first surveys were above the average and they forecast that the application will be more than successful. For us, the application has some positive and negative points:

Pros: Very interactive. Lets you post questions. Has quirky features such as giving you a badge for a particular activity (i.e., a Shutterbug Badge for posting a photo). Your photos and reviews appear on your Timeline.

Cons: There's a lot going on, and it can look cluttered. Points are awarded for quantity rather than quality of reviews, though the number of people who've liked your recommendations is a factor.

The biggest difference between travel applications adapted to Facebook and others, is that their members share all about their trips with friends, not with strangers. It makes the application more trustful for the consumer. On the other hand, it is an important move for Facebook and their partners, who will benefit from a bigger amount of information uploaded by each user, keeping track of their day-to-day decisions and consumption preferences.  

Posted by Vanessa Morales & Sabina Bartikova

Key words: Travel, Facebook, Timeline, Apps, Places, Social travel, Gogobot


Sources: Breaking travel news. (2012). Gogobot makes timeline travel possible. Retrieved January 23, 2012, from www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/gogobot-makes-timeline-travel-possible/

Eyefortravel.(2012). Travel apps for uFacebook Timeline.Retrieved January 25, 2012, from www.eyefortravel.com/social-media-and-marketing/travel-apps-unveiled-facebook-timeline

Mercurynews.com. (2012). MAGID ON TECH: Facebook rolls out new Timeline with apps integration. Retrieved January 25, 2012, from www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_198130
Techcrunch. (2011). Growth Surging, Gogobot Raises $15 Million For Social Travel. Retrieved January 25, 2012, fro www.techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/gogobot-raises-15-million