May 08 2008
Uptake and Tripwolf: New Travel Review Sites
Two new and potentially important travel sites, Uptake and Tripwolf, are going public this month. Both could help to improve and streamline planning for your next trip to Hawaii and beyond. But will they be able to break through the crowd and gain public trust? Here’s my first look at both.
Uptake believes that travel opinions are still an untapped part of the Web 2.0 travel industry, and we completely concur. Their release from Beta is due next week on May 14.
What We Like: Find all travel reviews on one site.
Uptake aggregates trip reviews from across the Web. You can click through to the reviews directly. If it works, this can save time by reducing the number of sites you must otherwise visit.
Our Concern: Will they filter the reviews that you see?
Uptake says no and that their site is not biased. I hope it won’t be like Alltop where a group of people decide what’s best for me to read in various categories. The only person who really knows that is me.
What We Like: Customized Search.
You can narrow results by your specific priorities and preferences. Perhaps it’s a family vacation, beach destination or romantic restaurant.
Our Concern: What’s Behind the Customized Search?
For example, who developed their list of Honolulu’s top hotels that places Hale Koa at Number 5? The Hale Koa is for military families only. We question if it’s fair to place a “private hotel”on the list?
Interesting Fact: Uptake CEO, Yen Lee, was General Manager of Yahoo Travel before leaving in late 2006.
Tripwolf is another new and much anticipated travel community site (trip planner and Wiki), due to launch at the end of May.
I haven’t played quite as much with this one, but look forward to when it comes out of the “dotcom” oven.
What We Like: Trip Gurus Feature
Similar to Tripsay (also in Beta) and Wayn, Tripwolf’s claim to fame is the use of local experts, their “trip gurus,” who offer insights beyond community reviews. Their goal is to provide you with highly personalized recommendations from like-minded travelers and experts.
An IPhone version of Tripwolf is also planned.
Conclusion: Does the public want to see more on-line travel communities? I say no unless they are designed to save us time and money. We’ll watch and see what the future holds for these two sites. In the meantime, remember that good travel planning involves understanding how to use trip reviews and the methodology behind them.
Oh no, not more of those so-called comprehensive, know-it-all travel sites!
I admit when my Hawaii vacation rentals on the Kohala Coast showed up in tripadvisor for the first time, I got really excited…until I noticed that somebody had a really splendid business idea:
The owner of the site did not have to do anything, besides providing the webtool of course, because travelers would ‘write’ the site content themselves by submitting their travel reviews.
Then the development of the site ’snowballed’ and tripadvisor made it in the top of the Google SERPs and soon the listing of my Kohala Coast vacation cottages was suddenly surrounded by ads for the big Kohala Coast hotels. Guess who was the absolute winner here! Just my personal opinion. Aloha, Pua
Thanks for your comment Pua.
You bring up an interesting point, which is monitization and how that will work. Uptake says its going to be on an advertising pay per click basis, which doesn’t yield much any more. So something will have to change.
The site is interesting enough that I’m going to keep checking back and see if they can make a successful go of it. I still think there is a need for what they purport to offer.
Aloha,
Jeff