Geckogo: start up surprise #2 from PhoCusWright 2009

The " "PhoCusWright surprise" occurs when I meet an online travel start up(s) at PhoCusWright that I have never heard of but is (are) number one in their category by some reasonable measure. Yesterday's surprise was Localyte.

Surprise number 2 - Geckogo

Geckogo - is a travel planning and inspiration site that want to solve the "too much information" problem by allowing travellers to aggregate content from social networks, friends recommendations and use that information to build trip plans. They claim to sit in between the travel aggregation sites like UpTake / NileGuide / TravelMuse and travel social network sites like WhereIveBeen and TravBuddy. Though I am not sure I yet see the gap. That said, I see the value of content company with social media interaction. The challenge for a business targeting that space is how to collect information and establish an index.

Geckogo founders Pokin Yeung and Eric Mackinnon are coming at the challenge through building a Facebook application called travel brain. It allows consumers to load cities and destinations visited (like TripAdvisor's Cities I've visited). The difference with TA's app is that Geckogo gives users a chance to increase their "score" by adding information about a destination. This rewards consumers for generating more content and engaging further with Geckogo. The result was that the Facebook app is the main content acquisition tool and consumer point of interaction for Geckgo. In addition partnership with Bradt Travel guides has helped populated editorial content on the site.

With Facebook as a driver, Geckogo claims to have attracted a network of 700,000 users - with 8% of those contributing content regularly. Results in 250,000 articles mainly collected from Facebook users - parsed and classified through their information architecture. Eric described part of the architecture as a "synonym database" that prompts contributors to help flesh-out areas that need more information. For example a casino in a destination means gambling but gambling as an activity in a destination will prompt a question on whether or not their is a casino.

This is where the surprise factor came in. I have talked before about what content companies need to do to succeed. My definition of success has always been SEO raking and traffic. Yet in Geckogo we have a online travel content company where early success has come from the using Facebook as a distribution and content acquisition mechanism. They made me feel a little old and outdated in continuing to believe that search is the number one battleground for traffic.

Being Facebook dependent is beneficial for Geckogo as their competitive set is lower. But in my interview with Pokin and Eric at PhoCusWright they admitted that Facebook dependence comes with risks. Just like a change in the Google search algorithm can send SEO dependent companies from the top of the world to the bottom of page 5, so too a Facebook change has dramatic impacts on Geckogo. When Facebook moved from a profile based page structure to the more twitter like newsfeed structure, Pokin admitted that usage dropped dramatically. Geckogo had to rebuild the way the app interacted to support the new approach.

Still in the angel funding stage Geckogo knows they have more money to raise and work to do. Eric admitted they are looking or about four times as much content before they will be able to answer the level of questions they are targeting. In addition to more content they should also work on the query architecture to help drive more responses and customer interaction. But the surprise factor success is there - Geckogo claim to be the number one content contributor on Facebook (but not the biggest app). Update - see below

For a bit more information on Geckogo check out their presentation from the Facebook app targeted fbFund. Also a story on the same presentation from UpTake industry blog written by Elliot Ng.

Update. Geckogo founder Pokin comments below. Here is an extract

"I should also clarify our claim of being the number one travel content source on Facebook. As a blanket statement that was absolutely true when we posted it, but I can’t validate that now since our friends at Where I’ve Been have also started collecting content as well. I believe we continue to be the number #1 source on Facebook for travellers to gain meaningful travel insight and help one another in their travel plans."

Triporati - Jim Hornthal interview

A new theme for the BOOT has been working on classifying and and analysing the different travel content, planning, community and search sites. Last month I started off this work through a review of Triporati (and drawing a comparison to my favourite non-travel web product Last.fm). This month I was able to continue my investigation into the sector via an interview with Triporati Chairman Jim Hornthal. We cover areas such as the business model, UGC vs editorial, the company and more.

Business Model

Hornthal was clear that Triporati's main distribution and monetisation push will be around working with partners. I have been hearing this again and again with content/planning/community sites. Most recently in my review of TripIt and before that in an interview with TripSay Board Member Alfonso Castellano. The rationale behind this is clear and makes sense to me. The battle for traffic from Google (either paid or organic) is either too expensive for a travel planning/inspiration site (in the case of paid) or not the core competency (in the case of organic). Better to take a great travel planning/inspiration product and add it to other high trafficked travel sites that are focused purely on booking or content (or both).

One of Triporati's first major deals here is with the triple A (Automotive club) network of sites. There are multiple link offs from the base AAA.com site and Triporati hosts the final landing page (here is the AAA Carolinas Example). There is lots of bespoke work for each deployment as it needs the media spaces from AAA, the booking widgets from AAA and trip options from Triporati are redefined for the partner. In effect AAA is the media partner and Triporati plays the content and technology role. Hornthal is particularly happy with AAA as a partner as AAA brings a offline presence as well as online. At the start 250 AAA travel agents are using Triporati to provide the expertise that is taken away from offline agents as the fam trip continues to disappear into the travel industry history books.

On the revenue side, because of the bespoke set up work Triporati is charging a set up fee, monthly fee tied to traffic as well as the obligatory ad share. I am impressed that Triporati is generating upfront payments from partners as this is not a normal practice in online travel where affiliates are used to a rev share only way of life.

[there is also a test version with TripAdvisor from a a email engagement plan]

On Editorial versus UGC

I have blogged before about how content companies need to find a balance between editorial content and UGC. Too much editorial and you risk not being up to date because editors cannot be in as many places as often as the masses out there. Too much UGC and you end up with the masses going off topic and insulting each other.

Hornthal's view on this balance is to have Triporati's technology and their editors as the discovery engine and then the crowd as a validation engine. Is clear to Triporati that you need to link the two parts but also need to keep them separate. I agree with this approach. Hornthal also put it like this "know where the right answer is not what the right answer is".

On the Triporati Company Background

I alluded in last month's post on Triporati to the pedigree behind Triporati - with Triporati founders Hornthal and Sharlene Wang being behind Preview Travel. The Triporati Board is also packed full of high profile names - Tim Draper (of Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Ted Leonsis (former Vice Chairman of AOL), David Patrick (Charles Schwab), Ron Conway (Google angle investor). Impressive.

My take

I get this space. I am very excited about this space. Triporati well placed to take the lead and own it. The product looks good, they have money and a Board stacked full of experience. The only but is that Triporati takes the Vacation Genome approach as the starting point (much like Pandora in music) rather than the user based recommendation editorial control (much like Last.fm in music - see earlier post if you want this explained further). This does not mean I will bet against Triporati as all the pieces are there, the approach is right and I don't see the genome over crowd approach as a fatal flaw. Triporati is the site and business that competitors TourDust, Geckogo, Joobili, TripBase, TravelMuse are behind and have to chase. [have already written a post on Joobili - more on the others soon].

Seems like I am being too nice. Second positive review in a row (TripIt earlier this week). Am determined to find someone to be nasty about next week.