Hotelmarketing.com has highlighted TripAdvisor's Facebook application "Cities I've Visited" as a significant success. According to the article, 'one month after Facebook allowed outsiders in, TripAdvisor, the Needham-based online travel guide, launched an application called “Cities I’ve Visited,” which the company’s chief executive, Stephen Kaufer, likened to the maps children used to festoon with pins showing the different places they had visited.'
To get those who aren't that interested in Facebook up to speed - in May 2007 Facebook opened it's doors to independent software developers. They could now create their own applications for the Facebook marketplace as long as they hosted these applications on their own servers. Sounds good? It was and it certainly worked for TripAdvisor - 'At last count, over 2 millions folks had installed the application on their profile page, Kaufer said'.
Success stories such as these resulted in an influx of Facebook applications. Everyone and their grandmother that could write code began churning out applications for the platform, convinced that they would be successful. But the result was overload. And then, backlash. Facebook clamped down. The viral marketing "pull" that had attracted so many software developers in the first place was minimized. Users were now only allowed to invite 20 friends at a time, rather than their entire friends list. The uproar from Silicon Valley was heard around the world.... So, the question is - Is it worth it?...
My answer - yes. The O'Reilly Media Facebook report notes that certain applications are very successful - Top Friends and the Fun Wall by Slide, the Super Wall by Rock You and, in fourth place, the Movies application by Flixter. But, even though there has been excessive application development in the past year, application development is somewhat concentrated in the "dating", "messaging" and "gaming" categories. Applications for the "travel" and "food and drink" categories are minimal. Therefore, travel applications from online companies such as TripAdvisor stand out as competition from other applications is limited. Is this a potential market gap for the Caribbean travel market? Could we develop travel applications to promote our products and ourselves to large social media marketplaces? Again, my answer - you should and we can. And here goes, my shameless plug - my company, Fretwork Media, creates applications, so for advice on what kind of application you should develop please contact me - dominique.monteil@gmail.com.
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