If you’ve got a vacation coming up, a startup called HoozTrippin is aiming to make it more fun by connecting you with other travelers.
Co-founder and CEO Steven Oh describes the site as “Match.com for travelers,” except broader as the audience is not limited to just singles.” In some ways, it sounds like a complement to a service like Triptrotting, which connects travelers to locals. Local guides can make for a better trip, for sure, but so can hanging out with fellow travelers.
So when you enter your trip information into HoozTrippin, you can see a list of other members who are going to be in the same location at the same time. If you enter the specific hotel, you can even see who else has said they’re going to stay there. Then you can send those other travelers a message or a “wink”. And yes, there is also a relationship status feature if you are more romantically inclined. After a trip, you can also share photos with other users.
As for privacy and safety, Oh notes that you can choose to share your trip publicly (so that the information is available to all other members) or privately (so that the dates and hotel information only show up when people have a matching trip).
Why Am I Curious?
Social being the behemoth that it has become, I am curious whether these niche social platforms that aim to connect people around common purposes will get off the ground. I believe the challenge most start up social platforms face is getting scale. The strength of Facebooks and Twitters of the world come from scale and the rich discovery that comes along with it. When the platform gets narrower and narrower, the audience gets smaller and thus the surprise and delights that is a major component of social diminishes, so I am curious if the premise can be compelling enough that a niche platform will be able to gather a significant following and make it successful.
Curious Fridays 