Driftr Archive

This week the founder of travel social networking site Driftr, Erick Laubach, has launched a new service aimed at pets. Cute as Hell is a pet community site where pets of all types (cat, dog, hamster, horse, pig, etc.) can setup a profile page. The profile page features information about the pet, comments from other site users, and photos about the pet.

Other parts of the site include information about pet adoption, cuteness ratings for every pet, a pet store and the Thunderdome. The Thunderdome is similar to the NCAA basketball tourneys starting this week. Basically you nominate a pet to go inside the Thunderdome and two pets in each bracket go at it HotOrNot style. One pet will win from the Thunderdome and will win a variety of prizes.

Erick tells me that since their launch on Monday, over 1,600 photos have been posted and 200 pet comments left. It looks like the site will be monetized using a combination of advertising and affiliate sales. 

We originally reviewed Driftr back in December when they launched a closed alpha of their travel social network. This Wednesday Driftr will move into beta and will be open to the public. We noted regarding the site, "Driftr is basically a trip blog. Research is completed by visiting other’s trip reports/blogs on the location you plan to visit. Here’s a sample from a trip to New York. I think a Twitter-style feed would make the site more sticky if I could upload live trip updates to the site."

They have listened to us (thank you!) and have added a friend’s travel feed — you can see an example in the screenshot below. I wonder if they could tie in/send to updates from Twitter and Pownce — that’d be hot.

In addition to the feed, co-founder Erick Laubach sent over the following list of new features:

• Ability to tracks upcoming trips for friends
• Better destination research tool
• Larger photos

Laubach also notes that they are working on third-party photo integration  — I assume with Flickr, Photobucket, etc. Dopplr appears to be the travel social networking site with the most buzz currently but Driftr is sexier and sleeker. Driftr will need to work on buzz creation now that the public will be able to use the site.

Over the weekend I’ve been playing with a new travel social network called Driftr. They describe the site as, "Driftr is a user-generated content site for travelers, by travelers. It allows you to keep track of your travels, share your trip photos, reviews, and blogs with friends and family, as well as research destinations before you book a trip."

It’s a well-designed site and appears to have a high level of usability. One thing I like is that entering a trip uses pulldown menus to select the cities. They have what appears to be hundreds of thousands of locations built in (and you can add your own if it’s not listed). Photos can be uploaded or pulled from Flickr – love this! If you use Driftr for an entire trip, it can become a complete memory album from photos to trip plans to a daily blog to hotels, etc. No video as of yet but I am sure they are working on adding it.

Driftr is basically a trip blog. Research is completed by visiting other’s trip reports/blogs on the location you plan to visit. Here’s a sample from a trip to New York. I think a Twitter-style feed would make the site more sticky if I could upload live trip updates to the site.

Travel is a highly competitive space with the Web 1.0 sites including TripAdvisor and the Web 2.0 sites including Plazes and Dopplr. If Driftr can get momentum, it just might have a chance. They offer the type of functionality that TripAdvisor should have been offering for years now.

Invite Information: The first 20 people to send an email to hello (at) driftr.com with "CenterNetworks" in the subject line will get an instant invite.

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