TripSay Launches New Intelligent Travel Social Network; We Have Invites

TripSay is a new travel social network launching in private beta today that claims to "offer you less but more". The idea is to provide you with specific recommendations that are targeted to you and your needs. The company notes that they use a unique recommendation engine to proactively match destinations, places, sights, content, and activities for people across their network of friends as well as with those with similar tastes.

The signup process actually takes you through a variety of questions to help the system target what you might like. This is the first time I’ve seen a travel social network ask me background questions before entering the system. You can contribute content and earn points — I never really care for point collection, it’s lame.

There’s location information from WikiTravel and images from Flickr. Their Google Maps mashup is pretty interesting. The overall design is very slick and Ajaxy.

The main content seems to come from "tips" you can leave on the map about certain locations. This should tie into the mobile so tips popup as you get close to locations they have tips for. I don’t see a way to leave travel reports like Sosauce does.

The key of course with this and all other social networks is their ability to get users to signup and also remain as a user. Why should I stop using TripAdvisor’s community and move over to TripSay? The key is making sure my friends are here. TripSay looks like it could use a boost from Dopplr or Plazes so that we know where are friends are currently.

If you’d like a TripSay invite, send an email to: info@tripsay.com with the subject line, CenterNetworks.