Gekko Travel App Announced

The ‘Appi Holidays’ app and website has just been announced, TripAdvisor have just bought the ‘Where I’ve Been’ app, and now Gekko have brought out a Facebook travel app that can help simplify travel planning and purchasing.

Gekko, the personalised international hotel booking service, have created an app with a ‘Request-a-Deal’ feature that allows hotels, restaurants, and bars to reply directly to the user with personalised offers. This feature is very similar to what Appi Holidays offers users, perhaps suggesting that the tailor made holiday is the holiday of the future. Certainly it could be argued that we all want bespoke getaways, but none of us want to pay bespoke prices. With the emergence of these new applications it seems that this is becoming more possible than ever, as the applications act as neutral playing fields for holiday providers of all sizes.

Not only will you find hotel recommendations from the ‘Request-a-Deal’ feature, but discounts, drinks offers, and even upgrades.

However, where the application differs from Appi Holidays is that it is offered for Facebook users. Facebook likes to streamline the web, attempting to make everything possible from one single online location. With so many users, it allows Facebook users to see what their friends are looking for as well as sharing their own travel suggestions.

Bas Lemmens, the director of Gekko, says that “Gekko understands that the advice of good friends is invaluable”, meaning that Gekko encourages users to turn to their friends and like minded users for advice and tips. The polling site Toluna supports this assumption with a poll telling us that 40% of consumer travel decisions are based on input from family and friends.

Social networking sites seem to be gaining somewhat of a monopoly on how we travel and how we make our travel decisions. It seems we’ll be seeing more of this application development in the future.

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Facebook for Concerts and Coupons — Competing with YouTube and Groupon?

Facebook is expanding its reach into consumer markets with American Express coupons and streaming concert coverage for a fee.

The Financial Times today that musician David Gray set up his Dublin stop in his Lost and Found tour, his manager arranged a deal to offer a live stream on Facebook.

“…customers could purchase the live stream for $5 using Facebook Credits, the site’s proprietary virtual currency. Mr Gray and O2 agreed to split the proceeds 50-50, but what Mr Holden didn’t know until speaking to the Financial Times was that Facebook took a 30 per cent cut first, as it does with all Credits transactions.”American Express says Facebook is not taking any cut on its deals for cardholders.

As I noted a few days ago, Facebook with its credits is moving into financial transactions; already the use of credits for gaming on its site could be worth $1 billion to the company. The FT said that a few other media companies have used Facebook credits to sell segments of shows or movies…Warner Brothers with The DarkKnight, and BBC Worldwide with 20 episodes of Doctor Who.

Now American Express has announced a relatively hassle-free coupon program, “Link, Like Love, that delivers cardmember deals, access and experiences based on the likes, interests and social connections of cardmembers and their Facebook friends. Starting today, on the American Express Facebook page, cardmembers can link their cards to the program and choose their favorite deals; American Express will send statement credits to cardmembers’ accounts as they shop online or in stores, without the need to pre-purchase anything, print out or show a coupon at the point of sale. In the coming months, American Express will also deliver Membership Rewards points offers, entertainment access, exclusive content and special events through the application, all based on a cardmember’s Facebook social graph.”

It is easy for consumers and for merchants and offers merchants detailed reporting. Will be interesting to see what privacy watchdogs make of it, but it looks pretty voluntary and lets merchants monitor the success of their social media marketing.

“American Express will deliver deals, content and experiences based on their Facebook likes and interests, as well as the likes and interests of their friends.”

Didn’t Facebook already try something like this a few years back with Beacon which shared a user’s shopping choices with friends, until the program blew up over issues of privacy.

Participating firms so far include:

20th Century Fox, Dunkin’ Donuts, Whole Foods Market, Lord Taylor, Outback Steakhouse, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse Wine Bar, Virgin America, Bonefish Grill, HM, Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine, Westin Hotels Resorts, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Sheraton Hotels Resorts, Celebrity Cruises, Lenovo, Sports Authority, 1-800-FLOWERS, and Travelocity.

BBC has an interesting recent piece on shopping and Facebook.

Is this social shopping convenient or spooky?

 

 

 

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