Two Web Services For The Travel Junkie

Posted: January 14th, 2010 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: web | 5 Comments »

Invariably, if you’re a frequent traveler these days, then you make use of many apps and web sites. Perhaps your style is as simple as using the two kings of social media spamming, Bookface and Twatter. Or maybe you like to get a bit deeper with it and you’re always banging on Nextstop and Kayak from your phone whilst you follow this dodgy blog in your RSS reader. Whatever your taste, here’s two little global web services that in my opinion add a cool flavour to the life of the traveller.

Firstly, Google Latitude is what happens when the world’s stalkers and egotists have a love baby. We’re all stalkers and egotists at heart though, so let’s get mapping. Latitude shows where you are on Google maps. In the sidebar of this blog you can see a little Latitude map showing where I am right now. You have two easy peasy fresh and squeezy ways to use Latitude. Either use the Google Latitude site to manually update your position. Say for example by typing in “New York, NY” whenever you want the world to know you’ve changed locations. Or use the Google app on your smart phone and it will use your phone’s positioning to update your location. There are also tiers of privacy options for the little Orwell in all of you. So now you never find out minutes after leaving Bangkok that your Twatter pal Velma was in town also.

Secondly, let’s take the egotism and stalking of Latitude and add achievement whoring into the mix. Tada, now we have Foursquare! I’m new to Foursquare so I’ll paste their own summary,

People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places – cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices.

You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. Not only is it a great way to meet up with nearby friends, but you’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover.

Every foursquare checkin earns you points. Find a new place in your neighborhood? +5 points. Making multiple stops in a night? +2 points. Dragging friends along with you? +1.

And as you start checking-in to more interesting places with different people, you’ll start unlocking badges. There are badges for discovering new places and for traveling to far away places. Spending too much time singing karaoke or been hitting the gym consistently? Yes, there are badges for those too :)

We all love cruising around, trying new places, and checking out places our friends recommend. So why not let Foursquare do the work for us. Plus the little badge and point system amuses the pants right off me. If you check out Foursquare, definitely add me as a friend so I can flaunt all the rad badges I’m about to get.

Those are the two web services I wanted to share with you. If you have a site, service, app, or whatever that you really enjoy that’s even kind of related to the social aspect of traveling, share it in the comments. I’d love to check it out.

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// shawn