Luxury Travel Advice via Social Networking
by Greg Shove on August 11, 2008
One of our publishers, social networking site Spire.com, got a decent shout-out from Robert Frank on his Wealth Blog over at WSJ.com. Spire.com has moved gracefully from closed alpha to public beta and is now building audience and probably learning what its members are interested in – and willing to write about. Like other social networking sites (TeeBeeDee.com, the social network for boomers comes to mind), Spire has launched with a very broad range of topics, but most of the action so far has been in travel – restaurants, hotels and destinations.
Makes sense to me, particularly based on the inroads that Facebook and LinkedIn have made into the affluent, 35+ crowds, either for business or personal networking. Their success will make it difficult for a ‘general-purpose’ new social network to succeed, at least in the U.S. – but there is still plenty of opportunity in serving the affluent consumer in terms of their information needs – and to do that using the power of the community.
When it comes to travel in particular, I want advice from people that I can see are like me – that travel with the same budget, objectives, style and brand preferences. I will also appreciate any site that cuts through clutter and reduces my time to get to a better decision. This is what Spire.com can do as it grows – and provide the antidote to sites like tripadvisor.com for the luxury traveler. I would rather read ten discerning reviews about a resort, than over 100 that are all over the map, in terms of insight.
We are rooting for Spire.com to grow for obvious reasons – we think our advertisers will value the site, particularly if they are able to keep the audience quality as high as it currently is. But we also see a real consumer need for better travel intelligence. More on this when we review sites like the American Express site Members Know and take a fresh look at progress over at ASmallWorld.
