Gogobot

Gogobot
Type Private
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, United States
Area served International
Key people
  • Travis Katz, co-founder and CEO
  • Ori Zaltzman, co-founder and CTO
Industry Travel services
Services Social travel planning and business review/rankings
Slogan(s) "Forget tomorrow, discover something new today"
Website www.gogobot.com
Type of site Travel application
Registration Not required
Launched November 1, 2010 (2010-11-01)

Gogobot is a local discovery and travel research application and website headquartered in Menlo Park, California.[1][2] Gogobot users can research destinations and places to go, including hotels, restaurants, bars and attractions in more than 60,000 destinations, and its users can share reviews and pictures from their own travel experiences.[2][3] Forbes has referred to the company as a "social network for travelers."[4]

Founded in 2010,[5] Gogobot is the fifth most visited travel-planning site in the United States.[2] It has been ranked among the top 50 websites by Time[6] and TheGuardian.com ranked it as one of the best Android applications of 2013.[7] The company received a TechCrunch Crunchie award in 2010 for best design.[4]

Company history

Gogobot was founded in 2010 by Ori Zaltzman and Travis Katz.[3] Prior to founding Gogobot, Travis Katz was the senior vice president and managing director for MySpace International,[8] and Ori Zaltzman was the lead architect for Yahoo! BOSS and lead technologist at Yahoo! Answers.[9][10] Katz came up with the idea for Gogobot while working at MySpace, citing a observation of how long it took to make travel plans while noting that online trip planning lacked "personal relevance."[3][8]

The company secured $4 million in its first round of venture funding from Battery Ventures.[4] The website launched in November 2010 and Gogobot released the iOS application in October 2011.[11] The same year the site was launched, Gogobot was awarded a Crunchie award for best design by TechCrunch.[12]

In 2011, Gogobot announced several system integration developments with companies including Flipboard, Facebook, and Foursquare that would allow users to connect to their friends and other users through aspects of other social media platforms.[12][13] In 2011, Gogobot was ranked among the top 50 websites by Time magazine.,[4][12] and in October, 2011, the company raised an additional $15 million in venture capital in a series B round of funding led by Redpoint Ventures.[9]

By 2012, the Gogobot user-base had grown to over two million members within two months.[14] After identifying that almost 44 percent of the site's users were coming from Europe, the company established a European headquarters in London in April 2012.[1]

The Gogobot Android application was released in January 2013.[15] Later that year, Gogobot announced their partnership with HomeAway, a vacation rental company.[16] The partnership led to the launch of Gogobot's "Insider Guides," combining data and advice from HomeAway with Gogobot's editorial content and reviews.[16] The company became the fastest growing travel website in 2013 achieving 3.7 million users.[9]

In 2014, Gogobot crossed 720,000 reviews, and 4 million pictures.[2][17] The company launched a redesigned mobile app in 2014 in response to users increasingly using the service for local discovery, rather than simply travel planning.[18] The new site design also included a revamped company logo and a new "Tribes" feature that helps users filter places based on what is popular among people with similar interests such as foodies or adventure-seekers.[18] In November, 2014, Gogobot secured an additional $20MM in venture financing, led by HomeAway with participation from Redpoint Ventures and Battery Ventures. [19]

Description

Gogobot is a travel-planning and local discovery application. It gives users access to reviews of hotels, restaurants, and activities at destinations around the world.[20] The application also allows users to create a "passport" of their travels and share their experiences, pictures, and reviews with other users.[6][13] As part of the planning aspect of the application, Gogobot users can plan out itineraries, organizing them day by day and syncing them to multiple devices.[17]

Registered users can choose to link to their to Facebook and Twitter accounts, but it is not required.[8] Rather than searching for destinations and information, users can choose to post questions in a forum-like format in which other users can then reply and provide specific reviews or recommendations.[8]

In September 2014, Gogobot debuted a feature called "Gogo This Week" which showcases handpicked events happening that week in large destination cities including Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, and London.[5] The application is available online as well as on iOS and Android devices.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 Ingrid Lunden (17 April 2012). "Gogobot Opens For Business In Europe (Smart Move: 44% Of Its Customers Are Here Already, Says CEO Travis Katz)". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Julie Bort (8 August 2014). "The New Yelp? A Million People Are Using This App To Find Restaurants And Fun In Their Hometowns". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 Jeff Hughes (12 October 2012). "Gogobot brings social touch to travel". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Trefis Team (7 April 2011). "Expedia Could Lose A Little Lift From Gogobot". Forbes. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  5. 1 2 Jessica Plautz (11 September 2014). "Travel Planning App Gogobot Hand-Picks Which Events to Hit Up". Mashable. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  6. 1 2 Harry McCracken (16 August 2011). "50 Websites That Make the Web Great: Gogobot". TIME. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  7. ↑ Stuart Dredge (23 December 2013). "The 50 best Android apps of 2013". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Shivani Vora (15 April 2011). "Gogobot, New Travel Site, Gets Personal". New York Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 Julie Bort (30 August 2013). "Gogobot, The Travel Site Where Friends And Experts Plan Your Vacation, Is Growing Really Fast". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  10. ↑ "Meet Gogobot's Team". Gogobot. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  11. ↑ Stuart Dredge (25 April 2012). "Gogobot social travel service talks apps, expansion and competition". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 Rip Empson (8 December 2011). "Gogobot Partners With Flipboard To Turn Your Travel Photos Into A Digital Magazine". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  13. 1 2 Michael Arrington (3 May 2011). "Gogobot Gets Lots More Interesting With Foursquare & Facebook Integration". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  14. ↑ Frederic Lardinois (19 July 2012). "Gogobot Launches Its Redesigned iPhone Travel App, Hits 2M Registered Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  15. ↑ Robin Wauters (23 January 2013). "With 10% of its 2.5m users booking hotels on the go, Gogobot brings social travel app to Android". The Next Web. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  16. 1 2 Brian Patrick Eha (25 April 2013). "HomeAway Partners With Gogobot to Gain a New Edge in Vacation Rentals". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  17. 1 2 3 Jen Leo (25 May 2014). "Gogobot app has been overhauled to make travel planning easier". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  18. 1 2 Jon Swartz (15 May 2014). "Gogobot has a new look, feel in online travel wars". USA Today. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  19. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (14 November 2014). "Gogobot Gets $20 Million In Strategic Investment Led By HomeAway". TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  20. ↑ Michael Arrington (18 January 2011). "Gogobot Adds Passport Travel Review Collections". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.

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