25 April 2008

TravelMole e-Wire Q&A with Vibeagent's Adam Healey

Adam Healey is chief executive of Vibeagent, a website that combines social networking reviews with hotel product that he and partner Charles Seilheimer launched three months ago.

Q: So what is Vibeagent and how is it different from other social networking sites?

A: We are focused on helping people research and book hotels more easily. ItÃ¢â¬â¢s confusing out there. People are using ten sites, not knowing where to find the best rates and they have no way of knowing which hotel best suits their preferences. We have converged the search and social media forms so that we profile people, we get to know their likes and dislikes and then we present them with recommendations based on what people similar to them think.

Q: What prompted you and Charles to come up with this idea?

A: We had both been travelling and met at business school. While we were there, friends who knew we had travelled a lot kept asking us for hotel recommendations. After about the tenth email, we realised there was a business opportunity here. People trust advice from their friends

Q: EveryoneÃ¢â¬â¢s cottoning onto the merging of search and user generated content now so why will your site be different?

A: Almost every company is trying to make the consumer experience easier and more trustworthy but the way we are doing it is different from everybody else. We have algorithms to help us profile people and in a bid to know our users we also monitor behaviour onsite Ã¢â¬' every click is a piece of information Ã¢â¬' as well as understanding a userÃ¢â¬â¢s demographic and looking at what groups the user joins both on our site and elsewhere. This helps us built up a robust profile of our users.

Q: You also just launched a Facebook application called Jetsetter. Why?

A: Tapping into existing social networks is a healthy driver of traffic for us. The Facebook application is now the third biggest driver for us after Google and Yahoo. ItÃ¢â¬â¢s also important to be where your customers are.

Q: Can you book hotels on Vibeagent?

A: No. We go out and meta search like Kayak does and then aggragate hotel prices. We then send users to our partnersÃ¢â¬â¢ sites. We donÃ¢â¬â¢t screen scrape so our information is straight off a partnerÃ¢â¬â¢s server, fast and bang up to date.

Q: Is this the way forward for social networking and travel?

A: Well, we have been called TripAdvisor 2.0 by some people and we feel thatÃ¢â¬â¢s accurate as we are taking the concept to a new level. Why isnÃ¢â¬â¢t TripAdvisor doing what we are and adding more context? Well, TripAdvisor is an 800lbs gorilla and itÃ¢â¬â¢s hard to manoeuvre such a big beast.Ã¢â¬~

Q: Where do you see travel and the internet going?

A: The evolving landscape of online travel is fascinating. Search and social media are merging and in a few years time there wonÃ¢â¬â¢t be conferences about Ã¢â¬Åâœsocial networkingÃ¢â¬~ just as there arenÃ¢â¬â¢t conferences now about Ã¢â¬Åâœthe internetÃ¢â¬~. It will be all encompassing and a whole new way of understanding the market. The customer can reward or punish companies and get involved in product development. It changes the way companies will operate in future from top to bottom.

by Dinah Hatch