Mobile location based networking apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and Loopt are gaining traction in the market. How do they fit into the travel experience? By definition mobile location based networking is designed to help you discover the world around you, a natural connection to travel. There is a gaming element of these apps that allow you earn badges or become the mayor of a frequently visited locations. A new start up TopGuest is working to hook the game rewards with real loyalty points from hotels and other travel suppliers. Traditional media is embracing LBS as The Wall Street Journal integrates restaurant reviews and specific WSJ badges with Foursquare. The Pennsylvania Tourism Board  launched a program with Foursquare that has sprinkled 100 tips at locations across the state.The Intercontinental Hotel Group is doing a trial with Gowalla. This is only the beginning.  Mobile location based networking has the potential to become your personal concierge. Driven by your personal network, location based apps can have your friends recommend a restaurant in NYC or help you discover a museum in Vienna.

The real question is whether these standalone apps will remain independent or become part of larger social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. Review sites such as Yelp! have added a check-in feature to compete. It has been rumored that Yahoo! has been trying to buy Foursquare. Most apps allow you to hook into your Facebook network already. It is likely that one or more of these apps will become part of a bigger company, but as a category mobile location based apps will continue to have an impact on the travel experience. I would encourage all parts of the travel value chain to take a good look at these apps and figure out a strategy to work with these companies.  There is a huge gaming market. Travel companies historically have not exploited games in a big way. Linking a location based service with a destination and rewarding travelers with loyalty points seems like a natural way to enhance the travel experience, promote your brand and increase loyalty.

With Apple approaching 1 billion in downloaded apps, I thought it would be good time to take a look at the top 5 most popular free and paid travel apps on iTunes

PAID.
1. Flight Track - this application from Mobiata is similar to Web based applications such as Flight Stats, but produced by a small mobile app vendor. – Question why doesn’t Flight Track have the top position here?

2. Tipulator – Allows you to calculate the appropriate tip for service. Question: Isn’t that essentially a calculator?

3. Where The Locals Eat – was created by the dining guide company of the same name. The popularity of this paid app reinforces the demand for local dining advise

4. iFare Finder – is a Kayak like meta-search application. The interesting aspect of iFare Finder is that it is only a mobile app. I could not even find a Website for RIV Creations the creator of iFare Finder, only a blog. Having helped a client last year create a mega-search engine, simple screen scraping will not work as a long term solution. Time will tell the quality of the engine behind iFare Finder.

5. Zagat to Go – At last a familiar brand name!

FREE
1. Google Earth – shows how Google is already dominating the mobile space

2. Urbanspoon – a slot machine that allows the user to chose a type of restaurant randomly

3. YELP – the UGC local restaurant and services

4. WiFi Finder – locate free and paid Wi-Fi networks

5. Choice Hotels Locator – At last a familiar travel brand!

So what does this all mean? Though brands such as Kayak, Hotels.com and Disney do appear in the top 20, a vast number of travel brands are missing. Now multiply this by 1000 and you can start to see how the explosion of app stores from Google, RIM Blackberry, T-Mobile and Nokia will further lead to missed branding opportunities unless the travel industry major players recognize that mobile downloads are here to stay and that they need to be part of every travel company’s strategy.

Some reports have surfaced from local media about complaints from local merchants that Yelp is willing to remove negative reviews for a fee. I do not know whether these reports are accurate and reflect an overall Yelp strategy or whether there are rogue Yelp! sales reps offering this service to boost their own volumes. It should be noted that Yelp denies these allegation and states that their reps don’t even have the ability to edit reviews.

There is a challenge at any Web 2.0 site to balance the open submission of user reviews with the need to police the reviews to avoid companies from trashing their competitors. As user feedback volumes increase and become more instantaneous with consumers s reading or leaving reviews through their mobile devices, managing review contact will become even more challenging. Location based services will continue to expand and promoting discounts at local restaurants is a key service desired by frequent travelers per our recent PhoCusWright research:

I had the pleasure this morning to meet with one of the founders of Circos. In one of my earlier blogs I classified Circos in the same category as Kango. After meeting with Mario Jobbe, it became clear that Circos has a different spin on the semantic search space. Circos has launched a preview which focuses on the travel industry, in particular hotel search, but the company plans to enter other non-travel segments as they grow. One interesting feature that allows the user to look at the profile of a given author at a travel site such as Trip Advisor or Yelp!. By graphically showing the key attributes evaluated by the author of the comment, the user can get a sense of the relative frequency and reputation of the given author. This is an important spin on the semantic search approach recognizing that the opinions of the more trusted authors play a role in the value of their comments. This is just touching the surface of an important social networking dynamic that mirrors real world social networks, reputation. Suppliers have continued to express concern that review sites only contain very positive or very negative comments representing the two ends of the bell curve. Understanding the relative reputation of the author within a given site such as Trip Advisor is an important a feature easily determined by clicking on the author’s name. Circos carries this one step further by aggregating 500 review sources into a single search response and thus allowing the user to evaluate the author across multiple entries posted on different sites. As review sites continue to mature, the value of a particular review can be impacted by the reputation of the author.