While part of the fun of organizing a trip is doing research, charting out courses, and making lists of all that we intend to do (or eat!), when it comes to recommendations, we want to hear from people we know and trust. Roam7 is an innovative travel app that helps us plan travel by tapping into useful information neatly stashed in our friends’ Facebook photos.
I Want To Go…
Login to your Facebook account, and Roam7 provides an interactive map showing photos attached to places friends have visited. Roam7 automatically identifies and extracts information regarding places of interest. Check out photos, see where friends ate, where they stayed, what they did and more (and hope they’ve labeled pictures accurately).
For those of us who love maps, and like to add pins to places we’ve been or dream of going – or who are already in the habit of globetrotting via photos – this process should feel intuitive and natural.
I Know I Know Somebody Who’s Been…
Roam7 presents a convenient way to obtain travel information from friends when two parties might be unaware of the other’s interest. You might not know (or remember!) that James lived in Barcelona for three months, six years ago, and has all kinds of useful tips. Roam7 would prevent you from missing out on all of James’s hidden gems. What’s more, it’s not always easy to connect before visiting a place, and Roam7 is a simple tool for sharing information between fellow travelers without meeting face to face.
When friends get back from a trip we want to hear their stories. Any more, we expect to see photos posted before they’ve even returned home and begun decompressing. Roam7 eliminates the wait. Get the scoop and let pictures do the talking. While Jill might not add reviews to TripAdvisor, she’s more likely to include comments about her travels on Facebook. Roam7 ensures Jill’s travel experiences help friends make decisions based on firsthand accounts that have significance because of the personal connection.
Roam7 is co-founded by Cheehan Tee and Toby Rahilly. Tee previously served as the VP of Engineering at Encentuate, which he helped guide through an acquisition by IBM. Rahilly founded two companies prior to Roam7, and worked as a software engineer at IBM and Atlasian. His research, which involved him in projects including the OSGeo MapServer open source project, has received international acclaim.
Currently in Beta, here are a few more plans in the hopper at Roam7:
- Notifications of new stories concerning your favorite places, people or activities
- Wish lists of places you want to go and things you’d like to do
- An itinerary planning tool
- Mobile application
These features would bring Roam7 closer to becoming a one-stop shop travel app. Would you use this application to plan your trip? Will it encourage you to collaborate, captioning and tagging your photos? Let us know in the Comments section below. Follow Roam7 on Twitter or Facebook. For more information, visit here.
