Travatar – A Travel Business Idea for the Taking

This is a post by travel entrepreneur Drew Meyers.

Travatar

Most of you likely know what Gravatar is (& have an account):

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog.

It’s a drop-dead simple service. All it does is match an email address to a profile photo via a simple API call, yet it’s integrated all over the web on thousands of websites. Why? Everyone on the internet has a profile photo, and millions of sites want to use your profile photo as part of your profile. But, of course, individuals do not want to upload their same profile photo to every site they use. Gravatar lets you upload your photo once, and allow any website to access & use it.

The travel business idea for the taking?

Gravatar, for the travel industry.

Travatar.

Your Travatar is your location that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog.

Every single traveler is constantly changing location, though they certainly don’t want to update that location on each and every website and app they utilize. On the flip side, every travel startup desires travelers current location to deliver them a relevant, personalized experience.

[Matt Zito and I discussed this concept about 6 months ago, and full credit for the “Travatar” name goes to Matt]

How exactly would this work, and what is needed to bring such a concept to reality? (more…)