TripAdvisor Mixes Social Nets with Travel

Expedia subsidiary TripAdvisor rolled out social networking functionality on its site Friday that allows users to filter out reviews from people they may not know, giving reviews from friends priority.

The company says that in real world situations, consumers typically rely on travel advice from their friends anyway, so TripAdvisor is taking that concept and applying it to its business. Additionally, you can invite others outside your friend's networks, such as those who have similar tastes.

"We think we've created a category killer with our traveler network," marketing chief Christine Petersen said. "By turning our model on its head and focusing on the community behind the content, we've created a social network with a purpose."

The site contains about 10 million reviews and opinions, and has about 20 million unique monthly visits.

In order to use the functionality, the user must log in and create a "travel map" that shows the places he has been. From there, the user imports his address book, and the site checks to see whether or not his friends have used the site.

With this information, reviews from people that the consumer knows get higher precedence, the site says. Like MySpace, the site also supports messaging between "friends."

Functionality is only available for US users, although the company plans to expand it to its international domains by the end of the year.