THOUGHTS ON TRIPPING: THE LARGEST ONLINE HOME RENTAL SITE
Earlier this summer my friends and I were planning a trip to Hangzhou, China. After looking for hours for the best deals on hotels and youth hostels we decided we wanted to skip the conventional and tried looking for a homestay. After a quick perusal of the available sites, both in Chinese and English, I stumbled upon Tripping. The self proclaimed “Kayak of Airbnb” seems like a great idea. Tripping aggregates all the lodging networks across the internet like The National Peace Corps Association and Hostelling International, to name a few. One notable network that was missing was the ubiquitous Airbnb, perhaps a direct competitor. In addition to just lodging, Tripping is a means to meet and greet with locals in the area that you were visiting, a feature that I was most intrigued by. The two most unique features of Tripping were the event calender that shows major happenings around the world giving newcomers fresh travel ideas and Tripping’s homestay verification system ensuring the safety of “Trippers”. Signing up is quick and easy. When I was making my profile for Tripping I noticed that there were many sections that were directly linked to Facebook so I didn’t have to fill out as much information. Overall I think that if there were enough users a great community could be built around Tripping, I know that I will be checking up on this site every time I make travel plans.
A Japanese advertising company, Shunkosha, developed an innovative new advertising platform in the Tokyo subway. Dubbed the “Strappy” the near field communication (NFC) device on the subway handles sends a url to a smartphone when touched. With the massive intake and adoption of smartphones in China, ad agencies can look to Japan as a model for future advertising campaigns.
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(Source: emergentfutures)
