Travel managers may be wondering about the first step they should take to create a social network for company travelers. TripIt didn't wait for them to figure it out. Based on its users' email domain names, such as ibm.com, TripIt gave employees of more than 1,000 companies a free group to join where they can see on a map when and where co-workers are traveling.
Like TripIt's integration with LinkedIn, where participating individuals can share their trip plans with others in their networks, "it makes people more productive on the road," said TripIt co-founder Gregg Brockway last month during The Masters Program in Washington, D.C. "I don't have time to flip through my Rolodex to see who might happen to be in DC, but it's nice to see who is here, in case I want to squeeze in an extra breakfast or dinner meeting."
Brockway said the largest companies have tens of thousands of travelers using TripIt.
Not everyone wants to share their itineraries, but they don't have to participate. Some want to share certain but not all itineraries, and they can hide select trips. The groups themselves do not include the ability to pose questions or post reviews, as do many other social networks, but users can "coordinate schedules [and] share travel resources," according to TripIt.
In addition to offering the new service to travelers, TripIt's site allows travelers, travel arrangers and travel managers to check whether there is a group for their companies and, if not, to create one. TripIt execs were not sure what they would do with this profile information, or whether they would offer group creators special services depending on the role.
TripIt Groups aka Corporate Accounts
TripIt Groups represents the beginning of a corporate account program poised to aggregate at the company level itinerary-based traveler tracking, supplier reviews, data reporting and other services.
TripIt has long asserted that it is users who control their information through permissions and privacy protections--not the organizations that employ them, not makers of add-on third-party software and not TripIt. TripIt's open data sharing with other applications--such as Facebook, LinkedIn, expense applications, en-route support tools and a variety of other services--is only done at the behest of the traveler.
"This formal release comes after three rounds of private beta testing we have done over the last couple of months," said vice president and co-founder Scott Hintz. "We have been slowly rolling out behind the scenes to a bunch of companies. The most common concern is a misconception that we were automatically enrolling people into the group, which is not the case. It's an invitation to join."
But TripIt has automatically enrolled companies. "We're establishing the group itself," Hintz said "It's a domain. We're not exposing your corporate data or anything. We're creating a room and allowing you to choose whether or not to enter it." Plus, Hintz noted, firms have been requesting that TripIt develop services which would be accessible only to company employees who have the key (that is, the correct email domain). The group function is "the precedent to get us there," said Hintz. The new functionality "doesn't tell you what hotel they're staying at or restaurants they're eating in. We have that data and could make it available to a corporate travel manager or security department--but of course there are a bunch of security and privacy issues there, as well."
The company also is considering sub-dividing the groups, in which case it needs group administrators, Hintz said. This would allow travelers to see where only their departmental or functional co-workers are, since "if you're a large company, it's not that helpful to see 1,000 people on a map." Groups segmentation could also let a corporate admin turn off TripIt's supplier advertising--a control that TripIt now offers travel management company partners. Traveler reviews accessible only by coworkers are another possibility, Hintz added.
Beyond The Cubicle
TripIt--which this week joined other business applications in the launch of the new Google Apps Marketplace and last week announced $7 million in new financing--also offers such trip plan integration with the CubeTree enterprise service. Meanwhile, TripIt part-owner Sabre revealed it was about to enable the same in its competing cubeless enterprise social network, for users of the GetThere booking tool. In other words, GetThere itineraries can feed information into the private company network so employees can learn where and when their co-workers are traveling.
Sabre is first implementing the service in its internal, cubeless-powered Sabre Town community, according to a spokesman. GetThere and cubeless currently share no corporate clients.
Offered as part of GetThere's Collaboration Suite for both midmarket and large clients, cubeless itself has more than 30 corporate, non-profit and trade association organizations with 120,000 professionals as users, and is billed as an "online community platform that allows organizations to tap into the collective intelligence of their employees or members ... for secure internal company or organization use."