Google’s Promoted Hotels opens the bidding war

GLOBAL REPORT—An experimental new ad format on Google's Hotel Finder search tool could have far-reaching impacts in the online distribution space.

Earlier this week, Google introduced its Promoted Hotels tool, which allows advertisers—online-travel agencies, hotels or other booking providers—to bid on particular properties and have them featured at the top of Hotel Finder's search results. A maximum of two Promoted Hotels can show up at a time.

When users click on a Promoted Hotel listing, which is offset from organic search results by a shaded background similar to other advertisements in Google's search results, the winning bidder appears as the only available booking channel.  

A recent search for hotels in New York for a two-night stay in mid-June, for example, revealed an ad for the New York Marriott Marquis that, when clicked, reveals Hotels.com in a red box as the only booking channel offered. 

 

That same red box in search results—when there is no paid position—is typically a more generic "Book" drop-down menu featuring multiple booking channels, ordered from least to most expensive, that sometimes includes the hotel's property-direct website.

 

There also are incidents where certain OTAs are paying for priority placement in the red booking drop-down menu in organic search results.

The Google Hotel Finder listing for the Amalfi Hotel Chicago is not labeled an ad, and yet earlier this week EasyToBook.com received preference over other OTAs, other news outlets have reported. In most searches, the red booking icon will say "Book" with a drop-down list of choices. However, in this case, the red box specifically said "Book at EasyToBook.com," with the price listed; to see the other booking channels, users would have had to click the "More" drop-down button, listed to the right of the red box.

These changes in Hotel Finder do not mark Google's foray into the OTA business, said Max Starkov, president and CEO at Hospitality eBusiness Strategies. Google only refers consumers to booking platforms; the search-engine giant doesn't actually conduct bookings itself, and it will likely stay that way.

Max Starkov Hospitality eBusiness Strategies

"When Google was created, they had two things in mind: relevancy of the information and user experience," he said. "When we talk about hotels searches, think about what people want to see. They want to see availability, they want to see price, they want to see location. Without the Google Hotel Finder, Google was not able to serve in the search-engine results two of the three main search criteria people use when they search hotel (i.e. availability and price).

"That's why Google created the Hotel Finder—not to compete with the OTAs," he said.

Starkov said Google will refrain from getting into the bookings game. The company has the potential to generate more revenue from referrals than from bookings commissions, he said.

Hotel Price Ads
Executives from Google declined interviews, but a company representative said Google Hotel Finder is still only experimental.

"These experiments tend to run for years and years. I think they're sticking with this one," said George Michie, CEO of RKG, a marketing firm that specializes in paid search.

Promoted Hotels is an extension of Google's Hotel Price Ads program, in beta, which impacts search results on Google Maps as well as normal search results, the company's representative said. Google is working with a limited number of OTAs, hotel brands and other booking providers with access to large amounts of room inventory; the companies provide Google with price and availability data for display across Google products.

For Hotel Price Ads, Google only partners with hotel brands, OTAs, large reservation systems and hotels that are part of major chains, according to the representative. The program is not open to every hotelier.

Hotel Price Ads is akin, in many respects, to AdWords, in that hotel ads appear in search results via a combination of bid and quality score as those which are most likely to be relevant for the user. Bidding pricing is based on a cost-per-click basis, the representative said.

But Hotel Price Ads is far less intuitive than Google's AdWords program, Starkov said. "It's a very complex functionality," he said, adding Hospitality eBusiness Strategies had to create a custom tool to manage the real-time rate and availability connectivity between its hotel clients and Google.

And yet even with those efforts, Hotel Finder and Hotel Price Ads are still "very glitchy" and have "a lot of bugs," Starkov said. But again, the program is still "experimental."

A win or loss for hotels?
The introduction of Hotel Price Ads has even broader implications, as it coincides with more aggressive strides from Google across its suite of products.

Whereas rate and availability information via Hotel Finder was largely hidden previously, it will now appear atop organic search results in a normal Google search. The data will also make its way to maps and Google+ Local (formerly Google Places).

Starkov said that infiltration of information could potentially hurt hoteliers. Information on a hotel's Google Place page, for example, formerly was proprietary and controlled by the hotel itself, he said.

"An OTA could not extend a tentacle onto this page except with AdWords," he said.

With the rollout of Hotel Price Ads, however, OTAs can play a prominent role everywhere a hotel appears through Google's suite of products, whether that be on local pages, organic search results, maps or Hotel Finder, Starkov said. When users search for a hotel, they now will likely encounter booking opportunities via the highest bidder, which often will be an OTA.

The news isn't all good for OTAs, however. Because it lists real-time pricing and availability information, Hotel Finder takes some clout away from meta-search engines, sources said.

Whereas users might have visited Kayak or Expedia to search generally for hotels in New York (regardless of whether they also booked on those platforms), for example, those same users can now get all the information they need from Hotel Finder.

"It's really in some ways a shot across the bow of the online-travel agencies. In Google's mind, giving people results in their search that lead them to search somewhere else (such as Expedia or Kayak) doesn't make sense. They should just stay on Google and get to what they want right there," Michie said.

On the plus side for hoteliers, both Starkov and Michie said Hotel Price Ads afford them the same opportunity to bid for a presence across various channels.

Indeed, Promoted Hotels often are sponsored by the hoteliers themselves. One such ad for an InterContinental Hotel in Manhattan, for example, might feature as the sponsored booking channel a link to IHG's central reservations system.

"Being able to play in the ad space to get yourself more prominence, maybe it's not such a bad thing," Michie said.

Media contacts at several major hotel chains and OTAs declined to comment on this story, explaining they are still testing and experimenting with Hotel Price Ads, Promoted Hotels and Hotel Finder. 

TAGS: Google, Promoted Hotels, Hotel Price Ads, Hotel Finder, Max Starkov, George Michie, RKG, Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, distribution, search engine

Intereting Article

Egypt's deserted pyramids a 'revolution' special
New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10753078

The Egyptian Revolution has taken a toll on the country's tourism,
with visitor numbers down 35 percent between April and June 2011,
compared with last year. Photo / AP The pyramid rose out of the sand
before me, its smooth stone walls crumbling around ...

Geotrio Wants To Be The YouTube For Tours

Posted at TechCrunch: 04 Mar 2011 08:30 AM PST

Startup Geotrio is launching today as a centralized platform for anyone to create, take and share tours. Tours range from historical and architectural tours for travelers, campus tours for prospective students, neighborhood tours, local shopping tours, and more.

The startup is also unveiling an iPhone app that will detect tours in your geographic area and allow users to download audio tours created by professionals as well as by amateur guides. And users will be able to upload tours on the fly. Geotrio will also mark a professional-created tour with a recommendation (as opposed to user generated tours).

So far, the bootstrapped Geotrio has signed partnerships with a number of partnerships with universities and businesses to create tours. For example, the startup has partnered with bike rental company in America, Bike and Roll to create a tour of the sights in San Francisco and will soon create several more for New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, and Miami. Geotrio also partnered with the DLD Conference to create two city tours of Munich.

The company wants to be the "YouTube for Tours," but it will need to scale significantly to get to that point. It would make sense for Geotrio to partner with a travel information and content site to tap into a large set of users.

You can find Geotrio's iPhone apps here and here.

Travel companies warned about new advertising code

Travel companies should make sure they are ready for a new advertising
code due to come into force next week.

From March 1, travel company adverts on social networking sites such
as Facebook and Twitter are to come under the scrutiny of the
Advertising Standards Authority for the first time.

At the moment, the ASA has jurisdiction only over paid-for adverts and
sales promotions online, but its powers are being extended.

The expansion of the remit has been partly funded by a £200,000
donation from search engine giant Google.

Travelzoo warned today that the new code will be difficult to police
without the assistance of the public.

It said its own researchers have found that over 80% of the travel
offers they currently review are misleading to consumers or do not
represent good value.

Under the new code, the ASA will be able to remove paid-for search ads
that link back to web pages hosting non-compliant marketing
communication, and "name and shame" companies that continue to not
comply with advertising regulations.

Travelzoo's European operations director Stephen Dunk said: "Travelzoo
very much welcomes the extended regulations, but we are concerned that
they will be difficult to police, given the sheer scale of the
internet and how prolific social media now is.

"To come up with our weekly Top 20 deals, the team searches through
hundreds of travel offers, advertised in all forms of media including
print, broadcast, online and social media.

"Each week, we have to reject over 80% of the deals that we find for a
number of reasons, including misleading deal information or prices
that are out of date or not available.

"Just last week we found hotel deals advertised in the weekend papers
at under £40 per night. When the team tried to test-book the deals,
some rates were only available for one or two nights."

He said the main issues Travelzoo's deal experts come across each week are:

- Deals have already sold out or are no longer available at the price
originally advertised

- Deals where there are significant hidden costs involved that change
the final price of the deal

- Deals that cannot be booked online and sales teams are not aware of
the deal when customers call to book.

By Bev Fearis

Virtual reality will have a big impact on travel, according to Expedia

June 15, 2010 | Online TravelPrint this article

According to Expedia, this can be anything from translating a menu using Google Goggles to putting the guidebook to one side and using a virtual reality layer on your phone to picture the street in front of you and get links to restaurant reviews or travel information.

Nigel Pocklington, VP Global Marketing and Strategy, Expedia, says virtual reality is likely to have a big impact on travellers in the near future.

In an interview with EyeForTravel, Pocklington referred to an offering from layar.com. The Layar Reality Browser shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of the real world as seen through the camera of your mobile phone. This technology is called Augmented Reality. The company augments the real world as seen through your mobile phone, based on your location. The idea is simple: Layar works by using a combination of the mobile phone's camera, compass and GPS data to identify the user's location and field of view, retrieve data based on those geographical coordinates, and overlay that data over the camera view.

In order to know more, EyeforTravel's Ritesh Gupta spoke to Pocklington about new innovations and some of the existing options for users to plan their travel planning and buying process. Excerpts:

Which according to you has been the most striking or potentially path-breaking development from the travel sector in the last six months or so? Would you call it a real innovation at this stage?

Nigel Pocklington: I'd nominate a couple of developments from the past six months that have had a lasting effect on the industry. The first is in mobile, where Virtual Reality is likely to have a big impact on travellers in the near future. This can be anything from translating a menu using Google Goggles to putting the guidebook to one side and using a virtual reality layer (such as layar.com )on your phone to picture the street in front of you and get links to restaurant reviews or travel information.

Closer home, I think the Hotels.com WelcomeRewards programme in the US – which gives a free night for every ten bought, regardless of hotel - is a real innovation in loyalty programmes that have historically tended to be restrictive and complex.

What do you make of some of the new travel companies or start-ups which are emerging? Any area which you feel needs to be followed at this stage in the travel sector in terms of its potential or opportunity?

Nigel Pocklington: We can already see a meaningful percentage of travel bookings coming from mobile devices in several Asian markets, and this trend can only grow, quickly.

Top US online travel agencies have referred to the performance of their international business, hotel reservations and also advertising and media revenue as the highlights of their business. Can you elaborate on what do these signal as far as the OTA business is concerned?

Nigel Pocklington: This signals that there's still a significant growth opportunity for OTAs as online booking increases its penetration of Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Brazil, Japan, Korea and Mexico are now amongst Hotels.com's fastest growing significant points of sale.

Do you think delivering the best available, the most compelling offers exactly at the time of searching continues to be the biggest opportunity?

Nigel Pocklington: Selling travel well has always been a mixture of creating excitement about the trip and reducing anxiety about the product itself – with the growth of online increasing customers' expectations of speed. I agree that it's important, but so is offering the best possible description of the product, and making sure the customers feel that they are getting the best deal possible at the time of booking.

The travel industry has witnessed a series of initiatives over the past few months, resulting in a fully customisable offering as per a traveller's preferences. How do you think today e-commerce in the travel sector has moved towards personalisation?

Nigel Pocklington: We are moving towards slowly towards personalisation and there are some clear reasons for this. Travel isn't bought all that frequently, possibly only two or three times a year, so our ability to build up an accurate picture of travelers' needs – which may change in any case between business and leisure travel for example – is much lower than other industries. We are seeing this begin to change though, and within the constraints of increasing concerns about user privacy, I'd expect more investment in this. This is certainly the case for Hotels.com.

Would it be right to say that the travel industry has always placed adoption of new technology at the bottom of the priority list? In this context, do you think the development of a mobile website is often overlooked as the foundational step of being engaged in the Mobile space?

Nigel Pocklington: This is certainly not in the case of the online travel industry. At hotels.com we've had an iPhone application for more than two years. I'd agree that ensuring mobile compatibility is the foundational step to be followed up by the development of genuinely useful applications.

How do you expect the power of social media to nudge ahead of some of the traditional online travel booking and planning channels?

Nigel Pocklington: We can't ignore the size of social media, and its potential to help users engage with our brands, but it needs to be seen differently to the more transaction focused marketing channels – it's a dialogue, not a broadcast. I would expect to see more investment in this area across the travel industry, especially because customers will come to see Facebook and Twitter as communication channels alongside the more traditional telephone and email, but it needs to accommodate the very different nature of the medium. It poses a new creative challenge and opportunity for marketers.

Making real estate look good in Google's 3D world

The Best Western President hotel in Auckland, New Zealand, here highlighted in purple on Google Earth.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

In the physical world, people knowing they'll be judged on appearances often prefer to put their best foot forward.

But there's a direct analog of the real world taking shape inside thousands of Google computers, a collection that began with addresses and roads and that's extended to photos and 3D buildings. What do you do when it's time to spruce up for virtual visitors?

You can of course learn how to create 3D models and submit them to Google. But a New Zealand start-up is hoping you'll do the same thing most people do when they need to design an addition or build a Web page: hire someone with the appropriate expertise.

Estate3D will build you a virtual model of your house that can appear on Google Earth and Google Maps--and for that matter on your own Web site if you want. The cost is $99 for a basic building.

It's not the only outfit, either. WebEpoch offers similar services. Google's SketchUp tool for 3D modeling has found a niche in architecture circles, and firms including Sketchup2India, Sketchup4Architect, and LunarStudio are among those who use it in their services. A company called In3D is reconstructing many Napa Valley, Calif., buildings in Google Earth.

"As more businesses become aware of the value of having a 3D presence in Google Earth, businesses are appearing to support that need," said Bruce Polderman, the Google Earth product manager.

It may sound like a frivolous expense. But don't laugh off the idea too hastily.

A company called In3D produced this 3D model of Newton Vineyard in St. Helena, Calif., that appears on Google Earth and Google Maps Earth View.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Some virtual land grabs fizzled--the rush for a presence in the Second Life so far was mostly a fad. Google Maps, though, is used by millions, and Web browsers are advancing to the point where the 3D buildings of a virtual realm will be much easier to display.

Who might care? The same sorts of people who care about their buildings' appearance in the real world have a reason to care--those with a lot of tourist traffic, real estate agents with distant customers, or stores on main thoroughfares.

A business won't live or die based on whether it's got a 3D presence on Google Maps, but having one could be smart. With the direction things are headed, it's likely people with car navigation systems will be able to see your online presence before they see the real thing. If nothing else, an accurate view could help people find your building faster.

And more broadly, the marriage of geographic detail and the Net is increasing in importance. Even as Facebook seeks to bring Internet data to the real world, Google is a powerhouse in the idea in bringing the real world to the Internet.

Technology underpinnings
There are several aspects of technology that are bringing this virtual world to pass. First, of course, is the Internet. It may seem obvious, but don't forget there was a day when mapping software was something you bought on a CD that stored the maps. The Net provides a mechanism not only to store a tremendous amount of data, but also to update it frequently and deliver it to everything from phones to car navigation devices.

More specifically, there's Google Maps and Microsoft's rival Bing Maps. These provide ever-more-useful services to people, not just finding your aunt's house in Cincinnati but also integrating higher-level data such as comments and star ratings about businesses. Google has built access to Google Maps into newer Android phones through its navigation app that can replace sat-nav devices as long as your phone has a Net connection.

Google Maps got more immersive with the 2007 launch of Street View, which endowed the service with a personal rather than bird's-eye view. (Bing Maps has a similar concept, complete with a relatively seamless zoom that transitions between the street-level and bird's-eye views.)

The next piece of the puzzle is Google Earth, which has a 3D virtual map of the entire planet, including terrain such as mountains and valleys. This software package isn't widely used compared to Google Maps, but Google has begun building Google Earth's 3D interface into Google Maps through a feature called Earth View.

A warehouse that Estate 3D built, shown in Google Maps' Earth View.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

That 3D view requires a plug-in today, but you can bet that WebGL, which provides a mechanism for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in the Web, will make it more accessible. Though Microsoft has responded coolly to adding WebGL into Internet Explorer, a WebGL plug-in approach could sidestep that significant limitation. The full interactivity of Google Maps--navigation, business ratings, and such-- would also have to be added.

Google Earth also comes with 3D buildings that show in Google Maps' Earth View. This is where the opportunity lies for companies such as Estate3D.

Last, Google's virtual world is an exercise in crowdsourcing. Although Google has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, a sizable chunk of the world's population has been helping Google expand its database, including by mapping roads where Google doesn't have data or taking geotagged photos that end up in Street View. Last week, Google said 10,000 people submitted 25,000 suggestions in the five months since Google launched bike directions.

Where Second Life was largely detached from the real world, Google Maps is anchored firmly to it. It's an electronic interface that people use to get things done in the real world--including commerce with real currency, not Second Life's Linden dollars. In other words, it's a virtual first life.

Inside Estate3D
Estate3D is just getting started right now with its 3D building service. Ash Scott, who along with Hamish Evans are the company's principals, already is a contractor for creating 3D models. So far, the biggest model they've produced is the BDO Tower in Auckland, New Zealand.

"I got interested in this idea because I really enjoy 'geo modeling' and could see the opportunity for a low-cost, semi-automated system allowing people to get their buildings into Google Earth and, via the Google Earth API, to show their buildings off in 3D on their Web sites," Ash said.

Estate3D created this model of Old Corban's Winery in Gisborne, New Zealand.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The company aims for a three-day turnaround to send their customers the file with their 3D building. They also submit the building to Google, which runs the building through a three-pass audit to make sure it's up to snuff before making it available through Google Earth and Maps. That usually takes up to two weeks, he said.

One issue potentially of concern to would-be 3D modeling entrepreneurs is that Google itself is competing with them. With 3D laser scanners now fitted to the cameras for Street View, Google is building its own 3D models of buildings at no charge.

There are a lot of buildings in the world, of course--Seville, Spain, arrived on Google Earth in 3D in July, for example, but there are a lot of cities in the world.

Ash doesn't see Google as an Estate3D competitor, though, and Polderman seems inclined to agree.

"User-generated models are often higher-quality than auto-generated models because they were developed using ground-based photos," Polderman said. "Users also frequently include rich metadata with a model, making it more valuable than auto-generated ones. User-generated models are strongly preferred and, if are equal or better quality, will replace the auto-generated model."

Making the models isn't simple. Even with customers supplying the photos that are applied to the virtual walls, Google has limits intended to keep Google Earth and Maps as responsive as possible. Buildings must be empty shells with no ground floors or internal walls. Graphics must be highly compressed. Structures with repeating elements can reuse the same component multiple times.

It's work, Ash said, but it's also pleasure.

"It isn't a straightforward process," he said of making the 3D models, "but it's very satisfying."

Checking-Up on Checking-In

Foursquare's Crowley: The Giants Are "Generic," We Are Fun. I Wonder Who He's Referring To…

by Evelyn Rusli on Aug 21, 2010

Foursquare may have a tenuous partnership with Facebook Places— but don't let theKumbaya presentation fool you, these frenemies are gunning for the ultimate mayorship andDennis Crowley is feeling very confident.

On Friday's taping of Gillmor Gang with former TechCrunchIT Editor Steve Gillmor,Kevin Marks and John Taschek, Crowley discussed the opportunity for places, outlined his plan for the next iteration of Foursquare and knocked Google for its social awkwardness. While his disgust with Google's mismanagement of the ill-fated Dodgeball is well documented, in his explanation you don't need to read between the lines to understand he's also talking about Facebook and how he plans to beat Goliath.

"It's difficult to build services that are supposed to scale to you know 30, 50, 100 million users right off the bat, because they got to be kind of tailored down, by definition they have to be a little bit generic to speak to that large of an audience. And one of the benefits that we get from starting from scratch and starting as a mobile, social, local startup is that we start with zero users and we can put whatever personality and whatever face we want to on the product… Part of what you see on Foursquare, which is the game mechanics and the snarkiness and really more importantly like the fun and the playfulness that we build into the product, because I think that's the stuff that most people relate to. And you can poo-poo how like those touchy-feely things don't mean too much to users but I really think that's the core and kind of the soul of the service and people identify with that."

Still not convinced that Crowley's painting the picture of Facebook as a generic-borderline-boring service, versus Foursquare, the hip, edgy, playful alternative? Let's step back and consider recent evidence. Earlier this week, Crowley blasted a seemingly harmless tweet: "Call from my 86 yr old grandma: 'Hello. I want to know if this Face-Book is like yours. It sounds like Four-Squared, but without the fun.'"

In a word, that's what Crowley has brought to this undercover dogfight: fun.

Although it may sound silly, Crowley's argument is logically sound. The core of "fun" is his most potent weapon to staying relevant.

Facebook is so huge (500 million large versus Foursquare's 2.8 million) that its check-in service has to be simple and minimal to accommodate such a huge and diverse group— anything too quirky or outlandish runs the risk of alienating factions. While Foursquare cannot dream to compete with Facebook's installed base, the startup can certainly differentiate itself by offering a creative, more dynamic product that is less utilitarian and more personality-driven.

As Crowley explains on the Gillmor gang show, he does believe that Facebook has a major role to play in the location ecosystem. Facebook can aggregate check-ins from different services and introduce new users (millions upon millions of them) to the world of check-ins. Thus, if Facebook stays in its corner, the relationship could be a very symbiotic one for Foursquare, which saw arecord number of sign-ups on Thursday.

In the meantime, Foursquare is certainly not content to just wait and watch this play out. The rapidly expanding team is working hard to push out the new version within the next two weeks. Crowley, who says he's "embarrassed" by Foursquare's current game mechanics, says the next iterations of Foursquare will focus on "reworking and rethinking…the way the tips and the to-dos work, because that's going to be core of the system."

In other words, when it comes to the basic check-in, Facebook can be the king of the hill, but when it comes to creating the most engaging, valuable location experience, Crowley is ready for a fight.

Below are highlights from the Gillmor Gang show/ or see video above:

On the opportunities with Places
"I think there's been a lot of folks who've tried to do… check-in aggregation services in the past and ultimately I think that's going to be, that's probably a good thing for the industry just so it's not as fragmented…We've been looking at their API and playing with it a little bit, there's a good chance we're going to push our check-ins into the facebook feed and there's a good chance we're going to pull their check-ins out of it. But I think the big win here, just as Twitter and Facebook taught the world how to share things online photos and status updates and social commentary, I think Facebook is going to teach the world what check-ins are all about."

On the differences between Places/Foursquare
"We don't ignore the past. I think one of the great things about Foursquare is that we got a critical mass of users that interact with us two or three minutes every day. Like they do three or five check-ins, on a daily basis that's not a lot of content, not a lot of data that we're getting…but over the course of weeks and months it ends up being a lot interesting data about the types of places that people go, the types of things they enjoy doing, the types of people they hang out with. You can cut that stuff up and recycle it back to the users in…lots of interesting ways and I think that's going to be a big opportunity for us."

On the problem with Foursquare's game mechanics
"I think the game mechanics, they really need a lot of work. They really need a lot of improvement, there's a lot of stuff in the product that we're not happy about, there's a lot of stuff I'm kind of like embarrassed about, there's a lot of things that we need to fix. And people love it as it is. Another big push that you're going to see from us in the next couple of months is redefining and redeveloping a lot of these game mechanics. Just because we've gotten much smarter about it. And I think once we start applying a lot of the stuff we've learned to the stuff we've already built, then we'll really start to blow people away."

The next iteration
"The next version of the Foursquare app comes out in probably like two weeks or so and we're really reworking and rethinking like the way the tips and the to-dos work, because that's going to be core of the system. …We've been thinking for awhile, what's act two for us? And act two is OK let's take all this information about what people are doing, what people want to do, and let's build this back into the app in a way that's manageable for people and easy to share."

On Google's location/social strategy
"I think they've just always struggled with social. That could be an entire different, an hour long conversation over what is it with social that they don't get… My belief has always been that in order for services to take off in the near term, in order for them to develop that passionate user base of people that go out and turn into advocates. The services need to have some kind of personality to them and some kind of identity to them and I think it's really difficult and I felt like we ran into some of this when we were at Google. It's difficult to build services that are supposed to scale to you know 30, 50, 100 million users right off the bat, because they got to be kind of tailored down, by definition they have to be a little bit generic to speak to that large of an audience. And one of the benefits that we get from starting from scratch and starting as a mobile, social, local startup is that we start with zero users and we can put whatever personality and whatever face we want to on the product. Part of what you see on Foursquare, which is the game mechanics and the snarkiness and really more importantly like the fun and the playfulness that we build into the product, because I think that's the stuff that most people relate to. And you can poo-poo how like those touchy-feely things don't mean too much to users but I really think that's the core and kind of the soul of the service and people identify with that."

On why the world needs more than one social graph

Our social graph is more representative of the people that you meet in the real world. I am starting to believe, if you asked me a year ago, Why would you ever need more than one social graph?You need representation of a couple of them. Between the three, Facebook is literally everyone I've ever shaken hands with at a conference or kissed on the cheek at Easter. Twitter seems to be everyone I am entertained by or I wish to meet some day. Foursquare seems to be everyone I run into on a regular basis. All three of those social graphs are powerful in their own

Facebook Connect came along and it really made the social graph open to everyone and makes building social apps easier. We think, oh, we are just building our social graphs on top of Facebook . But Facebook could benefit from our social graph, and Facebook could benefit from Twitter's social graph. You maybe are not just sucking data out of one, and that is the end of it, but maybe sucking data out of one and putting it in another and they are all working to make each other a little more powerful and a little more accurate.