FunnelScope introduces new travel social search engine
Published: 17 Dec 2009
FunnelScope has come up with a new travel social search engine that combines web content and input from users’ social networks.
The company, based in New York City, has worked on an aggregation, filtering, and social media process. This allows users to quickly understand user reviews across their favourite sites say about a place and complement this information with what their friends think.
FunnelScope is currently in alpha and only supports hotel search within the US.
Socialising Search
FunnelScope currently supports Twitter and soon will be offering other social networks like Facebook.
Getting input from the known and trusted people makes it much easier to make a decision. The company says it has focused on getting inputs from friends in a manner where their feedback is organised and systematically managed. This is how it works:
You can either socialise your search from company’s website or directly from your Status Box. FunnelScope essentially allow you to treat your Status Box like a Google search box where using your Status Box you get powerful added benefits. First, you get the convenience of personalised search directly from your social network. Secondly, you take advantage of community since FunnelScope automatically requests input from your friends in a manner where they can easily offer assistance (as opposed to an email, phone call, or random tweets or messages that in the end require you to still take time to do the research).
Social and algorithmic model
FunnelScope algorithmically crawls and aggregates content across travel sites. It then applies algorithms to rank hotels. But unlike any other travel site, according to the company, “it then overlays a social framework resulting in Personalised Hotel Rankings based on input from your social graph”. In future versions, FunnelScope will allow you to “piggyback” on tangential social graphs so that you can expand your circle and not just be limited to friends in your network.
According to the company, applying a hybrid (hybrid meaning social and algorithmic) model assures the user conducting a search comprehensiveness and comfort that they are not limited by their network. The result is a more fulfilling search experience where results are both comprehensive and personalised.
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