Category — The Manifesto

In thinking about traveler dynamics, we are very conscious of travel being both a communal and individual experience. A unique and valuable perspective we believe most online travel sites overlook.

When people travel alone they, by definition, experience travel individually.  Experiences are interpreted individually within the context of a participants unique perspective.  However, most individual (solo) travel experiences include interactions with other people, whether in the context of a location (city) or event, where outside participants affect the experience by providing perspective and content, whether desired or not, that help shape the experience.

When people travel with companions or within groups they, by definition, experience travel communally.  Within the group context, experiences are shaped and interpreted by the communal perspective of multiple individuals and desires during the experience.  However, travelers within groups also interpret these experiences individually due to the inherent uniqueness of an individuals perspective.

Therefore travel, whether experienced alone or with a companion or group, is both an individual and communal experience.  It is our opinion that this is an important perspective to take when designing the functionality of our site and by acknowledging this dichotomy we add additional value to our competitive advantage.  Our users will want to share their experience and interact socially with other travelers communally and/or individually - while this is not revolutionary, we have not seen this functionality built into current travel sites.

Natty and I have thoroughly combed through the internet and found several sites that we will be competing against, like these guys, them too, and perhaps these guys too. Each of these sites, to a varying degree, attempts to do at least a part of what everlater aims to do. While that did give us a slight pause, I have full confidence that everlater is a superior (or complementary) product to everything currently available.

Right now, the average global internet user spends roughly one hour per day online according to Nielsen Online. This is barely enough time for me to check my personal email (30 min — my friends can vouch that I’m a terrible correspondent), read a few articles on NYT (20 min) and quickly browse my news feed on Facebook (10 min — unless I have to de-tag questionable photos!).  On top of that, while no statistics exist on internet usage while traveling — from experience, when faced with the choice between sitting in a hot internet cafe or sunning yourself on the beach, my time on the internet drastically dropped. So, while cognizant of existing competitors, we are extremely focused on one competitor that is never mentioned in social networking business plans: apathy towards the internet in general (also know as “the beach!”).

Our greatest competitor

Traditional media companies have been wrestling with this concept for years. If I develop a new sitcom for Fox, not only do I have to be concerned with the competing shows on ABC, NBC and CBS — I have to think why people are going to watch my show over reading a book, playing with their kids, listening to the radio, etc. The current crème de la crème of social networking sites such as Twitter, Brightkite, and Digg are all extremely successful websites. However as the picture below indicates (and I believe that even Twitter and Digg get too much credit for their position in this diagram) they still have some distance to go before they are adopted into the mainstream. Brian Solis (responsible for the picture too) put it the most succinctly:

…where are Digg and Twitter in respect to the adoption cycle? They’re not as far along as you think judging by the buzz and permeation of your social graph. These companies still have oceans to swim until they become household brands…

The path to widespread acceptance

These companies have established products and clearly have a solid base of innovators and early adopters who are already very heavy internet users. The question remaining for these companies is whether they can beat the largest competitor: apathy towards internet in general. Can Digg convince people that having mass recommending of news sources is so much better than offline sources that they should spend incremental time online reading news? Can Twitter convince people that broadcasting their random thoughts is an integral part of life and worth spending incremental time online?

This is our paramount concern at everlater. While Digg, Twitter, and Brightkite have a natural base of innovators and early adopters (namely tech folks, PR people and teenage girls), we do not. Therefore we are already focusing our site design and features so they reduce the time it takes to do the existing travel-related social tasks online. Our goal for everlater is a site that is appealing across the adoption spectrum by making a compelling “value proposition” for travelers where we enhance rather than expand their online time.

Our early adopters (aka Natty): "Hmmmmmm...should I go to the internet cafe or shouldn't I?"