Name: SpotWorld
Quick Pitch: SpotWorld helps users discover the best travel spots anywhere in the world via iPhone.
Genius Idea: Travel guides for a mobile, social generation.
With Facebook’s and Twitter’s social graphs, startups in the travel category are reinventing the way the world goes on vacation. Airbnb is perhaps the most prominent standout, but there’s also a crop of up-and-coming startups — Wanderfly and Gtrot come to mind — with a fresh, social media-infused approach to travel.
Add newcomer SpotWorld, which launched its iPhone app just weeks ago, to the list; it’s taking a hybrid mobile and social approach to reinventing the age-old concept of travel guides.
The two-person company was envisioned by startup veterans Joseph Chong, formerly of PayPal and AdBrite, and Shashank Likhite, previously with social gaming startup Playdom.
“We love to travel. We love going places. We’ve lived all over … and we’ve traveled the world,” says Chong. “But, there’s this universal travelers’ dilemma: ‘How do i discover the best travel spots where I’m going?’”
He points to dated guide books, ill-informed hotel concierges and lengthy web searches as common symptoms of the traveler’s conundrum. “The most trusted information is recommendations from friends,” says Chong, “and the better way to solve this problem is with mobile.”
SpotWorld’s mobile travel guide is a location-aware application designed for place and itinerary discovery at over 500,00 0 places around the world....
