Today, Yahoo! Travel brought Trip Planner out of beta. There has been a ton of press coverage today, which is quite exciting. To see folks write about my work in Forbes, and in many national and international newspapers, online news outlets, and in the blogosphere (the most important outlet!) simply stokes my fire.
Some people would say that Y! has bet the farm on social media, and I say that it is an exciting place to be right now. Greg Sterling ponders today, “in many ways it’s the most impressive expression to date of Yahoo!’s social media strategy. Yahoo! Answers has received a great deal of attention recently (there’s an Answers integration with Travel) but the new Trip Planner is more fully realized as a product.” I think Greg hits the nail on the head, and there is only more smart, focused integration of Yahoo properties (in Travel and elsewhere) on the way. If the press and PR folks are missing some points, I would have to say that Trip Planner is focused on SIMPLICITY, and very concise, progressive disclosure of functionality. It doesn’t overwhelm, but hopefully it is helpful in all the right places. We also took great pains toward personalizing the experience based on other actions you have taken within Yahoo Travel and elsewhere - but that’s a hard topic and concept for the PR engine to spin, so you’ll have to read it here. 
While much of the trip creation process of Trip Planner existed when I started at Yahoo back in December, I led the design for many of the new features in Trip Planner, including the ability to explore geo-coded trips across the world. Rather than go into detail describing all of the features and new-skool Yahoo! coolness, I’ll just point you to the Trip Planner home page; go plan a trip!
To the Trip Planner team, I’m proud of the work we’ve done, and can’t wait to get started on Trip Planner 2.0. The Trip Planner engineers are amazing, and thanks to my fellow designers for all of the great feedback, idea generation, and help in bringing focus to the product (and the sweet visual design). There is so much to do still, and I look forward to seeing where we can take it.
Update: Be sure to check out Ivanka Trump’s Trip Plan to Dubai!
Thanks for the great work, Gino! You rock!
July 10th, 2006 at 3:17 pmAlways a pleasure.
July 10th, 2006 at 3:21 pmI’ve only spent a few minutes looking through Trip Planner and so far it does seem like a very cool and useful tool. Congrats on a job well done. Now I’m off to plan my upcoming trip to Sydney!!
July 10th, 2006 at 3:59 pmGino, I tried out the Travel Planner and it was cool. I’m just wondering what to do with it once I’ve planned a trip? Is there a way to add Travel Planner as a MyYahoo module? Or access it via mobile.yahoo.com to see what to do while on vacation?
Potential additions for 2.0, eh?
BTW, the design is a thing of beauty, nice work!
July 14th, 2006 at 8:49 amSadly, right now the best way to take it with you is to print it. I can’t talk much about what’s next, but I can tell you we have considered all of the things you are asking for.
July 15th, 2006 at 7:27 amdubai international properties…
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October 10th, 2006 at 9:05 pm