MTV Partners With MakeMyTrip’s Travel Social Networking Site OkTataByeBye; Drops Travelguru?
I just chanced upon the beta version of MTVs travel community ‘Aati Kya’, which is powered by the MakeMyTrip.com’s social networking portal OkTataByeBye. We’d wondered about what OkTataByeBye has been upto, when Yatra’s social net Raahi was launched. Interestingly, this switch also means that MTV has dropped TravelGuru as its travel partner: MTV Backpack, which was powered by TravelGuru, now gives us a “page not found“.
‘Aati Kya’ has VJs blogging, and there are airfares from MakeMyTrip displayed on the side. If you remember, I’d asked about why there isn’t a Yahoo Answers kind of model in the travel social media space. Well, this one has ‘Ask a question‘. There’s also a game called Mumbai Se Goa Tak, apparently based on the classic Frogger, a fishing game, and then some others that I remember playing some ten years ago.
This could be the beginning of other tie-ups for OkTataByeBye; question is – where one travel community didn’t really take off after creating that initial buzz, can many? Maybe tie-ups will get them greater visibility…
let's not call these social networks – i think travel content & networking is more appropriate!
If you look at the interface, Raahi has more focused on the web 2.0 model of blogging,making communities,tags, sharing travel experiences etc.I do not understand the move by MTV's "Aati kya" travel community to be powered by MMT social networking portal.Perhaps the reason could be one and that that MMT has taken 55% of the online travel market share.But, I also understand that this is more due to the early entry of MMT in India.And it wont be long when you will see other players taking up a bigger piece of that pie.What the core is for any online travel portals success is better supplier and vendor relationship and the untapped corporate travel market.Portals who concentrate on this are likely to be the marathon winners.
A gentle point to make here. Check out the new Oktatabyebye – live for all netizens now. Should you take the tiame to browse through, the realisation is that web 2.0 has certainly been taken by the horns and user interface and interaction has jumped to an entirely different plane.
Partha,
Point taken. I do see an immense improvement.
I think you should also advertise OKTTBB, on your main website(MMT).Why don't you have a direct link.Altogether it will improve user confidence and interactivity.I also have a suggestion.Once logged in MMT,if I have my own personalized space, like my travel history or lets say information on the city I am going to visit, I would be more obliged to come back again when I make that next trip.MMT should provide an end-to-end travel experience.What do you think?
One point of comment. I saw ads for MTV & Travelguru's product on VH1 just last week. So, I know MTV is backing that product pretty well.
Also, folks from my office have gone for microlite flying with them today. So, I think you need to check that fact out.
Their site seems to be very much intact:
http://www.travelguru.com/MTV/index.html
Keep in mind, MTV claimed that Adventure Holidays is a real product and that social networking is more of a loyalty play for the online travel guys – not a real biz driver yet!
The main page of Oktatabyebye.com could do with some alignment repair for Firefox users