Gogobot adds social gaming to increase engagement

Gogobot, the trip planning and advice site, has added social gaming to encourage user reviews and engagement.

Gogobot, the trip planning and advice site, has added social gaming to encourage user reviews and engagement. The site is offering its customers badges for checking in, writing reviews and answering questions.

Users receive a small number of points for checking in, and substantially more if they write a review or answer a question. After its recent integration with Facebook Places and Foursquare Check-ins, Gogobot is able to provide real-time check in service.

These new features will help the company build up its stockpile of user data and could eventually be used to recommend future travel. By having users compete for new badges Gogobot is encouraging content generation which could help it further disrupt the travel recommendations arena.

This makes it a potential challenger to established sites like TripAdvisor. The company has already shown significant growth in the six months since its launch.

Chief executive of Gogobot, Travis Katz, said the site’s traffic has grown by 70% in the last 30 days and users have already shared information on more than 550,000 destinations across the globe.

There is also no shortage of funding for the company. It received $4 million in funding from Battery Ventures and already has lead generation deals with Hotels.com Kayak, Expedia and TripAdvisor.

As the site continues to grow, its integration of social media and gaming are likely to push it further into the path of competitors.