Minube.com - perhaps a tad too much going on?
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2:50 AM |
3 Comments |
Today we had Pedro Jareño of Minube.com talking about his 3 year old social-travelling startup.
AN INNOVATIVE, CLEARLY DEFINED CONCEPT
Minube has a fairly simple and clear mission - to focus on the 'inspiration' phase of planning a trip. The way they see it, inspiration is followed by planning (think TripAdvisor), comparison (think Kayak), booking, actually travelling, and finally, sharing memories (Facebook/Picasa/blogs).
AN INNOVATIVE, CLEARLY DEFINED CONCEPT
Minube has a fairly simple and clear mission - to focus on the 'inspiration' phase of planning a trip. The way they see it, inspiration is followed by planning (think TripAdvisor), comparison (think Kayak), booking, actually travelling, and finally, sharing memories (Facebook/Picasa/blogs).
They see the inspiration phase as an uncontested space, and one that web 2.0 can address. They're spot on. And they're also spot on in latching onto this idea that one man's shared memories can be another's inspiration.
As Prof. Eduardo would say, so far, so good !
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONCEPT
For instance, Joao pointed out that one of the first things that you see is a feature for exploring flights. Not Minube's core focus. To Pedro's credit, he accepted this, and said that he's open to feedback.
Another, for a first-time user, the purpose of the website isn't instantly clear. There are quite a few things you see, before you figure out what it's all about. Contrast this with Facebook's statement, bang on the front page !
PRIORITIZATION NEEDEDAnother area where I'd say there's too much going on is with the business model. I appreciate that Minube.com doesn't believe in banner ads and the like. Bravo! But in the absence of this 'known evil', their revenue stream is dependent on 3 different areas.
Putting myself and my startup in their shoes, I can't blame them, either. It's awfully uncertain for a young startup adopting a non-traditional business model. You'd welcome money any-which-way it comes in.
But sooner or later, they'll have to prioritize. With more financial security, I'm sure they'll fine tune this. They've got an admirably clear mission. They're flexible. They're focussed on their community (re: no banner ads, connecting well with users etc.). All things point to Minube hitting the big leagues soon !!
I don't think the 'inspiration' space is really free check wanderfly.com
ReplyDeleteThough the site looks neat, a missing element in the entire piece is probably aggregating content from the likes of Lonely Planet. Cleartrip has done this very neatly here:
http://www.cleartrip.com/smallworld
I was checking this website, wanderfly, and I found it really good even tough they don't suggest you places right when you get on the website giving the impression that it's just another planning website.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that I was checking comments on my home city and most of them were in the local language. I had the impression that the Minube guys are more well prepared in that sense.
I thought exactly the same. If you attend the class and listen to Pedro's explanation, the idea is clear, but the current site needs some pruning. There are definitely too many things going on and as a user it might not be so clear what Minube is about or how is it different from TripAdvisor, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe flight browser doesn't help. But as Pedro said, they're listening to their users, so I suppose they will go into the right direction.