@NowSourcing.Com

With me today is Mark Seall, co-founder of Mapvivo.com. Mapvivo is a travel social network that I predict will be making big waves soon – welcome, Mark!

1 – Tell us a bit about your background.

I’ve spent the past 10 years working in a range of industries, from Telecoms to logistics to banking, mostly in project management or consulting roles. In 2004 I took 18 months off to do a full-time MBA, and when I realized that working in banking hadn’t given me the change I was looking for I got into the start up scene – first with Green Options Media, and now with MapVivo.

MapVivo was the brainchild of founders Mike, Tom and Wojtek. It was formerly in beta as mapness.net, and the guys managed to get angel funding for it earlier this year, at which point I joined the team. I was impressed when I saw the concept for the product and couldn’t wait to get started.

2 – Where does the name MapVivo come from and what made you think of the concept?

The name comes from weeks of brainstorming which resulted in a list of domain names that were actually available! But we like the name MapVivo because it’s all about bringing maps to life, which is what we try to do – bring journeys to life by placing your images and experiences onto a virtual map.

3 – MapVivo was launched last year, and then just relaunched this week – what plans do you have in store?

Lots! – Social networks are growing as a source of upstream travel referrals (the places where people hang out on the web immediately before they book travel). Online search solves the simple problems for people in terms of travel, but doesn’t help you so much if you are wondering what the best places are to visit in the Australian Outback, for example.

So our plans are – further develop the social aspects of the site (including  comments, member messaging and joint travel journals), better leverage and integrate with existing social networks (the feature I love about MapVivo right now is the ability to update my journey, and then send this directly to my Facebook contacts) and develop search and tagging capabilities to help travelers benefit from the hard won travel experiences of others.

By the way – search for “Australian Outback” on MapVivo to get an idea of places to travel there.

4 – How will MapVivo embrace social media? I know that you have an interest in the subject.

As I mentioned, social media is becoming increasingly important in travel. We already allow users to share travel journals directly on Twitter or Facebook and we plan to further improve integration in future releases – we are keeping an eye on Facebook Connect, and on other similar developments. We also want to start using social media not just as a source of traffic, or as an address book – there is a tremendous amount of value out there in terms of the conversations and interactions that take place, and we have some ideas about how we can leverage that value for our users. But I won’t say too much about these plans just yet.

5 – What is your ultimate goal with MapVivo.com?

Our ultimate goal? We want to provide an amazing resource for travelers to help them share the magic of travel, and to get the most out of their journeys all the way from planning to getting home and wondering about the next trip.

6 – I know that the travel industry as a whole has really taken a hit in the world economic slowdown.  Why start a travel business now?

Well, the travel industry won’t be down for ever.  Travel is part of the human endeavor, and even if people are traveling a little less  they can still be a part of the travel experience on MapVivo! Like most industries travel will recover, and we are busy building value for when it does.

7 – Any final thoughts?

Above all, we hope people enjoy using our product – that’s what’s ultimately important above all the strategy and social media talk! If people enjoy it then the rest will come together.

Be sure to visit MapVivo.com and follow them on Twitter.

Related posts

• MapVivo.com – The World’s Online Travel Journal (killerstartups.com)

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

This guest post comes from Mark Seall – Mark is the founding writer at TalkClimateChange and is also a regular contributor at ProBlogger. You can find Mark’s full Bio on his personal blog at marksblog.org.

Until recently, I have to admit to being very skeptical of the long term value of social media. My own experience has been relatively poor in that social media has provided me with few long term readers, which has lead me to discount its value, and largely ignore its potential. I said as much in a recent post on ProBlogger, at which point Brian Wallace took me to task and encouraged me to update my thinking.

My discussion with Brian made me realize that my current position on social media is in fact the complete opposite of the longer term thinking that I usually try to promote. In the long game, social media does indeed offer significant value through allowing smaller blogs to be noticed, enabling the cream of the blogosphere to rise to the top more quickly, and effectively democratising the media industry by allowing readers to determine what gets attention based on merit, instead of allowing editors to decide this for them.

Social media will undoubtedly change things for everybody, from bloggers at the lower end of the media food chain to the global news corporations at the top. Like good politicians, bloggers need to master the process of building a following and becoming nominated to stand in the daily social media elections (my own best performance has been a miserable 50 diggs, and about 15 stumbles – pretty poor), but what are the further implications of the social media phenomenon? Knowing that this revolution is coming, which strategies can be employed to fully exploit the opportunities that social media presents beyond simply becoming a top social media community member?

Right now I have a few emergent and ill-defined thoughts, and even fewer answers. I would like to use this post to share my musings and start a discussion before pretending to come up with some smart ideas of my own..

How will social media continue to be influenced?

I believe that blogs will represent a crucial media battleground in the coming years. Large media firms are beginning to exploit blogs as a cheap way to produce insightful content and win back readers who are being drawn in large numbers to savvy and entrepreneurial bloggers who are becoming increasingly organized, professional and consolidated. Social media will certainly play an important part in this battle, as large media seeks to influence by weight and small media seeks to influence by guile.

Will large media firms begin to exploit social media, or will they continue to rely on the strength of their existing brands? What are the wider implications for the blogosphere if large media firms truly engage in this market? To what extent will the media merge and differentiate?

What about the wider influence of social media on the landscape of content produced?

Democracy is not without its share of problems. Winston Churchill once declared that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all of the others have been tried.” Elaborating on these thoughts he later said “The strongest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter”. Reading some of the comments on Digg one can derive some sympathy for that position!

As social media begins to evolve and increase its influence, will the resulting media democracy have a dramatic influence on the content created in the first place? Will editors begin to focus on stories that will bring in votes rather than on quality content? Will quality become less important or more important – or will it simply be defined by what is ‘diggable’?

With this in mind, if you were building a new blog enterprise today, what style of content would you go for? How much would social media influence your content and how central would it be to your overall content strategy? Are blogs which do not appeal to social media still viable?

Will branding continue to play an important role?

Good brands provide a promise which acts as a useful tool for consumers during the selection process. People go to CNN.com or news.BBC.com today because they know what to expect and what they are going to get. However, branding may begin to influence reader behaviour in other ways. Firstly, the rise of new media brands such as Digg will enable the media democracy and become an important and trusted news source, potentially relegating other brands to the position of content provider instead of content portal. Secondly, branding is likely to play some role in the social media voting process. Will voters vote purely on merit, or will they be more inclined to vote for sources they know? Will existing brands be able to use their brand power to leverage social media, or will we see a truly democratic democracy?

Will brand building remain important, or will the value of existing brands be stripped away by the new democratic process? Will social media truly level the playing field, or just partially redistribute it?

What impact will social media have on entrance barriers to the media world?

Before the advent of the Internet, getting published was a big deal. Before the advent of the blogosphere, getting noticed was a big deal. Today, with the right techniques and an interesting message it’s relatively easy to build a following, and by exploiting social media it’s possible to reach a very wide audience very quickly . As social media takes off and enters the mainstream, will it become easier or harder to enter the game?

Will individuals once again become lost in a sea of content as everybody fights over the same space within social media, or will new content creators be able to succeed purely on merit? Will the world of media see evolution or revolution?

These are questions which promise to occupy my mind for a good while. I’ll be back shortly with another post as my thoughts crystallize, but in the meantime I would love to hear your views.