A week before Facebook unveiled Timeline and new Open Graph features at its f8 developers conference today, Gogobot demoed its new Facebook integration, taking advantage of those enhancements, to social network honcho Mark Zuckerberg.
Social travel site Gogobot, a launch partner for the Open Graph revision, was one of four companies to present to Zuckerberg and the only travel firm, says CEO Travis Katz.
In a nutshell, Katz says the new Open Graph is less about "like" and other buttons, and more about a soon-to-be-rolled out Facebook permission module, enabling consumers to automatically share apps, products and services they've visited, reviewed or listened to, for instance.
Instead of merely being able to "like" or share a product or service, consumers will be able to automatically publish products and services to their Timelines, Facebook profiles and news feeds each time they read, play, watch, review, visit or listen to them, provided users give the app permission.
And developers will be able to write new actions such as "visited" or "reviewed," which would triggers such posting and sharing, Katz says.
With the enhancements, travel companies will be able to expand beyond merely collecting "likes" and will be to develop buttons to record how consumers interact with their apps, travel guides, games and videos.
In Gogobot's case, the new Open Graph features give the site the opportunity to be a lot more visible to additional people, Katz says.
Gogobot's face-time with Zuckerberg Sept. 15 lasted around 40 minutes, Katz says, adding that Zuckerberg asked some "incredibly smart questions."
Katz said Gogobot showed Zuckerberg how to share Gogbot trip plans and other features of the social travel site, and Zuckerberg was most interested in how Gogobot introduces new users to its apps.
Zuckerberg was keenly interested in ways to enable consumers to retain control of how they interact with apps, Katz says.
Gogobot's new integration with Facebook enables users to more readily share photos, vacations and travel plans on Gogobot, their Facebook news feeds, profiles and Timeline, which is an expanded profile of sorts.
The Open Graph enhancements give developers a lot more flexibility and facilitate making travel and other apps more social.