Significant upgrade to fledgling trip planner Stay.com after tapping into the Google Places API so users can identify items listed in search to produce their own guidebooks.
The Norway-based startup [see TLabs Showcase - Stay.com] launched in June last year with a platform to let users find travel information and create their own guidebooks, taking travel information contained on Google Maps and elsewhere as well as content on the Stay.com system.
The idea is to also allow users to build trip guides in a mutual way, sharing ideas around contacts in social networks before producing a final guidebook-style product.
The latest incarnation is taking the collaborative effort a step further and using the Google Places API to allow any content featured on the service to be incorporated into the guides.
Stay.com calls the feature "Add Your Own".
Stay.com says using the API means that search results found in Google Places can be dragged into the guides, including reviews, hotels, restaurants, activities, tours, but also the system allows users to create their points on the map, annotate and then either share or pull into the guides.
Content from elsewhere on the social graph, namely Facebook, can also be added via the Facebook Connect system - guides can be shared in the same way.
Video and images are to be added shortly. The idea is that "official" content found in search can be used alongside items created by users for the guides.
Stay.com says "hundreds" of bars, hotels and things to do have been added to each of the cities it currently features on the site and a mobile offering is planned for release soon.