WAYN and personalised recommendation engine Rummble have joined forces to add a new reviewing and tips service into the travel social network.
The Rummble system works by suggesting venues and destinations to the WAYN community (now at 15.5 million) based on previous user behaviour on the site.
The collaboration apprently means WAYN will identify like-minded people within the system and Rummble take on providing the place recommendation element of the service.
The launch of the service, which follows the idea that a community is better placed to recommend services and destinations, comes as Facebook makes its Like button available to third party sites, showing people who in their social graph approves of web pages, content and products.
Rummble says it provides both traditional venue tips but also what it claims are the “long tail of the physical world” such as best dog walks, kite surfing beaches or picnic spots.
The Rummble system will also provide directions, distances and a feed of messages from Twitter about each venue.
The global WAYN community will be able to tap into these offerings immediately, which also include directions, distances and Tweets about venues .
Meanwhile, WAYN says it will be launching iPhone and Android app versions of the site this month.
Co-founder Jerome Touze also says the company is now profitable once more. Although WAYN was in the black after its launch in 2003, the strategic shift to an ad-funded model (rather than the wider and original subscription service) when it secured investment in 2007 reversed the situation.
That strategy is now "starting to pay off", Touze says.
"With 15.5m users and a brand that starts to get a lot of leverage within the travel and tourism industry (tourism boards particularly), we believe that the time to achieve profits compared to what many other generalist communities are still trying to prove, is still a significant achievement - particularly given the tough economic conditions."