Wednesday, January 11, 2012 11:19 AM

There are a lot of sites popping up these days trying to make travel recommendations better and more precise. A new travel site launched in November 2011, called Twigmore is cutting out the middle man and launching a travel network directly on Facebook. Without leaving Facebook, users can now easily tap into their friend network to find real people on the ground wherever they travel.

It's hard for a traveler to find trusted locals who can answer questions, show them around or just help when things come up. Twigmore solves this problem by enabling users to see where their friends and friends-of-friends live worldwide - no strangers to be found. "We want to put people, not places, at the heart of travel," said Stephen Smyth, Co-founder and CEO of Twigmore, "and we see a big opportunity to take travel networking mainstream."

On Twigmore, when a user is planning a trip to Berlin, for instance, they may discover that a friend knows someone living there. If the user likes live music, with a couple clicks, they can get introduced to this local contact for the scoop on concerts, and perhaps even go see a concert with the person when they get to Berlin. Additionally, the user can get notified if other friends are going to be in Berlin at the same time.

Twigmore wants to become Lonely Planet for Facebook. Twigmore also wants to offer its own recommendations for things to do when people arrive at their destination, a starter kit, if you will. They’ve just begun adding features there, and have started with Groupon Deals for some discounted activities for people to during their stay in 100+ U.S. destinations.

Smyth also said that he wants the product to be 100 percent personalised, and thus far users can only interact with friends or friends-of-friends in Twigmore — no strangers to be found. He also said that he sees an opportunity for the platform to become a place where people can find homestays with trusted friends (and friends-of-friends) while they’re traveling so they can save money on hotels and lodging.

In just a few months of beta testing, Twigmore users have already built a database of over 1.7 million local contacts in over 38,000 cities around the world.

To see Twigmore on Facebook, visit www.facebook.com/go.twigmore


About Twigmore

Twigmore is a travel networking tool on Facebook. Twigmore connects travelers and locals through friends. The Twigmore network covers over 38,000 cities worldwide. The Company was founded in October 2009 in New York City by media executives Stephen Smyth and Peter Baer, formerly of Thomson Reuters and Warner Brothers respectively. The startup has raised $275,000 from angel investors including Shaun Abrahamson (investor in Zocdoc, Trialpay and Daylife), Ien Cheng (former Google executive) and Glenn Asano.