The innovative social travel site Gogobot is unveiling its Apple iPhone app today, which will give users of the service the ability to post from a location immediately and also to see where friends have been.

In an interview with me last week, co-founder and CEO Travis Katz said that the move is an important one for the Silicon Valley start-up, since on-the-go trip recommendations using smartphones have become increasingly important to travelers.

“You live away from your laptop most of your time, and especially on trips,” he said. “But you also want to preserve those experiences.”

The new travel app, which is now only available on the Apple iPhone, populates to Gogobot’s Trip Portfolio, a scrapbook experience via collections about different destinations. You can also send postcards from the app — a la Instagram — to your collections.

Gogobot, which launched late last year, has raised $4 million in venture funding from Battery Ventures, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and angel investors Chris DeWolfe, Keith Rabois and Oren Ze’ev.

Katz said Gogobot would eventually build on other mobile platforms, such as Google Android.

The social travel start-up, Gogobot, has launched an eye-catching new feature to its site.

Called Trip Portfolio, Gogobot is likening the offering (which you can see in the image above) to a scrapbook experience via collections about different destinations on the fly.

Get it? A travel site and on the fly!

But it seems to be more a way to make sharing pages look a lot like a Web version of Flipboard, the innovative social reading app for the Apple iPad.

“We think this gives people a better way to share the narrative and concept of their trip, rather than just through slideshows,” said Gogobot co-founder and CEO Travis Katz.

Gogobot, which launched late last year, has raised $4 million in venture funding from Battery Ventures, Google Pooh-Bah Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and angel investors Chris DeWolfe, Keith Rabois and Oren Ze’ev.

Here’s the official press release from Gogobot about Trip Portfolio:

Gogobot Launches Scrapbooking for the Digital Age

Unique new feature transforms capturing and sharing your vacation via the social graph

SAN FRANCISCO, July 20, 2011 — Gogobot, the fast-growing social travel site that is revolutionizing the way people plan trips by offering users personalized travel recommendations via their social networks, launched today a new and unique feature, the Trip Portfolio. The first of its kind, the Trip Portfolio allows Gogobot users to create beautiful, stylized digital scrapbooks to capture and share all aspects of their travels with friends and families.

“Our travels are important to us, creating memories that are deeply personal and rich with emotion. Until today, however, people have been limited to sharing these memories through online photo albums where the images are preserved, but the context and narrative that gives them meaning is lost. Today, Gogobot takes the world beyond the photo album, launching a revolutionary digital scrapbook that allows users to curate and share all aspects of their travels, packaged into a super user-friendly interactive, crisp and clean design,” said Travis Katz, Gogobot co-founder and CEO.

Called “Collections,” the new feature allows users to share their adventures in a format rich with color and context; an enhanced scrapbook for the digital age. Users can share their photos, reviews and other details about the places they stayed, dined, and traveled from the Gogobot site. The collections also allow users to seamlessly integrate their activities from other social media sites — including their check-ins on Facebook and Foursquare — and professional photos from Gogobot. All of these elements are pages about each place, allowing friends to learn more about the places you visited, see on a map where you were when you caught that sunset, or even make a reservation at the hotel where you stayed. These elements are presented in a clean and elegant format with an interactive map that allows users to share vacations with their social networks in a streamlined, beautifully packaged layout, while making it easy for friends to use this information to plan their own trips.

“Why waste time uploading dozens of untagged, uncaptioned photos? Now you can share all your favorite places and memorable moments in rich detail in half the time. Gogobot’s Trip Portfolio lets you show off the most memorable moments from your trip and helps friends plan their next trip, too,” said Katz.

When the selling of Myspace winds down in the next week or so, it’ll probably attract a spate of comments about what a failure the whole social networking enterprise turned out to be.

And — especially when you recall what a Web phenom the social networking site was before it got blown out of the water by Facebook — it was.

That is, unless you think of the mob of former execs who have worked at the company over time, many of whom have moved on to some more golden opportunities after leaving the News Corp.-owned property.

That includes, most recently and notably, former sales head Michael Barrett, who is about to score big as CEO of AdMeld, which is reportedly in the process of selling to Google for $400 million.

Also a big winner: Former Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta, who was fired from that job in one of its many putsches and who quickly rebounded to a top job at online gaming powerhouse Zynga.

So, while it is one of the more overused memes of Silicon Valley, the “mafia” analogy — which has been applied to fertile entrepreneurial breeding grounds such as PayPal, before its acquisition by eBay — is useful when thinking about Myspace.

It is also a good thing to keep in mind about any tech company that goes off the rails: There might still be a silver lining, even if the start-up never sees the light of day again.

As proof, herein is a list I created after pinging a bunch of former Myspace folks:

Jason Oberfest: Former SVP of business development. Now, VP Ngmoco, which was sold to Japanese gaming giant DeNA for $400 million last year.

Dmitry Shapiro: Former CTO, Myspace Music. Now, at Facebook competitor Altly.

Adam Bain: While at Fox Interactive Media, he ran the ad platform for Myspace. Now, head of sales at Twitter.

Jeff Berman: Former president of sales and marketing. Now, GM of the NFL’s digital media unit.

Jason Hirschhorn: Former co-president and chief product officer. Now, on MGM board, angel investor, and there are rumors of him working on a curation start-up.

Amit Kapur: Former COO. Now, CEO, Gravity, an information filtering service start-up.

Chris DeWolfe: Co-founder and former CEO. Now, CEO, MindJolt, an online gaming roll-up.

Ross Levinsohn: Former president of FIM, he was integral to buying Myspace. Now, EVP of Americas unit, Yahoo.

Mike Lang: Former News Corp. strategy exec also involved in Myspace purchase. Now, CEO, Miramax.

Aber Whitcomb: Former CTO. Now CTO, MindJolt.

Jim Heckman: Former chief strategy officer of FIM. Now, CEO of 5to1, recently sold to Yahoo for $25 million.

Dani Dudeck: Former communications head. Now, PR head at Zynga.

Travis Katz: SVP of international. Now, CEO of Gogobot, a social travel start-up.

Richard Rosenblatt: Former CEO of Intermix Media and Chairman of Myspace, he sold it to News Corp. Now, CEO of Demand Media.

Angela Courtin: Former SVP of marketing. Now, EVP at Aegis Media.

These folks should be on the call list of whoever ends up buying Myspace. Last week, I wrote that an investor group, including Activision head Bobby Kotick, is now in the lead for the deal.

As an update, according to sources, Kotick has gotten clearance from Activision’s major shareholder Vivendi to do the Myspace transaction as a passive personal investment.

Last week, BoomTown sat down with former Myspace exec Travis Katz to talk about the private beta launch of his new start-up, Gogobot.

No, it’s not a robot from Google–it’s a social travel site, which uses friends to enhance the travel-planning experience.

The name means nothing really except that it sounded energetic and adventurous to Katz, with a bit of tech mixed in.

While in a bit of a stealth mode, Gogobot has been a bit of an open secret in Silicon Valley.

Katz and CTO Ori Zaltzman–most recently the chief architect of Yahoo BOSS–started the company earlier this year with a small team.

It garnered $4 million in venture funding from Battery Ventures, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and angel investors Chris DeWolfe, Keith Rabois and Oren Ze’ev.

Gogobot rides on top of social networking behemoths such as Facebook and Twitter.

Said Gogogot in its press release:

“Unlike other travel sites, Gogobot connects users with friends and people like them for travel advice and links the advice they give in real-time with maps, pictures, pricing and descriptions.”

Essentially, it feels like Facebook for trips, but with really good images.

Currently, Gogobot links users to hotels and other information, but eventually its business plan is to complete reservations and garner lead generation revenues.

We’ll see how it goes, but the online travel business, despite being huge among consumers, certainly could use some updating and organization–and some innovation.

Here’s the video interview I did last week with Katz–who ran international operations for Myspace–talking about where Gogobot is traveling to:

And here are a pair of screenshots for the service (click on the images to make them larger):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101116/gogobot-ceo-travis-katz-talks-about-beta-launch-of-social-travel-site/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090710/digital-musical-chairs-at-myspace-and-fim-keeps-going-and-going-and-going/ http://allthingsd.com/20090710/digital-musical-chairs-at-myspace-and-fim-keeps-going-and-going-and-going/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:23:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=15662 As BoomTown previously reported, there have been a lot of exec moves at Fox Interactive Media and its MySpace unit, which seem to be continuing.

Especially departures, it seems, as the massive restructuring of the digital units of News Corp. (NWS) keeps shaking out.

Top engineer Max Engel (pictured here), who ran the social networking site’s open initiatives, for example, is leaving to join the new stealth start-up being helmed by ex-MySpace employees, including former COO Amit Kapur.

In a blog post on his Web site yesterday, titled “Farewell, MySpace…,” Engel did not say where he was headed, but noted:

“While MySpace presented opportunities through their scale and reach, I’ve spent the past 3 years at large companies, and now I’m ready to go small and give the startup life a try.”

In addition, while I was poking around on this story, sources also told me that there are more higher-level departures in the works, including those whom the new team of execs at Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace had kept in place, despite a recent round of layoffs.

Those execs include Tom Andrus (pictured here), who was a key product exec in the last regime at MySpace, sources said, but is poised to go. His former charge was as SVP of product management under MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson.

While Anderson remains at MySpace, his role has been changed and product is now headed by Jason Hirschhorn, and Andrus reportedly decided recently that he did not want to stay at the company in a lesser role.

Andrus is also listed as a developer at Gray Ghost Ventures on LinkedIn.

In the longer term, sources said it is also likely that once he completes the work to downsize MySpace’s international operations–which were cut drastically–its head, Travis Katz (pictured here), will move on in the fall.

While some thought he would leave during MySpace’s international layoffs several weeks ago, he did not, given all the work involved in closing down a lot of operations there after 67 percent the staff abroad was cut.

Katz, sources said, is preparing to move to California in the next several weeks and is interested in working for a start-up, after many years at News Corp.

Lastly, on the goodbye train, is MySpace Music’s SVP Strategy and Global Marketing, Jamie Kantrowitz (pictured here).

She had previously worked as a top exec in MySpace’s international business.

Not everyone is bidding adieu, though, although they are moving chairs.

Dan Fawcett (pictured here), president of Fox Digital Media, is likely to be moving to work with News Corp. digital head Jon Miller as his general counsel and right-hand man at the Fox Interactive Media division.

The former GC, Mike Angus, has moved to FIM’s Fox Audience Network, run by Adam Bain.

FIM, of course, is being rejiggered into a new smaller unit, as I previously reported, and is likely to be renamed simply the Digital Media Group.

(Full disclosure: FIM is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones–owner of this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090710/digital-musical-chairs-at-myspace-and-fim-keeps-going-and-going-and-going/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090623/confirmed-travis-katz-remains-at-myspace-as-international-head/ http://allthingsd.com/20090623/confirmed-travis-katz-remains-at-myspace-as-international-head/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:50:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14850

Earlier today, there was an odd little news kerfuffle around the status of MySpace international head Travis Katz, as the troubled social-networking site laid off 300 of its non-U.S. employees.

Last week, MySpace announced it was reducing its U.S. staff by 420 workers, in what has been a major restructuring for the News Corp. (NWS) unit.

Both TechCrunch and Media Week initially reported Katz was “out” in the shake-up. Then an update by TechCrunch later said he “may still be at the company” and, after that, said, “sources at MySpace are saying that Katz will remain with MySpace and that ‘his role hasn’t changed.’ The company will still not respond to an on-the-record request for comment about Katz.”

Well, to clear up the is-he-is-or-is-he-ain’t question, as a longtime practitioner of non-“process” journalism–which some bloggers have been calling posting information, right or wrong, as a story develops–it turns out Katz is definitely not leaving in the current shake-up.

I easily managed to reach Katz and other top MySpace execs by phone and email and they all confirmed on the record that he remains international head.

“I [am] still around in the same job,” wrote Katz from London.

Of course, it is a much different job with an obviously decimated staff–an organization that Katz was key to building over the last several years. Indeed, the changes today are clearly tough for everyone there.

But, although sticking around long term seems unlikely, Katz is still at MySpace–at least for the moment.

Here’s a video interview I did with Katz back at the end of 2007, when he was about two years into his job.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090623/confirmed-travis-katz-remains-at-myspace-as-international-head/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20071211/myspaces-travis-katz-speaks/ http://allthingsd.com/20071211/myspaces-travis-katz-speaks/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:43:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071211/myspaces-travis-katz-speaks/ While BoomTown was abroad recently, we did video interviews with lots of folks, like Facebook’s Owen Van Natta. We also talked with MySpace’s SVP and GM of international, Travis Katz, but did not get around to posting it.

So here’s the video, where we talk about key trends abroad, the markets that will really matter going forward in terms of growth for dominant players like MySpace and Facebook.

Both face a plethora of competitors, especially homegrown ones, as well as the challenge of creating meaningful social-networking experiences in a variety of languages.

For example, according to stats released in October by comScore, the European social-networking scene had 127.3 million unique visitors in August, 56% of the population. More than three-quarters of the U.K. were online with almost 25 million unique visitors in the same time period.

Bebo was slightly ahead of MySpace in the U.K., followed by a fast-growing Facebook and also Hi5.com.

That kind of competition abroad should be one of the more interesting stories for social networks going forward.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

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