I’ve been busy lately and I had a couple of news I wanted to share… First of all, I’d like to congratulate PlanetEye for their official launch (and all the press coverage). I’ve been following them since last year, when I heard about it through Luca Filigheddu, whom I met in Palo Alto when demoing YowTRIP at the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup in December 2007.

I’m surprised (in a good way) that they got very good reviews from all of the major bloggers, because I usually hear “not another travel site”, which comments I love to track, so I can go and explain that not all travel sites are the same. Most of them bring some unique value proposition to different niche group.

So, besides the nice user-interface and mapping technology, in my opinion, the most valuable piece of information from PlanetEye are the “Local Expert Advices” (Humm… sounds like YowEXPERTS, doesn’t it?) They’re usually people passionate about their city and they give tips and talk about current events going on in the city, so definitely a great resource for people traveling somewhere.

The other travel site is Mobissimo. No, they’re not a new site. I saw their demo at the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup last year. They’re actually a travel search engine. “The world’s most comprehensive travel search engine,” as they state on their site. But now they also decided to become a little more “social.”  You can meet travelers from around the world and trade tips on favorite hotels and restaurants. Because they’re a booking engine, they usually say “Joe is is flying to NYC on July 4th for $160.” It’s going to be interesting to see how else they’re going to become more social.