In an interesting move, TripAdvisor acquires VirtualTourist (and also OneTime). VirtualTourist is one of the oldest and largest travel community sites, all user-generated. Interesting indeed…
Although our UWA-based widget works on iGoogle, we decided to do a ‘native’ iGoogle gadget as well, for several reasons - it works better (UWA is great, but it’s not 100% perfect), and it allows us to submit the gadget to more directories, and more importanly - widgetbox, which will hopefully work based on the new code.
Anyway, you can try adding it to your iGoogle page with this link. It looks a bit different and works a bit better than before.
Here’s a link I really liked - TripTouch is mentioned in a long (40+) list of useful mashups:
Following a post in Mashable, we found a small bug in the widget - sometimes states cannot be changed. Oops! Anyway now it is fixed.
We also added another small option - to ‘fix’ your location. This means that next time you load the widget (or next time you login into netvibes) you’ll see the same location, and not the automatic location that you are in.
Today we’re happy to release the TripTouch travel widget. We have built a widget for personalized pages (iGoogle, netvibes).
The widget includes all our content and services - you can the travel guide + photos, accommodation, attractions, restaurants, events, travelers and utilities. All in one easy to use widget, which automatically finds your location.
We have used Netvibes’ UWA to build this widget, which worked out pretty well.
The widget can also be placed in your web page or blog. We can offer revenue-share (on bookings done via the widget - event tickets, accommodation, restaurant booking, etc.).
We have added hotels to TripTouch! Over 16,000 hotels are now available… in many locations. We have partnered with priceline to offer on-line booking at great prices.
Wanna find something cool to do in April/May? Here’s a nice list of events you can find world-wide.
I’d like to see the hot-air balloon thing, personally.
We have added a new feature to TripTouch - Activities. Now you can find local tours, extreme sports, nightlife, animal encounters and all sorts of local activities to do. You can also do online booking, of course.
We have activities for many destinations worldwide (we partnered with Viator for the activities). We will soon add another supplier to give even more activities, and for more places, too.
Enjoy 
We have added new sport events to TripTouch, from SportEvents365. Now we have thousands of new events, all over the world - Football, basketball, tennis, and more. You can also buy tickets to almost all these events!
We’re always working to add more and more content to TripTouch, stay tuned in the next few weeks for more such announcements.
Several years ago, travel communities were a huge promise. Many websites tried to give travelers what they want – a place to share their experiences, find new travel mates, upload their photos, and a place to ask questions and get information about their planned trips. Examples for travel communities include WAYN, TripUp, TravBuddy and RealTravel.