In a world of unwritten rules, one would never attempt to eat sushi with a fork or show up to a job interview wearing a costume unless you happen to be applying for a position as a clown (or wanting to be clowned).

One particular travel site, however, is taking a different approach than the rest of the players in an elite group of meta search engines in the online travel space. Mobissimo has embraced social networking and personalization tools to a degree that far exceeds its competitors (Kayak, Sidestep and Farecast).

I checked out Mobissimo’s Share Space called MobiShare (available directly on a tab on Mobissimo’s home page). Powered by Plum, this area of the site allows visitors to create a space to share all their travel-related urls, images, videos, notes or documents. It’s like a scrapbook of travel ideas. With MobiShare you can create shared folders where friends can contribute and anyone on the site can comment on the content or discover new places to visit.  MobiShare adds to Mobissimo’s MobiFriends travel community where you can meet travelers from around the world and share the fares you find on Mobissimo.

Other than including a “Deals” section on their sites, true meta search engines have been known to keep a minimalist’s approach in design so that the main focus is on their bread and butter – search. However, with travelers taking fewer trips this year, consumers want to make sure they’re getting the most out of every trip so Mobissimo’s strategy to differentiate by adding a fully integrated social networking component may well pay off.

Historically, Kayak/Sidestep and Farecast (with much greater funding) have had stronger overall U.S. traffic growth than Mobissimo, whereas Mobissimo has had stronger international brand awareness. As a result, Mobissimo’s social networking initiative to grow organically within its own ecosystem may also prove to be a good sticking point for its worldwide user base, keeping visitors engaged longer and driving incremental customer acquisition.

You may have seen Pam Mandel’s post on her blog about Blogher and our invitation to sponsor her attendance at the event and work with her to create a tightly knit travel blog community of some kind–yet to be defined…  It didn’t work out because Blogher was sold out by the time we had connected.

On to plan two…

I am still hoping to meet many travel bloggers at Blogher. Why? We would like to build a more connected community of travel bloggers for information sharing, ideas, and inspiration.  We think travel bloggers should be found more easily, there should be a means of connecting the related subjects and places discussed on all blogs and personally I could use a few tools to make it easier to include my fellow bloggers. Don’t you agree?

Here are few questions we would like to discuss at the travel meet-up:

1.  How can we build a travel blogger community in cooperation with all travel bloggers?  Great minds do think alike, right?

2.  What other communities do travel bloggers participate in that we could emulate? Does a tool or an application already exists that we can tap into for inspiration or improved communication?

3.  If we were to create a “travel blog meet-up” at other conferences, what kind of program would it be, would you attend, would you pay for it? Why or why not?

Pam sent me an email with her answers to these questions (thanks, Pam). We are hoping you too will respond and we can build this together:

How can we build more community for  travel bloggers?
Community building isn’t my expertise but I find that anything that encourages face to face meeting is good for the blog. I really have loved the travel bloggers I’ve met in 3D, really loved them.  Crazy, but true.

What other communities do travel bloggers participate in that we could emulate?
Boots n All and Lonely Planet have lively message boards. TripWolf is trying to create a Facebook type interactivity, but seems to be a real influx of social networking/travel sites on the market and I’m not clear on how to tell them apart.  I just reviewed My Life of Travel, another one with built in networking. Couch Surfing seems to me to be superior at getting the travelers together – I got my 20 year Austrian old niece on there and she can’t get enough of it. I recently spent some time explaining it to my folks. “You mean no money changes hands?” I’m a fan of the concept even while we don’t participate because my blogging connections keep a fairly steady rotation of travelers on our fold out.

Don’t overlook the expats. I got into blogging because I was an expat. It’s great informal community, the expat bloggers one. And Twitter -  I’m surprised to find myself saying how much I enjoy the 140 character conversations travelers are having on Twitter. I like it a lot and it’s put me in touch with folks I’d not have “met” otherwise.

If we were to create a travel blog meet up with other conferences, in a more organized fashion, what kind of program would they like, would they attend, would they pay for it? Other ideas…

1. I feel like many bloggers could wildly improve the readability of their blogs with some basic travel writing tips. My  .02 as someone who’s really wrapped up in writing.
2. “What’s in your travel kit?” is always a popular subject for bloggers who travel with their own technology.
3. Photography, of course.
4. Given the growing influence of blogs in the travel market, talking about ethics in travel blogging is an interesting, if contentious topic. Travel writers  want to take the high road when they’re faced with comped services, but at 10 bucks a post to blog about a destination, it’s hard to pay for your travels, much less make a living. Ethics on writing reviews, communicating with PR folks and travel providers, being transparent to your readers, etc… are all good topics for discussion.
5. Monetization, too, of course – can I make money writing a travel blog?
6. A lot of travel bloggers want to get off the blog into print and other media, how do they do that?
7. Finally, new media, pod casting, video… it’s really fun to work with other forms of blog communication.

Do you have suggestions, ideas or opinions about how to bring the travel community together and build some tools that work for us?  If so, email me, comment here, or meet at the meet-up.

Travel bloggers unite.