The extremely popular Where I’ve Been Facebook app is today launching a MySpace widget, making it perhaps the first application developed specifically for Facebook that has made the jump to another platform. The app’s creator, Craig Ulliot, also recently formed Where IÄôve Been, LLC to manage the application and its growing networking of users.
According to Where I’ve Been, the application is the most popular travel networking app on Facebook with 2.6 million users (though as of today, it was ranked second in the travel category using Facebook’s newer active users metric behind TripAdvisor’s “City’s I’ve Been To” app). Where I’ve Been is adding 30,000 new users every day — not bad for a company launched in June.
MySpace users can add the widget to their MySpace profiles from the company’s web site. Judging from the site, which reference features like a travel blog and global travel guide, Where I’ve Been is planning to expand beyond just MySpace and leverage its popularity to build an external travel social network.
That’s speculation on my part, but their press release about the MySpace widget calls Where I’ve Been, LLC a “start-up company dedicated to developing software for the travel social networking space” and references their Facebook app as their “first product.” I think extracting data from a Facebook app to an external site and expanding to other social networks is a smart move.
One of the main criticisms of building an application specifically for a single social platform is that you’re essentially putting all of your eggs in one basket. But Where I’ve Been has shown that Facebook can serve as an amazing catalyst for building a quick user base, which can then be leveraged to expand behind the confines of the Facebook platform. I expect that other Facebook app developers will follow suit by launching on other social networks or by extracting data to outside, standalone web sites.
Last month it was rumored that TripAdvisor had purchased Where I’ve Been for $3 million, which would have been the largest acquisition of a Facebook-only application to date. The purchase was denied by both sides.
