Les sites de "social travel networking" ne sont pas tous américains.

Oui, il y a des français aussi (voir Vinivi, d'ailleurs en prochain interview), des sites anglais et européens.

Mais il y a aussi la Chine avec Yododo, le seul site de social travel networking positionné sur le marché chinois et donc promis à une croissance forte.

Marriane Miao, CEO de Yododo nous raconte l'histoire de Yododo et donne sont sentiment sur le Travel 2.0

Vous rassure, l'interview n'est pas en chinois ;-) mais en anglais !

>You work for a social networking travel site, Yododo., Can you tell us the story and some fact about it?

[Marriane:]
Company Name: Yododo Inc.
Website: www.yododo.com
Location: Based in Shanghai, China

Yododo is a self-trip social network. Yododo want to build a One-Stop Shop for Self-Trip Travelers to plan trips, meet others, and share experiences. The history of Yododo began in Sept. 2005. The Yododo founder team began designing and implementing it as a part-time hobby. The idea behind Yododo was originated from the founders very own needs for a place to share their travel experiences with friends. During that time there weren't any suitable places to satisfy them, so they decided to build a platform by themselves that all travelers like them could easily use and share. The beta version was launched in April 2006 for on-line testing and got very positive feedbacks from travelers across the country. In July 2006, the founders quit their jobs and worked full-time on Yododo. After working for two months on enhancements based on user feedbacks, they launched version 1.0 in Sept. 2006. Now, another new version is basically finished.

>Can you give us some outline about your goals with Yododo.!

[Marriane:]
1) Build No.1 Self-trip Social Network in China
2) Guide for Chinese to travel in homeland and abroad.
3) Guide for foreigners to travel in China.

Q> Who use Yododo? Main users are chineses people or any special profil and country for Yododo group & community users?

[Marriane:] Main users are Chinese people, but Yododo is one of the first companies in the worldwide Chinese community targeting the travelers' social networking sector. Since our launch, we've already attracted many oversea members to contribute content and look for information for their holiday trips to China, like from Singapore, Malaysia, Hongkong, Taiwan etc, and student abroad in Europe, US and England etc.

>Any advises for people who start to use Yododo!

[Marriane:] Yeah, we got many suggestions from users, user experience is very important for Yododo keep going. We traced them in our bug-track system, and improve them one bye one according to priority.

> What are the main advantage to use Yododo?

[Marriane:] It's very convenient to share travellers' experience, like photo, video, travel blog, review, etc, and easy to find other travellers for same destination if you have travel plan.

>Did you see something funny or very original for the chinese market and Yododo chineses users?

[Marriane:] Self-trip becomes more and more popular in these two years in Chinese marcket, the users in the travel social network are very open, kind, warm-hearted to others. All travel experiences are from real person, real traveller, no show, it's the magic.




>Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. What do you think about this evolution in the tourism & hotel market place ? Word-of-mouth marketing and User Generated Content are the big trends for Travel 2.0 ?

[Marriane:] Yeah, it's Travel 2.0 which gives back the freedom to travellers. Where to go, how about there, how to go there, what need to prepare, who want to go there too, any tips, all these questions are discussed and communicated in this social network, anyone who has gone there shares his photo/video/review/blog etc travel experiences, tell others about offline travel service. Word-of-mouth marketing and User Generated Content are the big trends.

>We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast, blog, socialnetworking tools, Google mashup,Vidéo etc), what is your point of view ?

[Marriane:] Yododo used all these technologies, but technologies are only tools, the target is for better user experience and more convenient service.

> Can DMO's and Tourism Board become Yododo Partners?
Many DMO's around the world are looking to catch the chinese market, maybe you can help ;-)

[Marriane:] Yeah, they should be Yododo potential partners. Yododo could help them on Chinese market if they want to do some marketing.

>What are your personal taste for:Travel, Travel destination, Hotel, Business

[Marriane:] Different travel partner will choose different travel way, if travel with my family, I'll select safe destination, comfortable hotel, expensive service. If travel with other self-trip fans, I'll select challenged destination, hostel, clean but cheap service.

>You have the micro

[Marrriane:] I'm very proud of Yododo team. Yododo is just a beginning. Its future would rely on the team's effort and intelligence. I have much confidence because of this team:
- 5-10 years work experience in Alibaba, Siebel, and Ipedo etc.
- Strong domain knowledge in outdoor sports field
- Strong technical background on XML, J2EE and database
- Efficient execution based on solid cooperation and friendship
- Graduated from Stanford University, Zhejiang University, etc.



My Contact Information:
Marriane Miao, CEO of yododo.com,
Cell phone number: 0086-13817731827,
Tel/Fax: 0086-21-6451-1044
Email: marriane@yododo.com or mmarriane@gmail.com
MSN: marriane_f@hotmail.com