Tripoto was founded in 2013 with the aim of being the goto repository for travel itineraries, travelogues, travel photos posted by the thousands of travellers who want to share their trips and adventures. The argument for such a database stems from the premise that people value stories and feedbacks about places from the real people, something like the reviews we reach out for before booking a table at a restaurant or a hotel. They claim that the current repository of the travel photos is Facebook and standalone blogs and hope to move the content from the latter to Tripoto’s site.

This Indian start-up is headquartered in New Delhi and was founded by the duo of Anirudh Gupta and Michael Pargal, ISB, Hyderabad classmates. Their source of income seems to be the usual trio of advertising, affiliate marketing and lead generation. But most of the action is where the posts of the travellers get published under the heading of Recommended Trips.

There are hundreds of posts being published on Tripoto everyday by travel bugs. Facebook has been a popular medium for posting the travel photos and Tripoto is trying to wean the travellers from Facebook to their site; offering credits for signing up friends also. Some of the photos are truly breathtaking.

Tripoto awards credits to each post published and offers travel packages that can be redeemed with the accumulated credits. They also give credits for adding new members and answering queries on their Forum. Though is not as easy and fantastic as it sounds. The maximum number of credits they give for a post is 75 and for my first post, they offered 70 credits (you may be eligible for more 🙂 ). It is a huge ego boost. But for the subsequent posts, they limited the credits to 55 or 50. The posts are vetted by a team of editors and are published only once they give the go-ahead; though the Tripoto team claims that there is an algorithm run by the system which checks the individual posts on various parameters and then awards the points accordingly.

But it is still a great medium to publish, get noticed, attract followers and win some credits too. Currently catering to the Indian traveller focussing on the Indian sub-continent; anyone can sign up and join. But never to underestimate the globe-trotting Indian travellers; we are most active on social media during our trips, more connected than ever 🙂

So hoping to get more from my Tripoto experience, so far it’s been good !!