Social Seat Selection expands to hotels, rail and events

More than a year ago, KLM unveiled its Meet & Seat concept, which aims to integrate social networking into the flight booking process.

This move inevitably sparked conflicting opinions, with some people concerned that the concept would infringe on consumer privacy, while others praised KLM's bold attempt.

KLM is not the only company to experiment with the concept of social media seat selection. Three months after the airline launched Meet & Seat, social seat selection service provider Satisfly announced that AirBaltic became its first partner. SeatID entered the social seat selection field in November, and flight seat selection service provider FaceBelt has been attracting attention through its mobile app.

How are these services progressing now?

KLM announced its Meet & Seat concept more than a year ago, aiming to integrate social networks into the flight booking process. Since the launch of its Meet & Seat service, 30,000 social media profiles have been shared, according to a report from KLM. The service, which was recently integrated into the check-in process, is doubling in users every day. Previously, users could only use the service through the My Trip button on the website.

But perhaps the most exciting thing in the industry is what SeatID is doing, a startup that has expanded its services to hotels, railways, online ticketing sites and stadiums.

Not only can users use social media profiles to find relevant contacts or like-minded passengers on flights, they can also use the same method to find relevant users for trains, watching sports and other events, or use social media profiles to see who is staying or has stayed at a hotel.

The startup recently announced that its social seat selection service is available on the platforms of Indonesia-based startups Valadoo and Coupafly, and its CEO Eran Savir said it will continue to expand its social seat selection service.

SeatID was nominated for Gartner Cool Vendors 2013 in the Social Software and Collaboration category.

FaceBelt declined to comment.

Article from: traveldaily