I just chanced upon the beta version of MTVs travel community ‘Aati Kya’, which is powered by the MakeMyTrip.com’s social networking portal OkTataByeBye. We’d wondered about what OkTataByeBye has been upto, when Yatra’s social net Raahi was launched. Interestingly, this switch also means that MTV has dropped TravelGuru as its travel partner: MTV Backpack, which was powered by TravelGuru, now gives us a “page not found”.
‘Aati Kya’ has VJs blogging, and there are airfares from MakeMyTrip displayed on the side. If you remember, I’d asked about why there isn’t a Yahoo Answers kind of model in the travel social media space. Well, this one has ‘Ask a question’. There’s also a game called Mumbai Se Goa Tak, apparently based on the classic Frogger, a fishing game, and then some others that I remember playing some ten years ago.
This could be the beginning of other tie-ups for OkTataByeBye; question is - where one travel community didn’t really take off after creating that initial buzz, can many? Maybe tie-ups will get them greater visibility…