Facebook Launches Instant Personalization On TripAdvisor


Hot on the heels of bringing Instant Personalization to Clicker last week, today Facebook is announcing the latest addition to the program: TripAdvisor. The popular travel site, which includes user reviews of hotels, restaurants, and other venues along with tools for booking a trip, will use your Facebook data to more prominently feature friends’ reviews. You’ll also be able to see where your friends have traveled, so you can know who to ask for advice.

As we’ve discussed before, Instant Personalization is one of Facebook’s more controversial programs (at least, it was when it was announced earlier this year at f8). Through the program, Facebook allows select third-party sites to access any of your public Facebook data as soon as you hit the site, with no logging in required. Sometimes it’s serendipitous, sometimes it’s sort of jarring, but it looks like most people like it (or at least, don’t hate it enough to quit Facebook). The program launched on Pandora, Docs.com, and Yelp last April, and has since expanded to Scribd, Bing, RottenTomatoes, and Clicker.

Facebook says that proximity of the TripAdvisor and Clicker doesn’t necessarily mean that the company intends to roll out Instant Personalization at a rapid pace, but that it wanted to get this integration out before year’s end.