Screenshot from Tsotsis’ article about Planely on techcrunch.com
In preparation for her upcoming trip to the LeWeb conference this week, TechCrunch writer Alexia Tsotsis tried out the service of one of the conference’s partners, Planely, a web-based app designed to help you connect with other passengers on your flight. After signing up and entering her flight details, a match was made. She learned that another LeWeb attendee was going to be on the same flight (screenshot above).
Tsotsis shared her success story on TechCrunch: “See Who Is On Your Flight And At Your Airport With Planely.”
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A similar scenario took place yesterday for Des Moines photographer Joe Crimmings. En route to California, he checked into an iPhone app with a similar functionality of Planely. The app, Uppward, was created by a team mainly based out of Des Moines: James Eliason, Nathan T. Wright and Ben Sinclair of Des Moines and Nate Becker of Brooklyn, New York. On that flight, he connected with former Des Moines resident and the app’s co-creator, Becker.
Crimmings shared his success story on his Twitter account:
Screenshot of Crimmings tweet about Uppward, from twitter.com/crumpings
So, what’s the difference between these two apps in the space that Planely founder, Copenhagen-based Nick Martin, is calling the start of a “social flying revolution”?
For starters, Planely, which appears to have launched last month, is at the development stage where Uppward launched this past March: a browser-based web app. Uppward, on the other hand, is a polished-off, free iPhone app that in addition to connecting you with other passengers rewards you for checking into your flight. The reward is, as you should have guessed, the the one-time cherished flying souvenir of children world-wide: wings (screenshot from itunes.apple.com). I predict a great conference swag item already in the making.
To sign up for each service, the same amount of information is required – name, password, and email – and once logged in you’re not required to share more. (You can also sign up for Planely using Facebook.) To use Planely, you visit Planely.com and enter in your departure and arrival cities and select a flight from a pre-loaded drop down. A similar experience is had on the Uppward app.
To interact with other passengers on Planely, you visit Planely.com and go to the Matches page where you’ll see if anyone else has checked into your flight. There you’ll be able to contact other passengers privately to arrange whatever it is you’d like to arrange. To interact with other passengers on Uppward, you visit the Lounge on the app and enter a message into the public chatroom.
Here a few more bells and whistles offered by Uppward but not currently offered by Planely:
- Uppward logs miles traveled and on its homepage it has a miles leaderboard: uppward.com
- Using GPS functionality, Uppward tracks arrivals and departures
- Uppward’s rewards program lets users accrue miles for their virtual check-ins and redeem for real-world rewards – currently, Amazon gift cards: uppward.com/redeem
- Uppward users can check in, log miles and earn rewards without sharing publicly
- Uppward lets users posts their flights to Twitter – example: twitter.com/nate_becker
When I reached out to the Uppward co-founders about the TechCrunch article, Wright replied via email. “We all smiled when we saw the article about Planely,” Wright said. “It reaffirms that we’re playing in an exciting space that will see lots of innovation in the coming months and years.”
Furthermore, Wright provided a look at the core purpose of the app:
With Uppward we want to make the skies friendly again by connecting people on flights, but we’d also like to solve a larger problem. Currently, frequent flyer miles are locked into specific airlines. We envision a universal rewards program, independent of any airline. We’re starting this small and simple with Amazon gift cards, but we plan to add more reward layers and partners in the coming months.
By contrast, Planely founder Martin views his app with a different purpose (from planely.com/info/about):
Together we hope to change the airline industry for the better by connecting you with the greatest untapped resource of knowledge and entertainment on your journey — your fellow fliers.
We’re creating the opportunity for you to contact passengers with overlapping itineraries ahead of time and make mutual arrangements to sit together on the plane, or meet in your departure or arrival airports.
In the future we will help you see if there’s anyone else around you already know through social networks, and all sorts of other things that we’re waiting for you to tell us you want to do.
At the moment, it seems like a combination of these two purposes could make for a successful marriage, but it’s yet to be seen which one will win out over the other. Outside of the ability to private message another passenger, Uppward does everything Planely does and more. However, the reason many more have heard about Planely – through its partnership with LeWeb – could lead to a quick uptake from not only users but the media, as well. It was through this partnership, remember, that TechCrunch’s Tsotsis learned and then wrote about Planely.
To learn more about Planely, see Martin’s reply to questions in the TechCrunch comments section, techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/planely/#comment-106299549, or visit Planely.com.
To learn more about Uppward, see our recent post, “Uppward iPhone app released in the App Store,” or visit Uppward.com.
