Online social networking for business travellers

An online social network has been launched for business travellers who want to network before, during and after their trips.

Called SkyLounge, the network is designed to facilitate contact between busy and highly mobile business folk. A key difference between SkyLounge and many other social networking sites is that users are not able to attach comments to other’s profiles, thereby minimising the chance of an embarrassing comment undermining your professional reputation.

“Adding a comment to someone’s profile can seem like innocent fun, but it can have serious consequences” says SkyLounge founder Marcel van Gemerden. “Banks, employers, business partners, etc use this information on a daily basis. If they don’t like what they see it could break the deal”.

SkyLounge is cleverly tailored to its market, with a system that notifies users when they are in the same city as someone on their contact list. There are also forums and lists in which people can leave comments or rank hotels, restaurants and travel facilities in different parts of the world.