@rrhoover Hi Ryan! Yea you could say that, the algorithm that allots XP to users based on their travels, which we call 'Montu', takes into account about 20 variables on each data point. The trophies are very much like swarm for travel, but the purpose of them is more of a scavenger hunt dynamic while traveling, as well as a fun way to show off some of the cooler places you've been upfront on your profile.
Its the name we have been working with since we started thinking about the project a few years ago and the founders had a hard time letting go of it, I guess life has many Journy's ;)
@maximiliaan_van_kuyk@rrhoover LOL — Max we should do a partnership to make this evennnn moreeee confusingggg. We're actually re-branding because the SEO for "Journy" is so incredibly bad. We've had so many travelers try to tell their friends about us and their friends can't find us online. Google auto-corrects it to "Journey", there's Journeys the shoe company that takes out paid ads against it, and then of course there's Journey the band. Damn near impossible to get our site to show up without clicking "Search instead for Journy", which most people don't do. We've also been attached to the name, but I definitely regret not pulling the band-aid off sooner and switching to something more search friendly.
@susan_ho@rrhoover haha, oh boy. Yea we are acutely aware of this... Def keep us posted on your rebranding so we can make sure not to double up again! When are you planning on executing the rebrand? We are bootstrapped at the moment and this is just our MVP so its something we will be needing to discuss as a team in the next 6 months. Thanks for the heads up though! Also, I can definitely think of a few ways we can collaborate. We should get in touch and float some ideas :)
@maximiliaan_van_kuyk We need to do it in the next month, but may end up dragging our feet a bit longer... let me know how things go! I'm susan at gojourny.com
Hi everyone! Max here, Co-Founder of Journy! We started on Journy about a year ago to create a digital profile of ourselves as travelers. We figured a game was one of the best ways to go about it!
We wanted to capture a single, easy to digest, indicator that gave some sort of an illustration of what kind of a traveler we were, which is why we landed on experience and levels. We also wanted to provide some richer information in the form of trophies that show some of the highlights of your travels and give you something to chase after while you are traveling. But we aren’t going to stop there, thats just the start. We are working on building out social functions that will help you travel more and with more people which will in turn increase your experience and level on Journy. Think a form of social discovery for travel, but based on where your friends are now, where they have been in the past, and where their friends are. We want to help people connect friends to each other while they travel since we believe part of the travel experience is who you meet up with along the way.
Currently we are using social media to get information on you as a traveler to minimize friction for our users, which we understand for many of you may not be ideal as you are not all avid social media fanatics. However we found that if there was ever a time to post its while traveling. In the future we hope to solve this problem and make it so even if you don’t like to post your travels to social media you will still be able to claim your deserved level on Journy.
We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for future features as we are bootstrapped and very much building this out based off of user feedback! Thanks for the up votes! <3
I'm excited to relive the travel I've done in the way I love playing video games - where the off the beaten path places I've visited bc achievement reminders of why I've got to get out there and do it again. Excited for the social features. Great job max.
@mattangriffel Thanks Mattan! Thanks for asking! Journy uses a very smart little algorithm we named ‘Montu’, which is Egyptian for nomad. It took quite some time to develop. It analyses all of your travel data from the networks you chose to share and runs post by post calculations to give you experience for each post. Montu takes many things into account, including but not limited to: the distance traveled, where you went, the amount of trips you’ve taken, how often you return to the same places, how far from your normal travel routes you go (this part of Montu we like to call ‘pioneer’), how well received your travels are by your friends etc. The purpose is to build up an accurate picture of how experienced of a traveler you are and how many cool and unique things you get up to. Journy will never take experience away from you unless Montu finds out you have been cheating. The idea here is that you cannot lose the experiences you have had while traveling in the real world.
Not ashamed: I spent 2+ hours the first time this came out going back an re-tagging early Facebook photos with location to help me get a boost in the rankings. I know this has been in the works a long time, good to see it come out!
@blakehcaldwell Thanks Blake! Appreciate the support. There is also a bunch of useful information about how it works on our FAQ www.playjourny.com/faq
Let me know if you have any questions!
What's up kids, Jeroen (co-founder) speaking from the moon.
Thanks for the support, ayo we'll be on the front page soon.
I really hope you enjoy what we made!
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