User:Harry.p.pham/sandbox

Social seating is a social network service that allows users to choose their seatmates based on their personal preferences from social network profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter etc. With social seating service, travelers can look at people with similar interests and then book a seat accordingly. The benefits of social seating service are varying from fun, social flight experience, connection with flightmates, dating and networking opportunities for business people.

According to SeatID survey in 2012, 5.2 billion passengers fly every year with 1 billion users on Facebook, 500 million users on Twitter and 190 million users on LinkedIn. The SeatID survey asked if the travelers would be interested in using social seating to choose their seatmate in future air travel and surprisingly 60% interested while 30% maybe, depend on which airlines are offering the service. Surely, it is fun to travel and be seated with someone who shares the same interests with you, however it also creates security and privacy concerns such as stalking, tracking and spying. For example, KML has been known for stalking on passengers through social network sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn by greeting passengers with a surprise gift when they check-in at an airport gate or luggage drop. As for security and privacy concerns, users would have to grant the Facebook application permission before their information would be used in social seating. Businesses won’t lift anything from your profile for their social seating app unless you specifically allow it to.

Social Seating will certainly go a long way for making the flight slightly more interesting for people. Who knows, you might even gain a new friend along the way. However, that is also a feature that people are concerned because it could be used as a dating tool. With Facebook and LinkedIn access, it’s highly chance that people might base their seating preferences on looks rather than interests. In addition, it is a good chance that you could end up annoyed by an overzealous seatmate who’s looking to hook up rather than simply talk.

There is always the potential for stalking, and having too much access to a person’s personal information, as well as their travel itinerary, can pose a security issue. What if you decide you want to sit next to someone, so you reserve that open seat, and then a couple days later, you go back on and find that person has moved. What then? Was it you? Did they look at your picture and decide they did not want you as a seatmate? Did they find someone better to sit next to? What a blow to your self-confidence. A move like that can be crippling to a person’s self worth. Would you really want to go through something like that?

Still, it’s interesting to note how more and more services are implementing a ‘social seating’ feature. Ticketmaster released a similar feature which allows people to find where their friends are sitting during concerts or similar events. Facebook – despite all the complaints some people may have against it – is certainly doing a very good job of integrating itself into people’s everyday lives.

When all is said and done, social seating could either be a good thing or a bad thing, mostly depending upon your luck. Social seating controlled within the social network, not the application. So for example, if your Facebook visibility is set to “Friends of Friends,” your social seating visibility will be the same. Meanwhile, like everything new and digital there are risks. The most important thing you can do is to check all your social network settings frequently and be careful about what you publish on the Internet no matter what applications you use. If you’re a risk taker, just don’t forget about the basics of keeping yourself relatively safe and don’t divulge too much info on your Facebook or LinkedIn page.

Bibliography:

Day, V. (2012). Social Seating: The Ultimate Way to Pick Your Seatmate. Retrieved February 12, 2013, from http://atravelersmind.blogspot.com/2012/02/social-seating-ultimate-way-to-pick.html

Durton, J. (2012). Social Seating: First Airlines, then Everything Else. Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/life/social-seating-airlines-163146

Fox, L. (2012). Privacy Protection and Data Use Still Big Concerns in Social Seating Game. Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://www.tnooz.com/2012/10/08/news/privacy-protection-and-data-use-still-big-concerns-in-social-seating-game-infographic/

McNaron, A. (2012). Social Seating on Airline Flights. Our Insurance Company Asks How Good An Idea It Is? Retrieved February 28, 2013, from http://gainsuranceblog.com/social-seating-on-airline-flights-our-insurance-company-asks-how-good-an-idea-it-is/

No Author. (2011). ‘Social Seating’ Allows KLM Passengers to Pick their Seatmates. Retrieved February 15, 2013, from http://facecrooks.com/Internet-Safety-Privacy/social-seating-allows-klm-passengers-to-pick-their-seatmates.html

O’Neil, M. (2011). A Blind Date on Every Flight? KLM Rumored To Launch ‘Social Seating’. Retrieved February 12, 2013, from http://socialtimes.com/klm-social-seating_b86430

Rabinowitz, J. (2012). New Social Seating Service Looks to Pair Up With Online Travel Agent. Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://blog.apex.aero/prepost-flight/social-seating-service-pair-online-travel-agent/

Schaal, D. (2012). Is This Seat Taken? Airlines Add ‘Social Seating’ Programs. Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://travel.usatoday.com/digitaltraveler/story/2012-02-27/Is-this-seat-taken-Airlines-add-social-seating-programs/53270826/1

Schaap, J. (2013). Social Seating, Social Staying… It’s Coming! Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://stayntouch.com/2013/01/14/social-seating-social-staying-its-coming/