by Julia Bainbridge

Air France and KLM have just launched a social networking site for air travelers called Bluenity. I know what you're thinking ("Not another Facebook!"), but the cool thing about Bluenity is that if you're flying on either of these carriers, you can just enter your flight number and find out who's traveling with you. Maybe you want to share a taxi--or a cup of coffee; you can do it through Bluenity's "community" network by chatting and sending invitations. If you're not flying Air France or KLM, you can still use Bluenity's "travel tips" section for users' favorite Bangkok street food and the like.

I polled my friends who travel and use social networking sites (and really, who doesn't these days?), and they collectively responded eesh. "If you were interested in all that, wouldn't you have signed up for group travel?" one of them wondered. Another, a frequent business traveler, said, "I hate chatter boxes on a day trip to Dallas." General consensus: Bar meet-ups? Maybe. Airplanes? Thanks, but I'll opt for my iPod.

Would you use Bluenity, readers? We're interested to know.

Further reading:
* Oy vey! Wikipedia's list of popular social networking sites
* Amazing: Simple ideas done right