Yesterday I read a press release about a new American Airlines application. As usual the release provided no link to the physical application but after searching I was able to find what I was looking for. The new Travel Bag application, provides users with a forum for talking about their travel experiences. It’s pretty much a travel journal for travelers. I can understand the ease of use of uploading Facebook photos via my mobile device but logging in to this application to describe where I’ve been traveling seems a little bit tedious.

Additionally, this application has absolutely no engaging content for me to interact with. If I’m not currently traveling I have absolutely no use for this application. Get this, I can’t even view my friends’ travel logs within the application! I hate to really criticize an application but when you figure American Airlines probably spent $30k building this application, you would hope that they had produced something highly useful.

One commenter on the application’s wall summed it up well:

I’m glad to hear that AA is getting such great reviews. That’s really great. However, I believe that AA would be an even better company if it went bankrupt. From really bad customer service to the computers that are unable to go back and look at previous reservation data, I would recommend this airline to anyone who is looking for a waste of time and money.

I don’t think this commenter spoke for all the users because one or two (possibly seeded) commenters appeared to actually enjoy the application. It’s great to see travel companies making an effort to enter the social networking space but next time they may want to focus on actually making the application social.

If keeping a travel journal sounds like something that would appeal to you on Facebook then go check out the Travel Bag application.