by Senior Staff Writer – Tyler Knott Gregson

Every now and again we catch wind of a startup that really has some promise, or at the very least makes us extremely excited about its potential. Today is that day, and Nextstop is that new startup that has us saying…Wow, this could be really, really great.

Imagine if you took Yelp, except for aimed it directly at all of the people around the globe that are traveling, that are travelers, and that are looking to find out what there is to do, where to do it, and exactly how much fun you’ll actually have when you finally are doing it. The good news is, there seems to be a fairly robust community base that is going to help populate this thing and actually provide some pretty great opinions on everything from restaurants to mini-golf places around the globe, the bad news is, the service might be a bit tougher to monetize than they previously thought, and if that’s the case, we might have trouble actually seeing it succeed. Bummer.

There still might be hope, but there are some factors that make things look a bit grim…according to reports:

“The company’s lone source of income is expected to be advertising, despite the rough market for ad-driven startups. If that seems like a tough slog, consider this: Nextstop isn’t planning to spend much on marketing, either. Graham pointed to Wikipedia as an example of the adoption pattern Nextstop is aiming for, in which a small set of people contribute most of the relevant information. But Wikipedia was online for several years before it became useful, and Yelp — a brand which surely overlaps with Nextstop’s intended market — took awhile to reach critical mass as well. “

Time will tell, all we know is we’re hoping for some success out of them. After all, how else will we find the best seafood restaurant/miniature golf course in Ft. Myers, Florida?!