The state of online travel exploration and discovery is very, very poor. Most sites seem to be either a link farm or a black hole of useful, but impenetrable links. I don't know about you, but to me, researching potential trips seems like it should be a visual experience as much as anything else. And the best recommendations often come from people you trust — your friends. So why doesn't the online process of preparing to travel incorporate these elements? Travis Katz wondered the same thing. That's exactly why Katz (a former MySpace executive) started Gogobot, a service launching today in closed beta. " I love traveling, I'm passionate about it ," Katz tells us. " But I would sit down to research a trip and eight hours later, an entire Saturday is gone. You can't find anything ," he says.