A fantastic story in the FastCompany ezine today illustrates the tremendous potential of social buying. Groupon has already proved that using the power of the Internet to connect people with similar goals and desires together makes business sense. The company that seeks out special deals based on “bulk” discounts made accessible to hundreds and thousands of individual buyers is purported to be the fastest growing company in history.

The idea that many individuals can group together to buy in bulk is now being applied to almost every consumer category. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it has reached the air travel industry, and the realm of private jets. It’s an obvious product – if you can hitch a ride on a private jet for about the same price as you could get a commercial ticket, and you get the benefits of a direct flight in relative comfort, of course you’d jump at the chance. Now you can, with a service provided by SocialFlights.

Given how dire most air travel is, and the fact that pricing is such a mysterious and moving target, this is welcome competition and something I will certainly be watching. I wish them all the success in the world.

Read FastCompany’s story here.

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