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Internet

• Internet, Travel & Tourism

  Phocuswright Travel Bloggers Summit: Introduction by Philip Wolf, CEO of Phocuswright

  03.05.08 | Permalink | 4 Comments

  
  It’s always great to get confirmation about what I believe the future of travel is going to be. Philip has been a leader in identifying trends that will impact travel in the future. He spoke about the resistance of companies and preserving business models. “Winners focus on customer preservation, not business model preservation.” was a quote that resonated with me.
  During Travel 1.0, travel distribution moved online. Traditional companies resisted this change because it impacted their business model. As a result, virtually none of the traditional brands became online travel leaders.
  Now in Travel 2.0, social media, web services and the resulting long tail opportunities are impacting the online travel space. And again, companies are resisting this change. But now even travel 1.0 companies (online travel agencies) are trying to preserve their commission based business model. They initially rejected meta search for example, and companies like Kayak are becoming the next leaders in the travel space.
  So what’s the future for distribution? According to Philip. Pay-per-Click (PPC) and Pay-per-Action (PPA) models are changing. Expedia’s agreement with IHG to move to a PPC model is a clear indicator.
  I agree. The distribution is going to be dominated by the supplier because they want to control the transaction. They are interested in qualified leads and will pay websites that deliver the most qualified leads that drive transactions. Instead of paying a commission, they will pay for the lead and monitor the cost per transaction. As soon as this drives enough business, they will abandon commission based distributors.

• Internet, personal

  Bloggers vs. Journalists

  03.02.08 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  The subject of this post is the panel I will be participating in during the workshop at the Phocuswright bloggers summit in Berlin on Wednesday. I don’t think it’s an us vs. them at all. There’s a place for both.
  Journalism is turning data into knowledge. A journalist has the tools and skills to gather all information (the data), get to the core and communicate his/her conclusion. I always learn a lot from traditional media when I don’t know too much about something.
  The bloggers I like either give me their knowledge, their opinion, or data I can use to gain knowledge. Often the value is the conversational aspect. Even though they might not posses the communication skills a journalist possesses, their subject matter expertise compensates for it.
  I’ve been on similar panels before and the editorial argument often comes up. This is interesting because it touches upon the editorial team vs. the wisdom of crowds. And both work, for different purposes. I trust the BCC or NY Times to tell me the most important news. I trust Digg or Techmeme to let me know what’s most popular or what’s discussed the most.
  Times have changed, and will continue to change. The key is to embrace change find your new role, models to operate under and the opportunities that comes with it.
  I look forward to the discussion on Wednesday, and I hope to see you there.

• Internet, personal

  Connecting my network of online services

  02.26.08 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  As I was signing up for yet another Web2.0 service, I realized that the interoperability between these services is growing. I’m starting to rely more and more on specific websites to take away the job that PC applications and other communication tools used to take care of. There are some core communication hubs and supporting technologies.
  My communication hubs are:

  I still consider my blog to be the centerpiece of my online presence.
  • Facebook is more a necessity than a choice. All my friends are on Facebook and it’s often used to plan my social life. But has also become a tool to stay connected with my professional network.
  • Plaxo pulse. This is my “behind the scenes” network. It’s got potential, but I’m not promoting it yet. The really cool thing about Plaxo is that it allows me to sinc my calendar data and contact data between my corporate Outlook and my gmail.
  • Why bother with an email client and calendar when you can use an online service and access every email you’ve ever received anywhere? I use gmail.

  My supporting technologies are:

  • Flickr is where I host my photos. Storing photos online is a much safer option than on a hard drive. Never again worry about backups. It’s also much easier to share photos with friends.
  • The same idea applies to video. YouTube is where I post videos I’d like to share with people. There are limitations about the lenght of videos, and I use Google video for longer videos.
  • Twitter is where I can quickly share what I’m doing right now and share things in the moment. I can post a “tweet” through SMS. I also follow a lot of people who keep me up to date about things that interest me.
  • I ust started using Utterz. It’s Twitter+. Instead of just text, it allows for adding pictures, video and audio. I can phone in a quick message if I like. The reason I still use Twitter is because that’s where the people I like to communicate with are.
  • Last.fm is a great way to discover new music.
  • Del.icio.us is where I post links to websites and articles I’d like to share with people for a long time. Posting a link on Twitter only has a shelf life of a few days.

  Using all these tools and services might sound chaotic. And in a way it is. For me they all serve a specific purpose. I sign up for a lot of these services to try them out, but these are the ones that stuck.
  There is overlap. Twitter, Utterz, Facebook and my blog all have “status” for example. But through web services I’m able to update them all in one shot. If I update Utterz, it will automatically create an entry in Twitter and that in return triggers a status update in Facebook and on my blog. That’s the cool thing that’s happening on the web today.
  Below is a diagram of how all my services “talk” to each other.
  
  Some other examples:
  
  A new Photo on Flickr will automatically appear on my blog.
  
  The last music I’ve listened to shows on my Facebook profile through a Facebook application
  
  My latest blog entries are displayed on my facebook profile
  By connecting these services, I can create relevancy for the people on my networks. Showing the last songs from Last.fm doesn’t make sense on my blog because it’s primarily oriented to my work, but it makes perfect sense on my facebook profile because it is a lot more about my personal life.
  There’s still a long way to go but you can see the potential. We’ll see more of these services starting to connect better hopefully. A few services won’t let you extract data yet for example. I can use my Flickr images everywhere I want, I can embed them and there are API’s. But my images in Facebook are locked in. But Facebook has a great tool to help you share your images. So right now I end up uploading some pictures twice for two different purposes.
  I’m also unable to transport my “social graph”. A social graph is a person’s network of relationships with other people. Right now I need to befriend everybody all over again for every service I sign ip with. I should just be able to tell all these services once who is able to be my friend where. I also should be able to create groups of people. A “friend group”, a “family” group, a “colleagues” group, a “soccer team” group, etc. I should then be able to assign privacy levels to each group. My friends and family can see my all photos, my colleagues can’t see any, and my soccer team only the pictures tagged “soccer” for example.
  Initiative like Open Social are looking to solve this problem, but not everybody is playing along yet. Primarily because it’s in their interest to “lock” people in. But that will change. The internet is an open architecture and “walled gardens” have never, and will never work.
  [UPDATE: here’s a nice interview with Google’s Kevin Marks about Open Social and the Social Graph API’s]

• Internet, Travel & Tourism

  Search and regions

  02.25.08 | Permalink | Comment?

  Karin has a good entry about an experience she had on a DMO website recently. She talks specifically about Search but her comment about the federal provinces is also interesting. We’ve dealt with this as well on HelloBC. DMO’s often stick with their standard approach to destination hierarchies in their site architecture (provinces, regions, etc) and force consumers to follow it down to a community level. But consumers often don’t know (or care) where a particular community fits in the hierarchy. That’s why we have a drop-down with all our communities right on the homepage. Karin wouldn’t have to use our search engine in the first place. Little things can make a huge difference.

• Internet, Marketing, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism

  And the winner is….

  12.01.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  Remember our call for a video host? Well, here’s our first video. Watch our youtube page for more videos by Chris. Have a cool BC Ski video yourself? Submit is at hellobc.com/skivideo. You can win a ski or snowboard package.
  

• Internet

  Tim Berners Lee: think in terms of the graph rather than the web

  11.27.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  The father of the World Wide Web provides input into the Social Graph discussion. The internet allowed computers to connects without physically connecting them. The World Wide Web allowed many-to-many sharing of documents. The Social Graph allows us focus on the information itself instead of the document. Great insights. He ends with a travel example:

  In the long term vision, thinking in terms of the graph rather than the web is critical to us making best use of the mobile web, the zoo of wildly differing devices which will give us access to the system. Then, when I book a flight it is the flight that interests me. Not the flight page on the travel site, or the flight page on the airline site, but the URI (issued by the airlines) of the flight itself. That’s what I will bookmark. And whichever device I use to look up the bookmark, phone or office wall, it will access a situation-appropriate view of an integration of everything I know about that flight from different sources. The task of booking and taking the flight will involve many interactions. And all throughout them, that task and the flight will be primary things in my awareness, the websites involved will be secondary things, and the network and the devices tertiary.

  A situation-appropriate view. I’m going to be using that. A lot.

• Internet, Marketing, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism

  Gotta Ski BC Facebook Application

  11.21.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  Today we launched Tourism BC’s first Facebook application. I’m very excited about it. Our team has done a great job at packing lots of information and functionality into a small space. Snow heights, new snow, places you’ve skied, places you want to ski, looking at where you’re friends have been, comments about current conditions, photos, it’s very impressive. I think it’s useful and fun for all ski and snowboard enthusiast. Go check it out for yourself.
  
  
  

• Internet, Travel & Tourism

  Is there a place for a destination based Social Network?

  11.19.07 | Permalink | 8 Comments

  There are opinions floating around about the viability and usefulness of destination based Social Networks. Karin Schmollgruber for example doesn’t have a lot of faith in a social network for a single destination.

  A touristic social network is not about a destination, but about travelers of that destination. Which in turn means, that a community cannot be established around a destination. It has to be created around the emotions, experiences, likes and dislikes of real people.

  Karin is one of the thought leaders in the travel 2.0 blogging community and I respect her opinion a lot. But I disagree with her about this one. I think the CoolAustria and Holland 2.0 experiments have taught us a few lessons. But I don’t reach the same conclusion.
  The destination based Social Networks mentioned above (and now Sweden as well) all implemented some form of “be like Facebook” strategy, combined with a plethora of Web 2.0 tools. The core challenge with this approach is that travelers who are planning trips need information and don’t necessarily want to become part of another Social Network, create a profile, make friends and more, they just want to plan a vacation.
  With Holland as an exception, these social networks are also separated from their official websites, a huge missed opportunity. The result from all of the above is that all these networks suffer from low participation, where high participation is needed. facebook is great, but a ‘be like Facebook’ approach is not going to work for a destination. Karin is absolutely right about that.
  Some suggest that travel related social networks is just another source for content. Simply aggregate User Generated Content from third party networks, and you’re done. New Zealand has done it, Canada has done it. This is definitely useful content for travelers. And I like simplicity, but I don’t like to oversimplify things. I thought Web 2.0 was about interactivity and two way communication. Aggregating User Generated Content and publishing it on a website is Web 1.5.

  DMO’s need to build strong relationships with consumers, and help them plan and book vacations, before and during their trip, by allowing all relevant stakeholders to participate on a destination website. These stakeholders are:

  • Travelers, planning a trip, or sharing experiences and content about a trip
  • Residents, they are a sub-group of travelers, but a very important one
  • The tourism industry, selling their tourism products
  • The DMO itself, providing the ‘official’ information

  The opportunity for a destination based social network is to harness industry, passionate residents and past travelers, and engage them in a dialog with travelers to assist them with their trip planning. This is a natural extension of what DMOS’s do. They sell the destination by connecting travelers with tourism product (connecting supply with demand). Destinations already have relationships with their industry. They need find and encourage their ‘brand advocates’ to engage on their networks.

  Groups for cities, towns, sectors, etc. will form. There will be differences of opinion, and that’s ok. That’s how trip planners can evaluate the opinion of many against their own criteria and make the best decision. Certain content can be sourced from third parties. What’s the point of creating your own product rating system when you can source it directly from Tripadvisor for example. Other content will have to be created on a destination based social network.

  With the introduction open social standard, there is an opportunity to leverage existing networks people are already part of. If somebody can take their social graph with them, all of a sudden we can leverage the existing connections (friends) people already have, adding a whole layer of additional usefulness and credibility.

  The social network I envision and intent to create for HelloBC.com is a mash-up of our official information, aggregated third party content, combined with our resident advocates, passionate past travelers and tourism businesses, all interacting with travelers in an open and transparent way. The direct, and two-way interaction is an opportunity to add the credibility, objectivity and authenticity travelers are looking for. And it will be nothing like Facebook.

• Internet, Travel & Tourism

  PhocusWright Wrap Up

  11.15.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  
  It was fun wearing two hats at the PhoCusRight conference the last week. I heard about the production PhoCusWright puts on for this event and I wasn’t disappointed. Very slick. And it’s never bad to spend a week in Florida in November.
  
  Wilhelmus (BC), Jens (Canada) and Charel (Holland)
  In my role at Tourism BC, I’ve met some interesting people, had some great conversations, and heard things that made me think. In my role as travel industry blogger, I had a lot of fun on our panel and blogger summit. It was great to meet some of the bloggers I only know from reading their postings. I expected more destinations to attend the conference but it was great to talk to the ones that were there.
  A big take away is the relentless change the industry continues to go through, with no end in sight. Keep up or go home. Lots of conversation about search, the move away from traditional media, social networks and user generated content, adding value to consumers instead of competing on price and a lot of rosy presentations from CEO’s, and interesting debates.
  DMO’s as a collective need to wake up. There are only a few DMO’s who have set themselves up for keeping up with the changes in the industry. But when consumers don’t get the value from destinations collectively, there’s a risk they lose interest in us collectively. Collaboration and knowledge sharing will be important. That’s why it was great to talk to attendees from Austria, Holland, Quebec, Montreal and Canada.

• Internet, Travel & Tourism

  PhocusWright Day 4 – Expedia

  11.15.07 | Permalink | Comment?

  Just as I was thinking how I hadn’t heard much about direct marketing at the conference, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi addressed how they are moving forward with smarter electronic direct mail efforts. As an OLTA, going beyond the lowest price by creating relationships with and relevancy for consumers is a core strategy to stop the bleeding (that last bit is my interpretation of Khosrowshahi’s words). Makes sense.
  He threw out impressive numbers. I didn’t get a chance to write down all of them. The onces I did write down were that 40% of consumers will return to Expedia to buy a hotel in the same destination as the first time. 7% will return to book a hotel during a same time frame a year later (a holiday weekend for example). This kind of intelligence allows Expedia to create targeted email campaigns. He reported increases in responses based on this intelligence to emails of 20x and more.
  Another example is a follow-up email to a abandoned flight search. If the price drops days later, a follow-up email converts 30x higher than a regular email. When you consider that Expedia sends over 1 BILLION emails a year, you can understand why this is an area of strategic focus.

William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog