The new cover star

“A picture…from a search engine! On the front cover of your first edition!” a good friend and fellow hack warned – rather than asked – me a few weeks back.

Perhaps I haven’t properly explained the shot and its significance, I thought at the time.

As my pal continued with his description of the quick route to career suicide ahead of me (“it’s dull”, “you always need a person on the cover”, “the readers will hate it”, for example), I remembered a conversation I’d had with the boss of a digital media agency a few months before I joined Travolution.

That particular chap told me that if “search” was a marginally sexier topic then it would actually get the attention it deserves, simply because it is so important to modern business.

It was with this in the back of my mind that I decided to slap a picture of the omnipresent Google search box on the front cover of our magazine, to illustrate our lead feature [Have you joined the search party? – Travolution 2.0].

It was the right thing to do. Feedback has been good, especially about the cover, but relief set in this week at the second meeting of our advisory board.

In between poking fun at Google over the, erm, China issue by some members of the group, much of the conversation was dominated by search matters.

It might be a tad “dull” and the mechanics powering it are anything but easy for the average “person” to understand, but search is here to stay.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

[Read the latest and definitive Google position on China]