The Godfather says No - others may not

Most people involved in the internet have a tendency to sit up and take notice when Sir Tim Berners-Lee - creator of world wide web - says something.

So many travel companies - and other web firms, especially the ad-led ones - will be mildly irritated/concerned/dismayed at his latest missive during an interview with the BBC.

TBL says he will change his internet service provider if it uses new technology such as Phorm to track his history on the web and create user-targeted ads.

At the moment, three UK ISPs (Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk) are reported to have signed up to the system.

Now, a number of travel firms (Lastminute.com's award-winning system with Touch Clarity, for example) have already been using various bits of other clever kit to track user behaviour and serve them more relevant product information.

And by all accounts it works well.

But having the Big Cheese of the web come out and draw attention to the topic with consumers might just throw up privacy issues travel companies, and others, will be keen to distance themselves from.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: tim berners-lee WWW advertising behaviourial targeting lastminute

Travo weekly round-up #3

Here are the top stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 1 February 2008.

• Opodo profits to trigger investment in site.
• Sky picks Expedia-TripAdvisor for white label deal.
• Telegraph reviews travel search business.
• Cheapflights will not be rushed into float decision.
• WAYN approach over sale - but not by AOL.

Best of the blogs:

• Google Suggest, from Les Exploers.
• 10 questions for tour operators, from Musings.
• Microsoft-Yahoo dino deal, from Buzzmachine.
• Facebook apps on any site, from TechCrunch.
• SEO millionaire, from SearchEngineWatch.

Please post and further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

WAYN saga will run and run and run

What is it about WAYN that it seems to attract a disproportionate amount of attention in the travel industry for a site of its size?

This summarised the - unfortunately - private comments of a senior executive from the industry who I spoke to yesterday afternoon after we published the latest twist in the AOL takeover non-story.

I suspect he meant "size" with regards to its commecial elements, because it does have rather a few users.

But it's a good and valid point to make because the WAYN travel community has come from nowhere to be hailed by some as the best travel social network on the web.

So is it justified?

We will leave that to consumers to decide, but no site seemingly comes from obscurity to become a significant player in its market (think Facebook, Flickr) without something decent to offer users.

From an industry perspective, what WAYN does have is two young and obviously bright frontmen who have ploughed the conference circuit over the past 18 months, spreading the word about the site.

In the meantime the team has certainly done a remarkable job of attracting commerical partners to the site (Lastminute.com, Isango for starters).

It hasn't all been plain sailing. This time last year WAYN was seeing traffic levels take a worrying turn southwards - something which probably didn't exactly encourage its suite of new investors.

But rather than attempt a sale then, when it could have made a fair few quid for its creators and staff, WAYN pretty much admitted that its original subscription model was not reaching initial expectations and axed it, apart from a few key services.

So rather than try something else, WAYN has had another go.

The company certainly has its detractors. Travolution received a string of mystery emails last spring from someone slamming the industry for fawning over WAYN and questioning - with some interesting analysis - its chances of success.

However, as another senior figure said recently: "Their determination to get the WAYN thing right impresses people in an industry which sometimes gives up too easily."

Perhaps that is the difference? In the travel industry there is a certain 'wow factor' about WAYN - in new media circles, far less so.

WAYN certainly has its work cut out in the coming months. There are sites emerging in the US which will absolutely give it a run for its money - and Facebook is not going away.

So - as we revealed - AOL was not one of the companies which has come looking in recent months, but others are clearly interested.

For that reason, and because it has a tendency to do the unexpected (in comparison to others in the travel sector in the UK at least), we suspect WAYN will continue to get a fair amount of attention in the industry.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: wayn aol facebook
social network

Travo weekly round-up #1

Here are the top five stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 18 January 2007:

• Sidestep axed in the UK
• Monarch to switch web address
• OpenSkies to operate from BA.com
• DoSomethingDifferent opens platform to third parties
• Drakefield creates travel insurance meta search site

Best of the blogs:

• WAYN-AOL shenanigans, from Musings, Travo, Drama 2.0 and The Boot. [Original Techcrunch post]
• Interview with Bezurk, from The Boot
• Hotels price guarantees, from Les Explorers
• Google's nice tendencies, from Mashable
• The fog of revolution, Open

Please post any further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

AOL to buy WAYN?

TechCrunch UK is reporting rumours of talks being held over a $200 million deal from AOL to buy social networking site WAYN.

WAYN has reacted with varying degrees of exasperation to the story (officially and privately), claiming no discussions have taken place, it is not up for sale, and it is forging ahead with its own "exciting" plans.

Key figures close to both companies are also denying any knowledge of a deal to Travolution.

UPDATE: Annike Erskine statement to TechCrunch via its comments section:

Further to the comments referred to in this article we would like to confirm that WAYN has at no point had discussions with AOL and are not currently looking for a strategic sale.

WAYN is unique in that it is focused on the travel vertical which represents by far the largest and most lucrative sector online and we are excited about the new products we are introducing to our members and the prospect of developing into the mobile space with location based data and services being one of our core strengths.

We benefit from a broad demographic with over 50% of our UK users over the age of 35. We are also one of the only social networks which is 18+ to improve the safety for our users.

Our present focus is to create long term value and build a truly successful business. The WAYN vision is to become the world’s largest and most successful travel and lifestyle community portal and our management team is solely focused on achieving that goal.

More updates as we get them...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: wayn AOL TechCrunch

Travolution Summit presentations

...are now available.

As well as our news coverage and links to pictures, blog and videoblog.

All available on the Travolution website.

Presentations:

• John Bray - Looking for meaning: Future of search and web businesses (PhoCusWright)
• Mel Carson - 3D image of the world (MSN).
  
• Stephen Palmer - Social networking and search debate (Lonely Planet)
• Peter Ward - Social networking and search debate (WAYN.com)
• Glen Drury - Social networking and search debate (Yahoo!)
• Andrew Bradford - presentation to come (AOL)
• Graham Donoghue - We are not in control (TUI)
• Katherine Gershon - Delivering best experience online and in the air (SilverJet)
• Francois Abiven and Emilie Labidoire - Why virtual worlds matter to travel (Reperes)

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Ding, ding, time to make some changes

Despite all the hoopla and savvy PR, it turns out that today's leading travel sites offer fundamentally the same, boring user experience for the booking portion of their sites.

Such is the observation of technology research firm PhoCusWright, which found that “Essentially, consumers have launched their browsers expecting inspiring travel planning, only to be disappointed by seeing largely the same thing that they've had online for four or five years now”.

One result is that there's little loyalty in online travel buying, even though the online travel industry is now over seven years young. Three in ten online travellers don't have a single site that they prefer for travel purchase, and a vast majority, 68%, have numerous preferred sites.

Sensing this and eager to create loyalty, suppliers and travel distributors have gotten smart. Realizing that the browser may not be the ideal medium to derive consumer loyalty, they've built tools to go beyond it.

"Ding" from Southwest Airlines is one such product. In the three years since launching Ding, Southwest has clinched more than one million users that actively have the product open and are using it on their desktop everyday.

Ding belongs to a category known as branded desktop applications (BDAs). Ohers hail from Travel Alberta, Vail Resorts, and most recently Expedia. But there are other examples of going beyond the browser. One is AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). With AIM, by selecting "kayakbuddy" (provided by Kayak) as a chat buddy, you can search for flight and hotel prices, right from your IM window without even opening the browser.

Who knows what those clever people will think of next.

Tricia Holly Davis, Chief Writer, Travolution

260 searches every second in the UK

Busy day today, putting the final touches to our October edition of the magazine, so little to report or discuss.

Only that Nielsen Net//Ratings has issued its latest report on the performance of UK search engines.

It appears our obsession with search continues and an estimated 264 queries are carried out every second in the UK during August. This equates to 22.7 million per day, 950,000 per hour or 15,800 per minute.

Overall this is an increase of 30 million (4%) six months beforehand in February.

By far and away the majority of these are carried out on Google, which grabbed a 68% share of the all click-thrus in the market.

Tailing behind are Yahoo! (9.1%), Ask.com (7.8%), MSN/Windows Live (5.8%) and AOL (4.1%).

More information and charts here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution