The plot thickens - slightly

Now you might have thought the Google trademark issue had just gone away especially when some of the protagonists of the major lawsuit backed away in the summer.

However, there were many who, when we wrote about it in our May edition, told us to watch this space especially post the summer downtime.

Low and behold, a statement from DialAFlight saying it is 'instituting legal proceedings against Flight Centre UK for infringement of its DialAFlight trademark on Google'.

Flight Centre says it has 'removed the phrase that says DialAFlight' but stresses it is not required to do so by Google and, perhaps more importantly, has not 'infringed any trademarks'.

Allegedly, this is not the first time DialAFlight has warned Flight Centre off - the brand, which is part of the Lotus Group, confirmed a similar incident last year.

So, the beast rears its ugly head once more and the coming weeks and months are likely to throw up more as competition on the internet intensifies and the peak selling period approaches.

What does it cost to institude legal proceedings - couple of hundred quid for a cease and desist letter? And is it all just sabre-rattling?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

StreetView on Mobile - Imagine the opportunities for travel

Forget how irritating this Google StreetView video is for a moment and think of the possibilities for hotels and destination services.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

IAB Engage for Travel conference

[Read down for updates]

Live blogging some bits and bobs this morning.

Just finished a speech at the Internet Advertising Bureau's Engage for Travel conference, titled "Challenge for Advertisers with Travel 2.0".

Plenty of nods in the audience when talking about ad budgets and engaging so-called Web 2.0 sites such as blogs and social networks. One of the people I spoke to when writing the speech said there is a real sense that experimental advertising is being reigned in, favouring the measurable - i.e. search and affiliate advertising - marketing campaigns.

****

Lewis Lenssen of Netizen Digital: measure the effectiveness of offline brand campaigns with a strong pay-per-click advertising push.

Price and product are still king. If the product is poor you'll get found out still.

****

Russell Gould, Thomas Cook:

The TCG ecommerce four-point plan - 1) customer acquisition 2) customer retention and growth 3) customer conversion 4) measurement and optimisation. Simple?

Engagement hugely important: maintaining contact constantly (and usefully) with the customer, primarily through email marketing.

Gould is "stunned" by the impact of video on conversion rates on thomascook.com. User who looks at video converts at 30% higher than those who don't.

40% of people that clicked on the recently Thomas Cook interactive magazine then went to the website, via the Book Now buttons.

Gould invites delegates to try the new Beta thomascook.com.

User reviews coming. Not Tripadvisor. Will use negative and positive reviews, will moderate against profanity, etc.

Best bit of the speech: personalised video demonstration.

Videos created live, simply by pulling together clips from the preferences put forward by the user. Very impressive.

****

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Predictive search on Google is here

Not ready for the UK just yet (our Google guy tells us), but the predictive search function which has been knocking about for a few years under the title of Google Suggest is finally up and running on Google.com.

In simple terms, as a user enters a series of keywords into the main search box, suggestions and the number of results are included underneath.

NB: Google toolbar has had the feature for a while, minus the result count.

Analysis and more on SearchEngineLand.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Is this really the end of the Google saga?

With a number of companies dropping out of the fight, some might suggest Google has got off lightly given that so many were hacked off with the search giant for its controversial

But will this be the end of the issue?

Following our story this morning, it appears some are determined to push the issue. Just a shame they won't go public with their ire...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Google without the Google bits

Many searches on Google these days aggregate Google-related results, such as Youtube videos, Knol data and Blogger content - sites, which by amazing coincidence, have a high page rank.

Step forward Google Minus Google, a site which strips out the Google stuff and presents apparently pure internet search results.

But as one commenter on John Battelle's blog (hat-tip, ta), says:

I see that this site still contains ads by google!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Every face tells a story

Thankfully the headline is not a reference to the, er, classic Cliff Richard single from 1997, but describes quite nicely the results of the Oban Multilingual 'Face of Global Search' survey.

Following the release today of the survey looking at online travel search habits, Greig Holbrook, director of Oban Multilingual, has also penned some analysis of the results:

What the results clearly show is that travel search is a very culturally diverse activity and that search plays a huge part in both the research and purchase of holidays for global travellers.

The growth in Chinese on the web has been phenomenal and reflects the fact that over 900 million people on the web don't speak English (around 70%).

Ninety-nine percent of those people who took part in the research indicated that they have booked travel online at some point. This once again reflects the fact that globally, people are becoming increasingly familiar with booking their travel online.

This means that suppliers not only need to cater from them in their own language but also, as much as possible, allow them to buy successfully from the site. This means the sites need to be very well localised to reflect all search and online purchase behaviours.

Chinese travel searchers don't seem to want to use Google, often preferring their own engines like Baidu much more. With the huge increase in Chinese searchers actually buying online in 2006-2007, it makes more sense than ever to make sure that optimisation for China is focused on local search engines.

It is not surprising that travellers going to different place are looking for different web features. International travel searchers are becoming more specific in their online behaviours so that in addition to multilingual web optimisation, global social media optimisation also needs to take place. In this context, a site properly optimised social media that is visible to a variety of cultures will prosper.

The finding that those who look for multilingual websites tend to avoid Google reflects the fact that international searchers are increasingly demanding good quality multilingual sites which are visible in their own search engines and not simply on Google, as Google is very often not the preferred engine or method for sourcing travel bookings.

In terms of Spanish people travelling to the UK, we have already found that travel sites often fail to provide good optimisation in Spanish for visitors who are seeking to visit the UK.

Spanish people may use some English phrases to search or they may use Spanish, but very few travel sites provide them with the experience they need so they are often forced to use English sites.

There is a great opportunity for travel companies to tap into the demand for travel from Spanish searchers; both for holidays within Spain and for travelling elsewhere like the UK.

Greig Holbrook, director, Oban Multilingual

Cuil will have to get a lot cooler (and relevant) to beat Google

Silicon Valley loves a new product, especially when it reckons itself to be a Google challenger.

So there has already been plenty of hype about the new Cuil search engine, which has a fantastic pedigree amongst its founding exec team and - the launch clincher - an index of around 120 billion pages, around three times as many as Google, according to a FT report earlier today [link not available].

The engine has some good features and is displayed in an uncoventionial way (assuming Google is the status quo here for second).

For example, the keyword 'london' throws up the usual and relevant results and has a handy extra toolbar on the top-right hand corner which allows users to break down the results quickly into different categories types such as attractions, economy etc.

[Just forget for a moment that Ken Livingstone - pictured in the search results - is not in office anymore]



But we thought we'd also run a quick test, the ubiqutous search query 'flight new york london' to check what kind of results are coming in.

Alas, relevancy disappears entirely.


Type in "new york london flight", however, and you'll get 50 results.

We'll go back to playing around and report back.

Please feedback via the comments section any early impressions of Cuil.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: cuil search engine tom costello Anna Patterson

The Superbrands thing [Sigh]

So plenty of coverage everywhere about the release of the latest Superbrands survey of top brands in the UK.

Google tops the list for the first time, ahead of Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz and the BBC.

In the travel-hospitality world, British Airways comes out on top (5th), with Hilton (20th), Eurostar (47th) and Virgin Atlantic (70th) all featuring in the top 100.

Thomas Cook has made a great PR play today with its top billing amongst tour operators and agencies in 72nd position, beating Kuoni (340th), Sandals (355th), Expedia (401st) and Lastminute.com (476th).

And this is where all this branding stuff gets murky and silly.

It was only last year that Expedia was named the coolest travel brand in the, er, Superbrands' Coolbrands list.

So, one question:

Is it better to be a 'cool' brand or a 'super' brand?

Anyway, back to the Superbrands list. Well done to Thomas Cook (which, according to marketing boss Simon Carter is "head and shoulders" above its competitors). But is it REALLY 46 places behind the Royal Albert Hall, for example?

Take this one step further and you could also ask the following question:

If the Royal Albert Hall is 46 places ahead of Thomas Cook, how on earth can Thomas Cook be at least 428 places higher than Thomson, its biggest and bitter rival and, let's face it, a fairly big travel brand in its own right.

[Thomson actually doesn't figure anywhere in the list of 500 brands]

And THAT is the problem with branding lists - not that Thomson doesn't feature, but that the results are so random when all evidence to the contrary (sales, adspend, offline and online presence, word-of-mouth and history) indicates that a company such as Thomson should at least have a higher ranking than Maltesers, Stannah Stairlifts and Nicorette!

There are plenty of people who have strong views about Superbrands et al - the comments button is dying to hear from you...

* The Superbrands selection criteria can be found on its website.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: superbrand

Daily Mail readers more worried about Google than housing market crash

I’m sure I read somewhere that ‘If news editors are looking for something new with which to strike fear into the heart of middle England, online privacy could be answer.’

This Saturday, the print edition of the Daily Mail belatedly picked up on the ‘Google Streetview car in the UK’ story and plonked it on the front page.

The mid-market tabloid also put the story onto its web site, complete with explanatory graphics. The story has prompted 84 comments.

On the same day another story was posted, headlined House prices falling at fastest rate for 50 years. This one has only 38 comments...

Martin Cowen chief writer Travolution

Better searchers use metasearches...

Kayak.co.uk is the latest online travel business to try to generate some consumer-facing PR by telling everyone that the Brits will continue to travel despite the tough economic conditions etc, etc...

But there’s a paragraph in the release which might be of interest to Travolution’s readers. When asked about booking,

‘nearly every respondent (96%) said they preferred to research holidays online
instead of visiting a high street travel agent (2%) in order to research new and
exciting destinations and to find the best deals.’

So people who respond to online surveys on a travel web site use travel web sites to buy travel. No surprise there then, other than the fact that one in fifty kayak users still thinks they can get a better deal and advice on the high street!

But there’s more:

Almost half of respondents (46%) typically visit between two and five travel
websites and nearly a third (31%) will visit up to ten. A dogged 20% of
respondents, intent on thoroughly researching holiday destinations and finding
new ways to trim costs, will visit 11 or more travel websites.

This provides a nice contrast with some research put out by Google at the start of the year which said that consumers visit on average 22 travel websites before booking.

It looks as if customers are evolving – those who have cottoned onto kayak are more targeted in their searching than people starting out from Google.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Britain - the thorn in the side of Google

Following the recent furore over changes to Google's brand name bidding policy, executives would probably have been hoping for an easier ride for roll-out of the search engine giant's latest initiative from the US.

Google is reported to have been filming in the streets of London for its Street View additions to Google Maps.

But now it appears privacy campaigners are not happy at all - oh no, they are not.

Google has already started snapping away in France, but UK rights group Privacy International has kicked up a fuss about the Google car's presence on the streets of the capital.

[Pic from Tour de France cycle race route in France]


The BBC reports:

Privacy International has also asked Google about 'the steps, if any, that you have taken to consult the public over the use of their images for what is, in effect, a commercial purpose'.

Mr [Simon] Davies [of PI] added: 'Google likes to think of itself as a global player. In reality it is acting like an irresponsible adolescent.

'It's time for the company to take responsibility for its actions and to do the right thing.'

Now one suspects that unless a court injunction follows (unlikely), the efforts of PI will probably be in vain in this area.

Nevertheless, Google must be wondering what this annoying little island of ours has against it at the moment.

UPDATE: Techcrunch UK has a good picture of the camera-car in action.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: google maps street view tour de france

Hitwise on Google's Trademark Changes

Hitwise has monitored paid search activity since Google changed its trademark policy in the first week of May (full report here).

In the first four weeks after the change, 11.2% of search traffic that the top 100 online brands received from their top brand term came via a paid listing on a search engine - compared to 9.2% before the change (up 22%).

The travel sector in particular has been one of the worst affected with travel brands increasing their paid brand search rate from 18.4% to 26.6% - the largest of any sector.

The bottom line is that while brand owners' websites have not been losing traffic they've been paying more to keep it front of mind with consumers.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Troogle, trademarks and CPC inflation

Guest post from Alex Bainbridge, managing director, Travel UCD.

The Travel Technology Initiative’s Morning with Google travel’ took place at ABTA’s head office in London this morning. Three UK execs - Daniel Robb, Miranda Gowlland and Anna Tong - outlined their roles in Google and took part in a Q & A. Brave folk! Here are the highlights:

CPC
CPC is in substantial growth. They are nearing total coverage of queries - and as a result in Q1 08 there has been 20% CPC bid price inflation.

This inflation is not to do with anything that Google is doing but just the nature of competition. Also websites are getting better at converting visitors hence are willing to bid higher prices. However, they did mention that they know there are still queries "out there" that are under advertised but they won't say what they are (even to those companies who have account managers at Google)

Trademark
Daniel Robb said it would be very wrong for him to comment about it.... however he restated that now US, UK and Ireland are aligned. The policy is a "Founders policy" (i.e. coming from the top in the US) and although could be rolled out globally, they will operate in accordance with local applicable laws. In particular, he mentioned France may be a challenge.

Robb admitted that it has hurt some relationships that they have in the travel industry however he stated that the impact varied wildly between their clients. He also mentioned that, as a result of the relevancy system incorporated into Google, that the system will naturally sort itself out over time. This has been their experience in the US.

Troogle
Nothing I have seen or heard about that is either planned for meta search or selling as an agent", says Robb.

I believe him - but this then makes you wonder how Google plan to react to the threat posed by Microsoft. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have basically given up competing with Google on keyword based search.... but Microsoft will attack on the flank that Google now suggest they are not going to defend - vertical search.

An interesting and insightful morning but amazed that some of the larger UK travel brands weren't there. Don't they care about what Google are doing? Come on people - this event was tailor-made for you!

Alex Bainbridge

Travel in the BB House

Any Big Brother fans out there?

No, I thought as much but to get over the boredom of another series we thought we could come up with a fantasy travel big brother house.

Where? How about the Aphrodite Hills Resort in Cyprus - we hear there might be a few travel people out there quite soon for some conference thingy.

And, besides the travel industry loves a lock-in.

We need some glamour so let's have Ian McCaig of lastminute and Steve Endacott of the On Holiday Group.

We also need someone for them to have a fight with so that it makes interesting viewing so that means the entire Google travel team!

A US contingent would also add some colour if Kayak's Steve Kafner could make himself available or maybe Bill Gates.

Failing that we could organise a live satellite link-up.

But, what would they talk about all day, who would do the cooking and more importantly who would be evicted first?

Suggestions please and feel free to add to the fantasy BB travel team, some female company could even things out a bit.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Perhaps all is not so well in the US for Google

Suggestions in April that the Google brand bidding switch in the US in 2004 was relatively trouble-free are slightly incorrect - or have at least turned out to be.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting how "tensions over piggybacking have been simmering for a couple of years" and big travel brands such as Marriott, IHG, American Airlines and Northwest Airlines are unhappy at the behaviour of search engines, in particular - surprise-surprise - Google.

Read all our coverage of the issue.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

PhotoSynth Lite - from Google

Travolution loves Microsoft's Photosynth, in a big, big way. The opportunities for the travel industry are enormous. And it is very cool!

When Mel Carson of MSN showcased it at a Travolution conference in late-2006, we were all duly awe-struck. Carson ran the reel again at the ABTA Convention in November 2007, when I presented with him.

So interesting to see today that Google acquisition Panoramio has developed its own photo-heavy, streaming system combined user added images.

It's live, taking real-time images from members, and definitely worth playing around with.

Excellent examples include the Empire State Building and the Taj Mahal [click on the 'Look Around' button on the left-hand side under the main image after the jump].



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Via Techcrunch

Technorati tags: panoramio
photosynth microsoft

For the very last time... [Google]

Call us spineless and unusually lacking in an opinion, but:

WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE A STANCE ON THE GOOGLE TRADEMARK ISSUE!

Email received in response to our most recent story about a split in the Google action group, which could see an industry-wide approach to the issue fall at the first hurdle.

It read:

When is Travolution going to stick its neck on the line and support this group? I thought as the 'leading travel brand' for the online travel industry, you would want to get behind such a campaign.

We have had a few emails along these lines in recent weeks, from all sides of the argument.

The short(ish) answer to this is as follows: no, no and no.

Read all our coverage so far.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travel brands on YouTube - mixed results

Listen to anyone from the Googleplex these days at an event and they talk endlessly about the benefits to travel brands of using YouTube for branding.

A campaign extolling the virtues of New Zealand is typically the example given - and deservedly so.

The Pure New Zealand page has had over 90,000 views. One particular video has been seen nearly 1 million times!

The organisation has uploaded 40 videos to its channel, with the top 5 all attracting over 15,000 views.

But how have some other major travel brands fared since giving some time and effort to creating a presence on YouTube?

Expedia UK has its own channel page and has uploaded a huge number of videos (103 videos) in just a few months, but its top-performer - the too-good-to-be-true hotels signs effort we featured a few months back - has attracted just 2,100 views.

STA Travel UK also created its own page in August 2007, but has just two videos on show. The TribeUnwanted video has 1,100 views so far.

Biggles The Bear, the YouTube nom de plume for Cheapflights, has faired much better. The channel page has attracted nearly 3,000 views, but its most popular video - Where The Hell is Biggles?, a pastiche of the infamous Where The Hell is Matt? montage - has been watched nearly 29,000 times.

Anyway, all this playing around on YouTube has revealed Travolution's skydiving extravaganza (and, no, for the last time, it isn't me in the video) has been viewed more times than 101 of Expedia's efforts.

And here it is again...!



Our sister title, Travel Weekly, has a ship tour video of the Norwegian Gem, which has an impressive 6,300 views against. Three times as many as Expedia's best performer.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Troogle returns - in Lite format

According to an article in BusinessWeek in the US, Google is considering ramping up its travel services.

The article says "the goal of Google’s travel division - aside from tapping into the $90+ billion global travel ad and sales market - is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos".

This undoutbedly would be a sensible move for Google.

And, indeed, is the thinking of about as senior person in the global travel Googleplex, managing director for travel in the US, Rob Torres.

But, of course, Torres is quick to add the caveat most will be asking themselves:

It’s worth noting one thing that any future Google offering won’t have—airline fares or hotel bookings. Even Google is unwilling to try its hand at the part of the beleaguered industry’s business. The customer service investment is huge, explains Torres. Moreover, travel sites and airlines are some of Google’s largest advertisers.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: troogle businessweek