Every man and his dog has a map mash-up these days.
But there are few examples where the overall design of the page is taken into consideration.
So a thumbs up to Mr & Mrs Smith, which announced this week it has developed a route planning tool with Microsoft.
It's a decent enough piece of functionality but the way it fits in with the page is so much better than countless other mapping tools.
We wrote about the new personalised cruise functionality for the Thomas Cook website last week.
It is currently in development and isn't expected to be live until November or December this year.
Despite only a demo being shown to delegates last week at the IAB conference in London, we persuaded e-commerce director Russell Gould to send us a screen shot.
Not great quality, but you'll get a sense of what is going on.
[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.
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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.
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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.
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Kevin May, editor, Travolution
A reader emails the following:
Do you find it ironic that Ryanair is asking Microsoft to help "keep out" screen scrapers (who, one could argue, are price comparison and meta search sites) - on the same day that Microsoft announce they are buying a price comparison site in Europe. [Ciao.com]Indeed.
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
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
More details here, but ebookers - with its parent company Orbitz - has secured a deal to provide full online travel agency functionality on the MSN Travel channels in the UK and US respectively.
A few things spring to mind:
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
The latest Purple Pod is now available.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Just came across this post from the blogmeister Robert Scoble. Sorry for the delay.
It was written on the 2 May, before Microsoft backed away from its attempt to buy Yahoo!, and goes into some detail about how bored he is about a potential deal and why Microsoft is full of - for want of a better word - luddites, etc, etc.
Google gets a bit of a poke in the ribs, too.
He uses travel as a prime example, pointing to the Google Travel page. A poor directory page effort circa in terms of style to 1999.
He asks:
Does that page help? Not really. No video. No cool people telling you about interesting places. No personality. No branding. No interesting Web services.The big brand travel sites aren't any better, he continues.
I find that Google listens a lot more than Yahoo or Microsoft does. Google has left billions of dollars on the table that it will go after over the next year, if they are as smart as I think they are.It's a fascinating article and raises some of the fundamental questions about where Google, search, vertical search and travel search in particular may head next. Read it.
Google: take the money off the table — build great niche search sites around topics like travel, wine, parenting, housing, automobiles, etc. You have a year to do it before Microsoft can even START to figure out where you’re weak.
Would you want this man as your CEO? Microsoft supremo Steve Ballmer.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: microsoft yahoo steve ballmer
Extremely light on the blogging front recently as we're preparing for the Travolution Summit and Awards next week.
So, alas, we've not been able to follow-up on our Farecast story from earlier in the week with any sensible analysis.
Anyway, it turns out that rumours suggesting Expedia was the buyer were a bit wide of the mark and Microsoft is new proud owner of Farecast. Maybe someone mentioned it at an Expedia-Microsoft alumni party?
How about this for an understated announcement on the Farecast Blog:We’re excited to confirm that Farecast has been acquired by Microsoft! This acquisition creates tremendous opportunities for the Farecast team and our customers. We look forward to sharing more details in the weeks to come. On behalf of the Farecast team, thank you.
Perhaps rather sensibly, comments were not activated on the post.
The deal has, predictably, got the Silicon Valley types foaming/frothing at the mouth, with some earlier in the week excited enough to say any deal should be seen in the context of a Google-Expedia deal.
Our prediction on that: get over it. Always happy to proven wrong, of course.
The best coverage we've seen is on the Motley Fool, which suggests Farecast's fantastic prediction technology should be used by Microsoft to work out when it should bid more for Yahoo!.
Maybe Microsoft has simply just given up on Yahoo! and sees Farecast as the next best thing. Oops...
For some serious analysis of the Farecast deal, Musings typically has the best. Over to you, Mr Bainbridge.
Yen Lee on the UpTake Blog has some more.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: expedia farecast microsoft google
The Business Superbrands survey is out today and is grabbing plenty of coverage across the mainstream media.
The poll of 1,500 business professionals and a "council of senior business leaders" found Google at the top of a list of 500 companies.
No surprises there.
It beat off Microsoft, BP, BBC, GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls-Royce Group, Financial Times, British Airways, Fedex Express and Hertz in the top ten.
The brands are evaluated for their 'quality', 'reliability' and 'distinction'.
Roll back a week, however, and consumers had a different story to tell when it came to British Airways.
The Kaizo Advocacy Index - which measured online 'word-of-mouth' on news sites, blogs, forums and groups for five major UK airlines - found BA was not at all popular with consumers.
In fact the airline was found to be only marginally more popular than Ryanair! [Something to keep Willie Walsh awake at night]
Now this probably says something about the survey(s), consumer taste or business preferences - or all three, of course.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: british airways superbrand
Now this is what I call a great way to start the day.
Nick Carr, author of the Big Switch, gave the keynote address here this morning at SES. OK, it was a video recording from the US but it was that good it got a round of applause (including me) which felt a little strange!
I've never clapped a video before.
Still it was filmed specially for SES and it offered a perspective on the Microsoft Yahoo deal which makes sense.
His view is that computing and software is increasingly being used on the web with documents saved there as opposed to downloading the software to your PC.
Related to this is the trend for software providers becoming more and more like media companies offering their software (content) for free or cheap to consumers, relying on ad revenue for their profits.
So here's the rub - if this continues where does this leave Microsoft?
Could the giant have its carpet pulled from it?
They can't take that risk obviously. They need web properties, distribution networks and social sites. Hello Yahoo!.
The other gem from Nick was that this trend could produce a digital elite. Take Craigs List which sells more ads then many traditional, massive media concerns.
Employees? 20. Skype which now serves more customers then BT has only 200 employees compared to BT's and other telco's thousands.
And YouTube only had 60 employees when bought by Google for 1.6 billion.
The recent lay-offs from Yahoo! take on a slightly different light now.
Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude Group
Technorati tags: microsoft yahoo google skype youtube
Google's only response to Microsoft's hostile approach for rival portal/search engine Yahoo! comes via a official blog post from David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer.
If anyone thought a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! would be plain sailing... think again.
In fact, Google's comments are nothing short of hostile.
Drummond says:
Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies - and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.The gloves are off.
Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft - despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses - to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts.
Clearly the biggest story kicking about today concerns Microsoft's "audacious" (or so says the MediaGuardian, which loves the hyperbole of it all) bid for Yahoo!.
Microhoo or YaSoft? Both sound rubbish.
A letter to the Yahoo! board last night proposed a £22.4 billion takeover of the company.
The Silicon Valley blogs are going crazy with excitement. [Excellent coverage of a Microsoft conference call]
From a search point of view you can see why the Americans can hardly contain themselves.
Yahoo share coupled with Microsoft's is around 33% of the market (Comscore), against Google's 58%, meaning it would certainly have a decent challenger in the US if the two combined.
In the UK, however, it would be a different story. Google currently commands between a 75% and 80% share of the market, depending on which measurement you use.
Nevertheless it completely dominates the search market here.
From a travel perspective I would hazard a guess that a takeover would hardly send digital marketers skipping happily into balmy sunset.
Almost everyone we have talked to in the past year or so has spoken admirably of Panama (YSM's search platform) and Microsoft's AdCenter - "but without the volumes there is not much point".
Where this proposed takeover might make a difference is in the area of portals.
Yahoo has a sizeable travel portal (and there's always Kelkoo!). Microsoft has the Live network.
Search plays a part in the all this, but I wonder if the takeover is more of a way of reaching consumers with other services.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: yahoo microsoft google
The keynote speech yesterday to the ABTA Convention was - the boss of a leading UK bedbank told me after - "controversial, but something the industry needed to told".
This is the basic outline of my section of the address:
My co-presenter for the ABTA speech yesterday, Mel Carson of Microsoft, played a video clip of a demo from the Photosynth system.
Here it is again [as requested by a few delegates]
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: photosynth microsoft abta
...are not apparent in this picture from yesterday's ABTA Convention in Tenerife.
Pictured with your correspondent are Jeremy Vine (BBC broadcaster and moderator of this year's ABTA Convention) and Mel Carson (my co-presenter and Microsoft AdCenter community manager).
The picture was taken during a rather tense 45 minutes when the power failed across the South East part of the island, including the bizarre Magma Arte & Congresos venue. [More official pictures of the venue]
All went well, apparently. A nearly full room. Open Thread discussion about our presentation to follow.
Riding the Wave Podcast by us, filmed immediately after the session.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Seth Godin highlights how Hotmail doesn't make any money because users do not want to click on ads when they are checking their emails. Simple.
The same applies for Facebook.
Why would members want to visit the websites of advertisers on Facebook when all they are there to do is network with friends.
So in the midst of the Facebook frenzy, where many commentators have urged travel companies to embrace Facebook as a way of reaching highly engaged consumers, careful thought is needed.
Use groups, profiles, widgets - but avoid advertising on it.
Maybe...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: facebook seth godin
