Weapons of Much Distraction

Sponsors at travel industry conferences are forever giving away USB memory sticks - in fact, we have a grand total of ten gathering dust in the Travolution locker.

But, as the market saturates with industry conferences with these devices for storing data, Thinkgeek has found a rather more engaging use of the USB port for bored officeworkers: the USB Missile Launcher.

Watch as, one by one, three spring-loaded missiles arc 5 to 8 feet gracefully to your quarry. Giggle girlishly at the realistic sound effects with every launch.

Er, quite...

It strikes us (no pun intended) that conference sponsors in the travel industry would do well to explore rather more innovative, computer-hosted toys.

In fact, Gadgetspy has produced a list of the Most Pointless USB Gadgets. Our own favourite is the USB Slippers set.

Top five USB Gadgets for Travel conferences?

[UPDATE: The Flight International blog has also found a rather nifty, travel-related office tool - the indoor plane!]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: missile launcher weaponry USB

Announcing the Travolution Autumn Conference...

Following the success of the Travolution Summit in April, we are pleased to unveil this year's autumn conference.

Thursday 1 November 2007, Imagination Gallery, London.

Consumers live in a multi-channel world, communicating, researching, shopping and being entertained via a host of channels – online, text, video & TV programmes, print media etc – and to match the expectations of their consumers the travel industry is going multi-channel too.

The Travolution Autumn Conference combines the latest strategic thinking from some of the industry’s leading players with a choice of in-depth seminar sessions led by experienced multi-channel practitioners.

The programme will explore multi-channel issues and approaches in f core areas: Platforms – TV and mobile; Suppliers – hotels and airlines; Search; Social Networking and Travel Providers – traditional agents, OTAs and tour operators.

Confirmed speakers include:

David Soskin, chief executive, Cheapflights
Richard Firminger, regional sales director, Northern Europe, Yahoo!
Annie Wilson, business development director for Europe, Kayak
Ignacio Martos, chief executive, Opodo
Andrew Botterill, chief executive, Global Travel Group
Kristie Goshow, Jumeirah
Jonathan Wilson, senior account director, Red Bee Media

And many more to follow...

More details, booking instructions, agenda, etc.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution Summit--Can the mainstream market serve the new market?

Ian McCaig, chief executive of Lastminute.com, rounded off the Travolution Summit by highlighting the importance of social media to the future success and failure of online travel companies.

"I guarantee you that if you go to university campuses today the relevance of YouTube, Wayn.com, Facebook, etc. is not diminishing.

You need to think about how you can monetise this group and identify what their disposable income is and how you can get a piece of that," said McCaig.

But, he warned, "You must be a credible player. "The instant you stop being credible, you're dead. It's over."

What about serving the traditional market? What of those Baby Boomers with bucket loads of disposable cash and leisure time who don't book online?

Can travel providers service both traditional and new travel generations, or will they need to make a choice?

This is the challenge of the mass-market player.

"The key is choice. You need to think about where you will be positioned in the marketplace and where you believe you can win," said McCaig.

"Those with the deepest understanding of customers and, equally important, a focus on the areas of the market they serve, will form the successful vanguard of the online travel industry."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit--Second Life: Oiks, stoners & huge possibilities

Will Second Life impact the online travel market?

That is the question Ed Whiting, product and marketing director of Comtec, tried to answer during his recent tour of the fledgling virtural world-- an experience he shared much to the amusement of Travolution Summit delegates.

Known in Second Life as Ned Kidd, Whiting (a real world cycling enthusiast) biked his way around various islands (built by Dell), befriended a builder who helped him construct his Second Life operation, and went on a short break to Italy with Travolution publisher Simon Ferguson (aka Stepen Wolf Voss).

Among other lessons Whiting learned were that Second Life builders are just as annoying as real life ones; Italian avatars don't like English avatars; oiks abound; and marijuana is abundant (Like Brixton???).

What Whiting didn't learn is whether Second Life will in fact impact the online travel space and, if so, what will the impact be?

"Will Second Life help our business?...I'm not sure. But there are a lot of people out there so it's worth finding out."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Artificial intelligence coming to a computer near you

Anyone who has ever seen Terminator or iRobot will agree that the prospect of artificial intelligence can be quite scary.

But far from the pages of science fiction, artificial intelligence is actually already here...and it's getting smarter.

After delivering an extremely insightful presentation on the power of the Internet (dubbed the Fifth Estate), and its affect on companies' R&D and risk assessment, Andrew Bradford, head of operational planning at AOL, suggested that next significant shift of power (the Sixth Estate) may be held by smart computers.

"Imagine what will happen if someone creates a widget to firewall brands," Bradford pondered.

Taking that concept a step further, one could imagine a smart computer which actually thinks for users and cherry picks brand information based on individual consumers' purchasing and search behaviour.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolutuion Summit-Wayn, meet Mr White

Wayn.com is to offer its services on a white label basis to travel providers, according to the company's co-founder Peter Ward.

(Expect he'll be getting just a teenie bit of attention the rest of the day.)

But that's not all that's new with Wayn.

Ward said the site is also doing away with it's £1.99, 12-month subscription service, so interaction will be free, as well as content.

There will likely be a fee for high level of customisation and access to premium content.

Presumably, the premium for new services and costs of its white labelling will replace a chunk of the revenues Wayn currently receives from its subscriber base.

Wayn is also planning to roll out a Wayn.com branded MasterCard this year.

You could almost see the campaign..."There are some friends you can't buy, for everything else..."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Wayn for Prime Minister

Eight million member strong social networking site Wayn.com seems to be expanding on a geopolitical scale.

Peter Ward, co-founder of Wayn, says the recent success of its “Make a Difference” campaign to end dolphin slaughter in Japan has had a direct impact on the company’s future strategy.


Wayn, in conjunction with its marine charity partner, secured thousands of signatures to the campaign and is subsequently making a presentation to the Japanese embassy in July.

“This experience had impacted our whole strategy. We now realise that we can help our members and serve their specific needs and interests.”

With a growth rate of 10,000 members per day, that makes Wayn one hell of a lobbying force.

Hello Number 10?????

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Today hotels, tomorrow the world

TripAdvisor is set to take over the world…well, sort of.

John Bray, senior strategist from US-based technology research firm PhoCusWright, challenged the Travolution Summit audience to predict if TripAdvisor can do in other sectors of the travel industry (eg destinations) what it has done for hotels…or, if newcomers like Wayn.com will lead the next generation user-review space.

Apparently, TripAdvisor will retain its lead, according to roughly 80% of delegates (and no, they’re not all from Expedia).

Hmmm...

Surely Peter Ward, the founder of Wayn, will have something to say about that when he takes the stage later today.

Stay tuned...

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Personalisation not a priority for Ebookers

Alan Josephs, managing director of Ebookers.com told Travolution Summit delegates that the online world is a lot like the old anecdote about two friends running from a bear in the forest:

You don’t need to run faster than the bear…you need to run faster than your friend.

Ouch!

(And here I thought Josephs was such a nice guy.)

“So, which company is Ebookers outrunning then?” asked Travolution’s editor Kevin May.

“We’re running very, very fast,” is about all Josephs would say (quite understandably, given their rather delicate current circumstances).

What Josephs would reveal is that Ebookers’ immediate strategy is about getting the most fundamental functions right.

“I disagree that advanced personalisation will move the needle for online travel agents in next couple of years,” Josephs told delegates.

The fact is that great deals still move the needle faster than great content and advanced capabilities like high-level personalisation don’t come in the top 50 on Ebookers’ to-do list, said Josephs.

“The reality is that we have a long way to go to get to something that advanced. It’s more about easily showing them the price for flexible dates and giving them a map to see their inside of their hotel, how close the beach is, etc.

“It sound like simple stuff, but it’s a long list of simple stuff and I think this is where the focus needs to be.”

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-What’s cooler than discovering kryptonite?

When I awoke this morning to the news that scientists had actually found kryptonite (I always knew it was real), I really thought it was bad timing for the Travolution Summit.

I mean, despite all the interesting topics on the conference agenda, surely none of them could be as interesting as the discovery of kryptonite, right?

Thankfully, I was wrong. The Summit has only just begun and already I have heard about one of the coolest pieces of technology to come along for a long time.

That is the Photosynth technology which takes photos and stitches them together, allowing people to search for information about photos in a search engine without having to use any words.

The technology also stitches together photos together that are taken from different angles so you can zoom in and out and see where the pictures were taken in relation to one another.

Technology development is also underway to allow people to build their own “synths” and share with friends, Mel Carson, adCenter’s community manager, Microsoft Europe, told Travolution delegates.

The brains behind Photosynth envisage a day when you spark up your laptop and there’s a picture of the world, and hovering over the world are all the pictures people have taken. You can then “dive in” and get satellite and get 3D imagery and view your photos with everyone else’s around the globe.

New mobile technology will complement the Photosynth wizardry. “One day you can walk out of your house, zoom down the street and see how close the nearest Starbucks is,” said Carson.

Of course, this technology presents a world of opportunity for advertisers.

The big question posed by Carson: Will this technology enhance the experience for online travel industry?

Travolution delegates’ answer….99.9% yes!

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution