If Travelmuse 'sucks' then there is probably not much hope for hundreds of others

A cracking row taking place in Silicon Valley where tech blogmeister Robert Scoble has slammed the start-ups performing at this year's DEMO conference in California.

Scoble says he visited the website of every one of the finalists and "boy, do they suck. Really, really suck".

Travelmuse is one of the sites under consideration at the event.

Now, let's be fair to Travelmuse for a moment. It's a pretty decent online travel agency. Has plenty of destination content, some handy trip planning functionality, flight, hotel, cruise, package, car hire search and booking engines, ties in some good 'inspiration' tools, and actually looks rather good and is easy to use.

In other words, Travelmuse is A Good Site.

But back to the title of this post, then:

What chances are there for countless other online travel businesses? Let's face it: there are hundreds of travel sites which probably don't come near the level of functionality and usablity of Travelmuse.

Luckily for them Scoble isn't a major investor in travel companies.

And thankfully for Travelmuse, it isn't called Tripmuse.com or something. It wouldn't want to be hit by the Curse of Trip.

UPDATE: Scoble wrote another post this morning 'Useful travel web sites', where he republished a list of suggestions his Twitter friends had put forward in response to a question for recommended sites. The usual suspects were all featured - Kayak, TripIt, Expedia, Mobissimo et al - and one other site: yes, step forward...Travelmuse, which nominated itself.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution


Technorati tags: demo scoble scobleizer travelmuse

Tips for pitching in stories - frustrating exchange

Fabulous post on Techcrunch UK written by Mike Butcher (disclosure of sorts: he was deputy editor of Media Week when I worked there) about the best methods to use when pitching in stories.

He outlines 15 ways to get him, as editor of Techcrunch UK, to feature Startup A or Startup B.

The tips range from being a "great contact" and being a friendly blogger to understanding when a story is actually a story and making the top people available for comment.

So much of this resonates with Travolution. Our guest blogger post the other day certainly stirred things up.

But this particular one made me laugh:

11. Understand who you are talking to:

I often get PR pitches from PR people and startups trying to sell me stories which have nothing to do with TechCrunch.

“So I have this great story about a wireless transmitter that can detect submarines from 300 miles!” “Er, yeah, but you know we don’t write about those on TechCrunch, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s a GREAT STORY!”. If you spent even 5 minutes reading TechCrunch you’d know this, but you’d be amazed how many people don’t. I hear from them. Every. Day.

Here is the rough outline of an exchange I had with someone on the phone yesterday:

Caller I've never spoken to before: 'Hi, how's tricks, did you get the press release I sent yesterday about a new tour operator in the North Indian region?' Over-familiarity is never a good start.

Me: 'Yes, I did thanks.'

Caller: 'Well, is it something Travolution will write about? I've been reading Travolution for a while now and think it is a great story for you. They are going to some amaaaaaazing and untouched parts of the region.'

Me: 'Right. As you well know, Travolution writes about the online travel sector and the machinations behind the scenes of companies using the web as a distribution channel, their business strategy and overall trends on the internet. We do not write about destinations.'

Caller: 'Okay. Well, just let me know if you need anything as they are in some amaaaaazing places and that part of India is incredible - the Himalayas are amaaaaaazing and we think it's going to be the HOT destination of 2009.'

Me: 'Yes, I'm sure it is - goodbye.'

Enough said...

  

Kevin May, editor, Travolution