We desperately need a new word for 'Trip' [Tripwolf]

So after two months of private beta testing (we had access here), Tripwolf has finally come out of the shadows to the wide - and scary - world of the discerning traveller.

The buzz surrounding the project will now need to be translated into usage and, most importantly, engagement.

There's no point in having a travel social guide if no-one gets involved in it.

So the public version has a few nifty tools:

• A printable PDF guide which can be created by dragging and dropping content into a widget.
• Content brought in automatically from Flickr, Wikipedia and Youtube.
• Facebook integration.

In addition, the start-up, which has attracted investment dollars (around $1.2 million) from i5invest, has pulled off a coup of sorts by persuading MairDumont to throw all its content into the site - for free.

MairDumont is "Europe’s largest publisher of travel guides" and produces titles under the Baedeker, Dumont and Marco Polo brands.

So while the site is pretty impressive on the whole, TechCrunch raises an interesting point when it says:

And while it features a fairly comprehensive listing of interesting locales, it may have a hard time differentiating itself from countless other travel sites - there doesn’t seem to be anything too unique going on here.

The name would've been a good place to start:

Tripmate, Tripwiser, Tripbase, Tripup, Tripology, Trippert, blah, blah, blah. After Tripadvisor, few stick in the memory. This is not a good thing...

Anyway, let's see how they get on.

They have a fancy video to demonstrate how some of the bits work:



[NB: I was interviewed for the Tripwolf blog a few weeks back]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: facebook tripwolf

People love using Wikipedia for information about travel companies

Wikipedia has created a tool which reveals the number of searches carried out for any keyword.

It's interesting in the context of the sheer number of times people are looking for information on individual travel companies.

Obviously one thing to ponder here is the extent to which consumers (let us assume it's primarily consumers for now) will go to learn more about a company.

Is this a question of uncertainty on the part of potential customers? Or the web just showing that if information is there, people will want to find it.

Anyway, here is a sample showing the number of Wikipedia searches in February 2008 for various travel related companies.

British Airways - 230,694
Eurostar - 23,980
Expedia - 21,323
Orbitz - 10,627
Virgin Atlantic - 10,194
Thomas Cook - 8,742
Lastminute.com - 1,273
Ebookers - 968
Opodo - 834
Kuoni - 24

One remarkable thing about this is that Google was searched 334,841 times - just 100,000 more than BA.

And now you can play around with the tool at the heart's content.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat-tip: Travelvine [side project of Darren Cronian of Travel-Rants] for flagging this up.

Technorati tags: wikipedia wikitravel wiki encyclopedia

Twelve Days of Christmas 2.0

[With thanks to Les Explorers]

On the first day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
A tip to expand my business globally

On the second day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the third day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the seventh day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the eighth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Nine ladies blogging,
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the tenth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Ten lords IM'ng,
Nine ladies blogging,
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Eleven podcasters podcasting,
Ten lords IM'ng,
Nine ladies blogging,
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Twelve Stumblers stumbling,
Eleven podcasters podcasting,
Ten lords IM'ng,
Nine ladies blogging,
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

Merry Christmas to you all...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Sneaky editors

Does this little revelation surprise anyone at all?

No, thought not...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Wikipedia saves the Heathrow Express

The UK's weekly Advertising Standards Authority report of adjudictions often throws up a few gems.

An internet ad for the Heathrow Express almost got itself into hot water when somebody questioned the claim: "From the train that gets you from Central London to Heathrow Airport in 15 minutes, every 15 minutes."

The complainant argued that London Paddington, where the service starts its journey westwards, is not actually in Central London.

The ASA, in its report, threw out the complaint after Heathrow Express representatives RPM3 defended the ad with material from Wikipedia and "several travel and tourism websites" which indicated that Paddington is, after all, in Central London.

"We noted all these stations, including Paddington, were in Zone One of the London transport system and were served by London Underground and buses.

"We considered that readers of the ad, whose final destination was a location in central London, would expect the last leg of their journey to involve some additional travel by one of these means of transport.

"We concluded that readers were unlikely to be material misled by the claim."

Very interesting that online sources are becoming reputable reference points for long-in-the-tooth regulators such as the ASA.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: heathrow express advertising train marketing

Howzat! Soskin and Burge have a blog

The Cheapflights chaps seem to be featuring on the Travolution blog quite a lot recently.

[What Happens When David Soskin and Co Want to Invest In Your Start-up]

They must be pleased as our Technorati ranking increased a notch last night when David Soskin and Hugo Burge's blog started linking to us.

The Howzat Media Blog is updated reasonably often and contains the ramblings of both David and Hugo with both their Cheapflights and Howzat hats on. [Howzat is the angel fund they created earlier this year to invest in the likes of WAYN.com and TrustedPlaces.com]

Interestingly, for a highly critical view of what appears to be some odd PR activity at Cheapflights with regards to its involvement with Wikipedia, go to Alex Bainbridge's Musings on Travel E-Commerce blog.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: cheap flights angel funds trustedplaces

US senator aims to ban social networking

More distressing news from America’s Republican leadership appeared this morning.

Apparently, Alaskan Republican Senator Ted Stevens (the same genius who reportedly described the Internet as a “series of tubes” ) has introduced a bill which seeks to ban access to Wikipedia and social networking sites from schools and libraries.

An article in Computerworld reported that Stevens, last month, introduced a bill, which, among other things, would require that any school or library that gets federal Internet subsidies would have to block access to interactive websites, including social networking sites, and possibly blogs as well.

The article reported that the definition of those sites in the bill is so vague that it could include sites such as Wikipedia and would almost certainly ban MySpace.

The bill, entitled Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, is similar to the Deleting Online Predators Act, which passed the House of Representatives last year, but failed to clear the Senate.

The intention of both proposed laws is to protect minors against online predators.

Noble as that intention may be, banning any educational materials—be they online or not—opens a Pandora’s Box that we would be wise to leave sealed.

Stevens’ rhetoric is disturbingly similar to another Republican Senator who represented the citizens of Wisconsin in the 1950s.

“McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled.”

Many Americans today who read that quote from McCarthy wince with disgust.

Let’s hope there are enough of those people sitting in the US Congress.

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Wikipedia guru and search

The BBC News website brought an interesting story to the masses a few days ago, concerning the online reference library Wikipedia and its potential move into the world of search.

Read the story here.

In short, Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has turned his attention to producing an engine that has users determining search results, rather than the computer algorithms so beloved by the likes of Google.

Wales is quoted as saying the search model is “broken”, because the engines lack freedom, community, accountability and transparency.

The Search Wikia project will be run by the Wikia Inc team and, the BBC says, is currently in a very early development phase with the hiring of people and purchase of hardware to get it off the ground.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Person of the Year is...

...You - according to Time Magazine.

This is actually quite a nice touch for a magazine that normally recognises the achievements of politicians, philanthropists, intellectuals, and businesspeople in its infamous end-of-year front page.

The cover star this year has been chosen to acknowledge the role of everyday computer users in defining the new age of the internet and media through user-generated content and involvement with sites like MySpace, YouTube, Bebo and Wikipedia.

Read the full article.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

I'm forever blowing - dot-com - bubbles

Some interesting titter-tatter on the web in recent weeks about the size of the online travel industry and whether there are too many start-ups.

The theme pretty much goes like this: there is a bubble growing and at some point it may well burst, splattering unfortunate travel companies everywhere.

Travolution’s head is full of ten years of online travel at the moment, but this just seems like a bit of a flashback to 2000.

Katie Fehrenbacher, writing on the technology blog, GigaOM, says: “Every week we get news of online travel companies raising money, adding social and community features, and trying to diversify their sites in a variety of ways. Online travel is a relatively low capital business, a lot of investors and startups figure: why not try it out!”

But she asks whether “geo-political turmoil”, citing the recent alleged terrorist plots in the UK, will have a potentially fatal impact on the growing bubble.

Most industry figures point to the continued and phenomenal rise of online travel as an indicator that there is plenty of room left for start-ups, new ideas – and, ultimately, growth.

Chris Lake from E-Consultancy adds a rather telling comment on Fehrenbacker’s post.

“You could have a million travel start-ups and it still wouldn’t be a bubble,” he writes. “A bubble isn’t driven by start-ups but by smart/idiot financiers in VC [venture capital] firms and investment banks.”

As he points out: the term "bubble", according to Wikipedia, is a concept often fuelled by speculation. "I think we all need to quit talking about the Second Tech Bubble," he adds.

So why are people talking about bubbles again?

Despite the growth - are there elements in the industry getting nervous once more?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Lessons to be learned from Wikis

Rather humorous – for those interested in politics – developments in the Web 2.0 arena today following the recent launch of a environmental Wiki by the UK government.

It is relevant to the travel industry as a few senior figures have privately expressed an interest in developing some kind of wiki for their own websites, so consumers can create and edit content themselves and share with other users.

The wiki, launched by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, has been developed to allow UK residents to discuss environmental issues in the UK, in the form of a wiki.

Of course it is nice if it works, but the problem with wikis is one of sabotage.

Perhaps sabotage is the wrong word: what governments and companies are terrified of are consumers adding their own views that may not entirely match up with either the corporate image or a particular policy.

Within hours of a number of rather critical comments elsewhere on the internet, some enterprising users had already made their views known.

[Click on the image and note the, erm, message at the bottom of the page]

Whoops.

Needless to say, within minutes of it appearing, Defra webmasters removed it.

Let this be a lesson to travel companies toying with the idea of a wiki!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

UPDATE: Defra, unsurprisingly, has closed down the editing functionality. For a blow-by-blow account of how the day developed, as a deluge of insults against the government and the concept itself took over, visit the mischievous Guido Fawkes blog.

UPDATE II: Or here, to see how "vandalised" the wiki became before Defra pulled out all the comments.