Latest Episodes for this Channel
Thu April 03 2008
Originally posted on March 28, 2008. Flogging is not only a form of punishment but now also refers to a form of blogging known as “commercial bl...
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Originally posted on March 28, 2008. Flogging is not only a form of punishment but now also refers to a form of blogging known as “commercial blogging” or “fake blogging“.
Travelmole reported today that the EU has passed a law which makes it illegal for hotel (or other companies) to write false reviews on sites like TripAdvisor. The article further states that: "The
new law...
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Originally posted on March 28, 2008. Flogging is not only a form of punishment but now also refers to a form of blogging known as “commercial blogging” or “fake blogging“.
Travelmole reported today that the EU has passed a law which makes it illegal for hotel (or other companies) to write false reviews on sites like TripAdvisor. The article further states that: "The
new law includes two categories of unfair commercial practise - misleading practices and aggressive practices. Whether a practise is deemed unfair will be judged in light of the effect it has on the
average consumer’s consequent decision to purchase." flogging_med.jpgWhat surprises me most about this law is that it defies the whole reason for TripAdvisor’s growth and popularity. It
doesn’t really matter if hotels go in and write fake reviews about themselves or their competitors because the model is built on the basis that a single review has very little weight. The power
of review systems like TripAdvisor is in the number of reviews that a hotel receives and the statistical significance of those reviews and ratings. For example, a hotel that has 1000 reviews where
80% of the are negative is going to have to post 1600 fake positive reviews to make any kind of significant impact on their rating. I don’t know about you but what hotelier has the time or
money to write that many reviews and wouldn’t it make more sense to spend the money on improving their hotel? Overall, I can appreciate why the EU developed the law. Perhaps they should have
apply a punishment that fits the name. Take a look at some of Joe Buhler’s comments on the Travelmole article, he makes some very good points. Note: I’ll have to add
“Flogging” to my already bloated list of semi-useless blogging references.
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Thu April 03 2008
I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a sub...
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I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a subsequent rise in Expedia’s share price. For
the most part I’m not a big fan of rumours, but it did get me thinking about what such a beast would look like. In November of last year Tim Armstrong from Google presented at the PhoCusWright
Co...
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I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a subsequent rise in Expedia’s share price. For
the most part I’m not a big fan of rumours, but it did get me thinking about what such a beast would look like. In November of last year Tim Armstrong from Google presented at the PhoCusWright
Conference in Orlando and stated in no uncertain terms that Google has no interest in entering the travel space. So why, less than four months later, would that message have changed so dramatically.
Personally I don’t think it has, but since things move so quickly in this space, I guess you can never truly know. In either case, let’s just pretend that Google has bought Expedia and
they are now the same company. Since I posted my article titled “The Triumverate of Travel” , the landscape has changed a little bit. So, let’s examine first of all what Google
would be get if they bought Expedia Inc.: 1. Expedia.com (including North America, Europe, Asia and Corporate travel) Undoubtedly the largest OTA with immense global reach. * Expedia.co.uk *
Expedia.de * Expedia.fr * Expedia.it * Expedia.nl 2. Classic Vacations - Expedia’s high end travel group. www.classicvacations.com 2. Hotels.com - The largest hotel website and most prolific
hotel co-branded affiliate program in the World. The business unit also includes: * AllLuxuryHotels.com * Hoteldiscount.com * TravelNow.com * VacationSpot.com 3. Hotwire.com - Not huge, but still a
major player in the discount airfare and hotels market. 4. TripAdvisor.com - The largest, most prolific review and travel social network with over 2 million reviews and growing. 5. Elong.com - One of
China’s largest “Web Enhanced” travel services company. Online booking is still uncommon in China, so by web enhanced we really mean agent booking with a web front-end. Regardless
though, China represents a huge (2 Billion person) market with an ever expanding middle class with cash to burn and a desire to see life outside the confines of the great wall. So now that we have a
pretty good idea of what Google would be getting into if they bought Expedia, let’s take a look at the impact this would have on the online travel space. First of all, Google would probably
lose the other two players (Cendant and Sabre) to the other search engines. Why? Because I would assume that since Expedia is now owned by Google that there would be bias in the system towards
Expedia over the other major players. This may or may not be the case, but I would suspect that the perception in this case could have a strong effect on advertising budget allocation. The driving
force behind these decisions however is whether or not consumers would look elsewhere for travel deals if they suspected that Google was biased towards Expedia and Expedia brands. I would speculate
that since consumers really don’t know all that much about where the product is coming from now, that if Google were to purchase Expedia, they probably wouldn’t notice a difference or
really care as long as they were finding the products and services they want quickly and at less cost. One big plus I can see, from a technologist’s point of view, is that Expedia (and other
travel companies) could benefit from Google’s search technologies to make search and retrieving of travel product information more intuitive and easier to do perhaps using natural language.
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Fri March 28 2008
Continental Airlines is now testing the use of electronic boarding passes on mobile phones as part of a pilot project. According to the New York Times...
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Continental Airlines is now testing the use of electronic boarding passes on mobile phones as part of a pilot project. According to the New York Times, the technology being tested uses a two
dimensional barcode stored on a mobile phone which is scanned by a TSA (Transporation Safety Authority) agent and cross referenced with photo id. There is strong support for this technology because
the two dim...
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Continental Airlines is now testing the use of electronic boarding passes on mobile phones as part of a pilot project. According to the New York Times, the technology being tested uses a two
dimensional barcode stored on a mobile phone which is scanned by a TSA (Transporation Safety Authority) agent and cross referenced with photo id. There is strong support for this technology because
the two dimensional barcode uses a much higher level of encryption than the standard 1D barcodes (like UPC codes). The two dimensional barcodes can also store a much larger amount of data including
(but not confirmed) passport or other personally identifiable information that is displayed to the TSA agent once the barcode is scanned. So what does this mean for long tail suppliers? The
opportunity will exist for tour and activity providers to send confirmation for activities directly to a customer’s mobile device. This could mean much more support for just in time ticket
purchasing for destination type activity products, restaurant reservations, and attractions. The only drawback to using your mobile device as your boarding pass is that you better make sure your
battery has enough juice to last the entire trip. I love my phone, but I’m a big fan of hard-copy backups. Call me old school.
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Fri March 28 2008
I was commenting on some photos on Facebook when I noticed that a couple of my fellow blogging friends, including the Happy Hotelier and Chris Clarke,...
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I was commenting on some photos on Facebook when I noticed that a couple of my fellow blogging friends, including the Happy Hotelier and Chris Clarke, had added a new application called Jetsetter,
developed by VibeAgent. Although the interface is nothing spectacular and the profile candy is a little large for my liking, the application itself is very simple and fun. In their words… "Are
you...
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I was commenting on some photos on Facebook when I noticed that a couple of my fellow blogging friends, including the Happy Hotelier and Chris Clarke, had added a new application called Jetsetter,
developed by VibeAgent. Although the interface is nothing spectacular and the profile candy is a little large for my liking, the application itself is very simple and fun. In their words… "Are
you a Jetsetter? See how many miles you’ve traveled this year, and how you stack up against your friends! Let your friends know what trips you’re going on and see which of your friends
will be there when you are." Although I understand the basic concept of the application, the functionality is still a little bit limited. I did find the mileage calculation for the flights a useful
feature, in fact I used it to compare to my Aeroplan miles to make sure I was getting credit for the appropriate miles. Here are some things I’d like to see from the Jetsetter app: 1. A more
intuitive way to find people that are going on future trips. 2. A map feature that shows where my fleet is located in relation to me. Part of the reason why I’ve had to fly more than the rest
of my friends is because I live in Canada and everyone else lives in Europe. 3. A smaller profile badge. The current one is a little too big for my taste. I’ll tolerate it for now but not for
too much longer. 4. Being ranked is fun but what else is there? Is there more? All in all, it’s a fun little app with a lot of potential. You can add it by going visiting the Jetsetter App Page
at http://apps.facebook.com/jetsetter/.
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