Google at a Crossroads with Wave Technology
We stared writing these blogs on technology as a journey into the crossroads of marketing and communications. For some time we have seen that the world is at a breakthrough point in transformation. Technology and is application are leaping forward almost at the speed of thought. We wrote about the crossroads for search, advertising, marketing, destination marketing, travel distribution and the Internet.
In our blog newweb, we noted that there was a critical mass of technology and more importantly a critical mass of knowledge about technology and how to build on it. It’s the critical mass of knowledge that is exciting. Knowledge is what will drive the success of Google wave. It is interesting to see that Google recognises this. By demonstrating Google Wave to applications developers and inviting them to be creative, Google is hoping to accelerate the evolution of Google Wave technology.
Many believe Google Wave (and the Wave Protocol), already indicates the end of the email era wave2replaceemail. But it is more! Have we finally reached the point where the entire premise of the computer business, the operating systems, is at a Crossroads? Well Goggle would like to think so and Microsoft would prefer not to.
What is certain is that the Internet is becoming a full platform for computing in a way that the PC was. The next step forward is collaborative working, and networking computers. The possibilities can hardly be imagined. Google wave is an advanced set of; protocols, robots web services and applications for networking. But its success as a platform will depend on the applications and our knowledge of how to use it effectively.
Google wave resources
Easy link to this blog http://tr.im/waveblog
AXSES short definition - http://tr.im/wavedefined
A more technical definition http://tr.im/wavetechnology
Google wave Demo in small chucks - http://tr.im/bytesizewave
or - u can at 80 min video http://wave.google.com
Questions and Answers http://tr.im/waveFAQ
How the wave works – very technical - http://tr.im/howdoeswavework
Will wave replace email - http://tr.im/wave2replaceemail
Related ideas on technology
The Next web - linked data: by Tim Berners
Email and Google Friends Connect
Social Media For Tourism & Travel marketing
Keep up with Technology for travel and tourism http://axses.com/travelwatchnews.cfm
Monday, 15 June 2009
Saturday, 6 June 2009
HouseHolidays
We have been running travel portals for over 12 years now. In some of our channels I find that very best value is often overlooked. Travelers have pretty fixed ideas about what to look for. For instance they will insist on being on the beach - but across the road we often have far better hotels; offering better value and sometimes a far more comfortable and elegant setting.
House rentals is another area that tends to get passed over. There is a passionate following for villas but I am still trying to figure what a villa really is. We have villas that are really apartments or condos, and that to me is wrong. To me, a villa has to have a private front door - not an hallway and elevator. So really a villa is some sort of house. In Roman days it was a upper class country house and through the middle ages it was associated with luxury. wikipedia.org suggest that today a villa refers to a specific type of detached suburban dwelling. I don't think that holds. Settlers Beach Villa complex in Barbados is not detached but it is clearly a Villa Resort of the highest standard and on a perfect beach.
Now I know that holidays are a chance to get away and one likes to go to a hotel where everything is catered for - But golly gee, the Villa-Home complex across the road has better prices, full maid service, a cook you can hire, a pool, a fantastic view and its private - spacious - spotlessly clean with a helpful and friendly family management and staff. Its a whole house with washer, dryer, stove, microwave, a full stand up fridge, iron and board, 3 rooms - kitchen, patio and a garden with fruit trees you are invited to pick from! Why are so many people ignoring houses and settling for a Room. A house is so much more that a room - why settle for less!
I think the holiday home resort vacation is undervalued. If you don't want to cook - there are many restaurants that offer more variety. But part of a real holidays is exploring - shopping - going to the market and buying your fresh fish and local vegetables - experimenting and sampling another culture. Lets hear it for Island house rentals and holiday home living!
An example i like is http://poinsettiaapartments.com. Its a family run complex of 7 villa style homes/apartments, tastefully furnished, fully equipped and on a hill overlooking a lovely bay with a working marina. Its not on the beach and you need a car to get around, but if you have a car its a perfect spot for the more discerning traveler who prefers not to be one of a crowd and have their own space.
Check out the latest webpage dedicated to Island House Holidays in St. Lucia - http://island-houses-for-rent.com - a http://bookingsstlucia.com initiative. Soon to be a Caribbean service - if you would like to participate please contact us.
House rentals is another area that tends to get passed over. There is a passionate following for villas but I am still trying to figure what a villa really is. We have villas that are really apartments or condos, and that to me is wrong. To me, a villa has to have a private front door - not an hallway and elevator. So really a villa is some sort of house. In Roman days it was a upper class country house and through the middle ages it was associated with luxury. wikipedia.org suggest that today a villa refers to a specific type of detached suburban dwelling. I don't think that holds. Settlers Beach Villa complex in Barbados is not detached but it is clearly a Villa Resort of the highest standard and on a perfect beach.
Now I know that holidays are a chance to get away and one likes to go to a hotel where everything is catered for - But golly gee, the Villa-Home complex across the road has better prices, full maid service, a cook you can hire, a pool, a fantastic view and its private - spacious - spotlessly clean with a helpful and friendly family management and staff. Its a whole house with washer, dryer, stove, microwave, a full stand up fridge, iron and board, 3 rooms - kitchen, patio and a garden with fruit trees you are invited to pick from! Why are so many people ignoring houses and settling for a Room. A house is so much more that a room - why settle for less!
I think the holiday home resort vacation is undervalued. If you don't want to cook - there are many restaurants that offer more variety. But part of a real holidays is exploring - shopping - going to the market and buying your fresh fish and local vegetables - experimenting and sampling another culture. Lets hear it for Island house rentals and holiday home living!
An example i like is http://poinsettiaapartments.com. Its a family run complex of 7 villa style homes/apartments, tastefully furnished, fully equipped and on a hill overlooking a lovely bay with a working marina. Its not on the beach and you need a car to get around, but if you have a car its a perfect spot for the more discerning traveler who prefers not to be one of a crowd and have their own space.
Check out the latest webpage dedicated to Island House Holidays in St. Lucia - http://island-houses-for-rent.com - a http://bookingsstlucia.com initiative. Soon to be a Caribbean service - if you would like to participate please contact us.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
How to use Facebook for tourism and travel marketing
A frank discussion of how Facebook operates and what its terms and condition imply. The article illustrates how Facebook is positioned relative to search engines and what may be in store!. It illustrates how to use FaceBook to boost your position on the search engines and drive more travelers to your website. How to use Facebook pages, discussions, groups and events for tourism and travel marketing. There are strategic Tips on how Facebook can help you reach out to new social groups and market your hotel, activity or tourism destination.
Links to the best social media marketing resources and technology on the net.
http://arcres.com/facebook-travel-marketing.cfm
A frank discussion of how Facebook operates and what its terms and condition imply. The article illustrates how Facebook is positioned relative to search engines and what may be in store!. It illustrates how to use FaceBook to boost your position on the search engines and drive more travelers to your website. How to use Facebook pages, discussions, groups and events for tourism and travel marketing. There are strategic Tips on how Facebook can help you reach out to new social groups and market your hotel, activity or tourism destination.
Links to the best social media marketing resources and technology on the net.
http://arcres.com/facebook-travel-marketing.cfm
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
SocialMedia4TravelMarketing
How to market travel on social media
Who is using which social media - how is the traveler using social media, which social media site is best for travel marketing.
This blog/web page offers a simple explanation with easy to understand detail. Social media clients have been analyzed in depth. Patricia Brusha of hospitality.net talks about 5 types of social media users - what they like and what social sites they might frequent - she adds marketing implications and lots of good advice for the travel marketer.
The blog/page summaries this dialogue with a simple table chart. In addition it offers a table of the leading social media channels for travel - with a layman's explanation of what they are and how they can apply. The page is full of examples and links to useful tool and resources for hotels, tourism operators and destination marketers.
The page is a social media resource of AXSES.
AXSES is a travel marketing and applications developer; building tools for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators) to market and manage their travel business. AXSES recently launched a Bookings engine and tourism marketing & e-commerce application for Facebook.
Who is using which social media - how is the traveler using social media, which social media site is best for travel marketing.
This blog/web page offers a simple explanation with easy to understand detail. Social media clients have been analyzed in depth. Patricia Brusha of hospitality.net talks about 5 types of social media users - what they like and what social sites they might frequent - she adds marketing implications and lots of good advice for the travel marketer.
The blog/page summaries this dialogue with a simple table chart. In addition it offers a table of the leading social media channels for travel - with a layman's explanation of what they are and how they can apply. The page is full of examples and links to useful tool and resources for hotels, tourism operators and destination marketers.
The page is a social media resource of AXSES.
AXSES is a travel marketing and applications developer; building tools for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators) to market and manage their travel business. AXSES recently launched a Bookings engine and tourism marketing & e-commerce application for Facebook.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
TravelMarketing
Travel Marketing Tools for Travel Suppliers
(hotels & tourism operators)
Marketing tools for travel marketing and management range from a simple booking engine to managing content on multinational sites and on numerous Internet travel portals and marketing channels. They also include property management systems relating to managing inventory and reservations.
To optimize an Internet marketing campaign, hotels and tourism operators need to deploy multiple strategies such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, Brand advertising (Impression), direct e-mail marketing (such as iContact) and a spectrum of e-commerce and rates management across channels such as Global Distribution (GDS), Internet Distribution Systems (IDS), Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter etc), Affiliate Programs, Travel Agents and Tour Operators.
Managing allocation in all channels has become a major problem for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators).It is so complex that many hotels and tourism operators opt out and prefer to contract their entire inventory with prime wholesalers and distributors.
The opt-out strategy is a quick fix but it is not sustainable in the new order. All too often these dependencies result in huge loss of market when things go wrong. A hotel I know lost its entire distribution when its sole contractor asked for conditions it could not meet. They took their business elsewhere and bookings of 100 rooms per night were gone. It is imperative that hotels and tourism operators build a balanced strategy and take more control of their own brand and marketing.
(hotels & tourism operators)
Marketing tools for travel marketing and management range from a simple booking engine to managing content on multinational sites and on numerous Internet travel portals and marketing channels. They also include property management systems relating to managing inventory and reservations.
To optimize an Internet marketing campaign, hotels and tourism operators need to deploy multiple strategies such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, Brand advertising (Impression), direct e-mail marketing (such as iContact) and a spectrum of e-commerce and rates management across channels such as Global Distribution (GDS), Internet Distribution Systems (IDS), Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter etc), Affiliate Programs, Travel Agents and Tour Operators.
Managing allocation in all channels has become a major problem for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators).It is so complex that many hotels and tourism operators opt out and prefer to contract their entire inventory with prime wholesalers and distributors.
The opt-out strategy is a quick fix but it is not sustainable in the new order. All too often these dependencies result in huge loss of market when things go wrong. A hotel I know lost its entire distribution when its sole contractor asked for conditions it could not meet. They took their business elsewhere and bookings of 100 rooms per night were gone. It is imperative that hotels and tourism operators build a balanced strategy and take more control of their own brand and marketing.
A wide array of tools, technology and marketing options exists for tourism operators. Channel management systems such as EZYield, rates management with RateGain, Global Distribution via many GDS integration companies and hundreds of Internet Distribution Systems (IDS) like Travelocity as well a thousand Destination Travel Portals and Travel Guides.
At AXSES, we have developed a marketing suite for small and mid-sized hotels and tourism operators. This was built on our travel booking engine arcRes Bookings-Expert.com. The Bookings Engine has been vastly expanded to do much more and it is now a Travel Marketing Suite; an e-commerce platform that works for Social Media and conventional travel channels. See http://www.arcres.com/ecommerce-and-travel-marketing suites
Many hotels have opted to jump on the GDS bandwagon and mistakenly concluded that they are now well represented on thousands of IDS channels such as Travelocity. Wishful thinking! It was true at one time but IDS are opting for direct contracts with hotels – Expedia has signed up nearly 100,000 hotels to its Expedia Special Rates (ESP) program and GDS content is far down the line in priority. That is unfortunate for the hotels as they must now manage Expedia, Travelocity and all the major distribution contracts that they choose.
Optimising distribution channels requires diligence. To be on the top of the IDS ‘by price’ list you have to offer the best rate. But it is not always desirable to be at the very top! You need to be high on the list for hotels in your own class and offer a value added service rather that the best price. That way your ROI and Brand is protected. There are e-commerce companies and consultants that specialize in running IDS campaigns. They arrange the contracts and manage them for you.
The travel industry is working to integrate the marketing channels and you can purchase channel management software. Generally this software is not easy to use and is too expensive for a small hotel. An industry standard that would ease the management of channels is not imminent.
The GDS representative companies who have built Central Reservation Systems (CRS) that interface hotels to the GDS systems ( Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport and Pegasus) >, are also building systems to help hotels manage many IDS channels (Expedia etc) from the same CRS. For example, Genares has integrated their CRS with Expedia/TravelWeb (Expedia Quick Connect). This allows hotels to manage Expedia and TravelWeb rates and allocation using the Genares CRS and saves having to learn another online system. The cost is $4US per booking. For Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline and others the fee is $4 plus the GDS fees. The IDS will generally require a minimum of 25% discount from your rack rate. Using the GDS as a channel manager thus will cost anywhere from $4 to $10 per booking in addition to the channel cost (25% minimum). It’s not a lot if you consider the time it takes to learn all the different systems.
arcRes Travel Booking for Facebook (arcResBookings) is the first-of-its-kind travel bookings application. It allows any hotel to load rates, property information, room descriptions, photo and rates directly from arcRes into Facebook and manage it from arcRes. It is a huge time saver and makes managing Facebook very easy. Both the bookings engine and quotation system are embedded in Facebook, so that guests can easily book directly with the property or tourism operator, or get an immediate quote. See Facebook Travel Bookings (Live example)
ArcResBooking.com for Facebook is a part of the arcRes Marketing Suites, a comprehensive e-commerce platform for travel. It is currently the easiest GDS setup in the industry. Contracts are signed online, and the hotel information, rates and seasons are all loaded directly from information already in arcRes.
As more and better tools for travel marketing become available, the role of the hotel marketer is becoming more technology driven. Hotels need to invest in hiring the right people and training staff to understand and be comfortable with technology. It cannot be avoided! It is essential to success in the long term.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
NewOrder
The new order of the web
The web is becoming a platform for participation rather than a medium for delivery. It is a paradigm shift in thinking, communications, connection, engagement and expression. It seems to have a life of its own as it morphs into a new order changing how we work, engage and communicate.
The first generation of the Internet was about delivering information. In that arena a cohesive focus became how to organize and search for information. Search became the driving force of the Internet. Soon web applications expanded to include information processing, with applications like e-commerce and travel bookings. Later came expert system where smart processes analysed behavior and delivered tailored results (see htp://RealHolidays.com). Information became packaged with process to create knowledge services.
I wrote some time ago about ‘search at a crossroads’. That crossroads is here now. Searching is no longer just about finding content. It is about information, its source and its relationship to your own personal network. It is about knowledge.
The new crossroads is the evolution of the Internet. Unlike the previous incarnations it is not here by grand design but by evolution itself. The web has morphed into a huge ‘small world network’, connecting services, applications, people, places, ideas and knowledge in unforeseen ways. Adam Smith once spoke about “The invisible hand that guides the market.” The Internet’s invisible hand is evolution, not the balance of demand and supply.
Peter Hershberg managing partner of Reprise Media, points out that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all started out with simple objectives and have evolved to something much more:
“YouTube started as a service that allowed people to post videos but has since become the de facto place people turn to when they want to find video content on any subject imaginable. Twitter started as a way to issue personal status updates to your friends, but is morphing into a search engine that allows you to tap into the ‘now’ - what's going on now? What's the groundswell of sentiment around a topic? Facebook began as a way to see more information about people you were going to school with. Now it's become a way for friends to share interests by becoming fans of brands and lifestyles and posting articles, opinions and information”.
This evolution has created a network, never conceived and still not defined. It is a work in progress. But it is clear that form, function, process and context have changed and all parts are merging almost at the speed of thought.
Web design and marketing, once about ensuring that people could find your website, is now also about your website finding people. It’s about reaching out to people where they already are, i.e., participating in a personal social network. It’s about adding value by interacting with these networks of people in a meaningful way.
There are over 400,000 independent developers building Facebook applications to harness this. One is Oodle who helped Facebook with their marketplace classified ads application. I used it recently to list my house for rent and within a week I could have rented it twice.
In another example – I used a knowledge service, to find professional help we needed. It was a database of Internet professions classified by skills and experience. There are users’ reviews and ratings of services and skills to help you select the right person or team. But I wanted to know more about the person behind the professional. The system did not help me with that, so I turned to Facebook and Linkedin to see who their friends were and what they liked. I don’t think Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, ever thought of that use originally. We still don’t know how it might be used in the future.
At AXSES, we have built our arcRes.com travel platform into a Facebook application. It allows arcRes users to publish specials as well as rates and web content to Facebook. All this information on FaceBook as well as the ability to get holiday quotes and to book, is managed from the arcRes admin system which also manages information on the user’s website and a network of other marketing channels. Facebook is a different type of channel – one where meaningful participation and shared knowledge is the driving force.
Knowledge is an evolutionary force. It evolves personally and socially at community, global and spiritual levels. When Ford built the first car in America, German engineers were separately developing a similar invention. The world of knowledge evolves as we do. Along with it the knowledge highway, media, publishing, communications and marketing are changing.
see the man who developed the web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) talk about this http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/484
Our resources of who uses what and how on Social Media see
http://arcres.com/Social-media-travel-marketing.cfm
Jeff Besos (Amazon) a really fun and very useful analogy of the internet
The web is becoming a platform for participation rather than a medium for delivery. It is a paradigm shift in thinking, communications, connection, engagement and expression. It seems to have a life of its own as it morphs into a new order changing how we work, engage and communicate.
The first generation of the Internet was about delivering information. In that arena a cohesive focus became how to organize and search for information. Search became the driving force of the Internet. Soon web applications expanded to include information processing, with applications like e-commerce and travel bookings. Later came expert system where smart processes analysed behavior and delivered tailored results (see htp://RealHolidays.com). Information became packaged with process to create knowledge services.
I wrote some time ago about ‘search at a crossroads’. That crossroads is here now. Searching is no longer just about finding content. It is about information, its source and its relationship to your own personal network. It is about knowledge.
The new crossroads is the evolution of the Internet. Unlike the previous incarnations it is not here by grand design but by evolution itself. The web has morphed into a huge ‘small world network’, connecting services, applications, people, places, ideas and knowledge in unforeseen ways. Adam Smith once spoke about “The invisible hand that guides the market.” The Internet’s invisible hand is evolution, not the balance of demand and supply.
Peter Hershberg managing partner of Reprise Media, points out that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all started out with simple objectives and have evolved to something much more:
“YouTube started as a service that allowed people to post videos but has since become the de facto place people turn to when they want to find video content on any subject imaginable. Twitter started as a way to issue personal status updates to your friends, but is morphing into a search engine that allows you to tap into the ‘now’ - what's going on now? What's the groundswell of sentiment around a topic? Facebook began as a way to see more information about people you were going to school with. Now it's become a way for friends to share interests by becoming fans of brands and lifestyles and posting articles, opinions and information”.
This evolution has created a network, never conceived and still not defined. It is a work in progress. But it is clear that form, function, process and context have changed and all parts are merging almost at the speed of thought.
Web design and marketing, once about ensuring that people could find your website, is now also about your website finding people. It’s about reaching out to people where they already are, i.e., participating in a personal social network. It’s about adding value by interacting with these networks of people in a meaningful way.
There are over 400,000 independent developers building Facebook applications to harness this. One is Oodle who helped Facebook with their marketplace classified ads application. I used it recently to list my house for rent and within a week I could have rented it twice.
In another example – I used a knowledge service, to find professional help we needed. It was a database of Internet professions classified by skills and experience. There are users’ reviews and ratings of services and skills to help you select the right person or team. But I wanted to know more about the person behind the professional. The system did not help me with that, so I turned to Facebook and Linkedin to see who their friends were and what they liked. I don’t think Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, ever thought of that use originally. We still don’t know how it might be used in the future.
At AXSES, we have built our arcRes.com travel platform into a Facebook application. It allows arcRes users to publish specials as well as rates and web content to Facebook. All this information on FaceBook as well as the ability to get holiday quotes and to book, is managed from the arcRes admin system which also manages information on the user’s website and a network of other marketing channels. Facebook is a different type of channel – one where meaningful participation and shared knowledge is the driving force.
Knowledge is an evolutionary force. It evolves personally and socially at community, global and spiritual levels. When Ford built the first car in America, German engineers were separately developing a similar invention. The world of knowledge evolves as we do. Along with it the knowledge highway, media, publishing, communications and marketing are changing.
see the man who developed the web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) talk about this http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/484
Our resources of who uses what and how on Social Media see
http://arcres.com/Social-media-travel-marketing.cfm
Jeff Besos (Amazon) a really fun and very useful analogy of the internet
Monday, 2 March 2009
AtaCrossroads
We wrote about advertising at a Crossroads nearly a year ago, today we read about Expedia's new PassportAds, The first program of its kind in travel advertising.
We wrote about Search At a Crossroads and now TripAdvisor (actually another Expedia company) launches Integrated Search.
Its to be expected - The whole way we do business is shifting fundamentally. Like Philip C. Wolf, President and CEO, PhoCusWright Inc. says, its a perfect storm:
“Each element in the search-shop-buy triumvirate is undergoing a period of intense innovation, making each increasingly significant, yet interdependent. In fact, searching, shopping and buying – once distinct terms describing different behaviors – are blurring at a furious pace”.
Our bookable-ads.com was launched late in 2008, its almost old hat now and we wonder why it took so long. But the change is just beginning.
The most pervasive change is happening now and its going to change the entire web and all that we do. Wolf, was only half right, its not about advertising and searching and buying only, equally important is merging of publishing and communication with what we call the Social web.
Social web is just new word for communications and networking. It started with tanagers got noted by adults and is moving full steam into the mainstream.
Wolf should have added publishing and conversation are merging, and that is going to throw the monkey wrench into the media!
We wrote about Search At a Crossroads and now TripAdvisor (actually another Expedia company) launches Integrated Search.
Its to be expected - The whole way we do business is shifting fundamentally. Like Philip C. Wolf, President and CEO, PhoCusWright Inc. says, its a perfect storm:
“Each element in the search-shop-buy triumvirate is undergoing a period of intense innovation, making each increasingly significant, yet interdependent. In fact, searching, shopping and buying – once distinct terms describing different behaviors – are blurring at a furious pace”.
Our bookable-ads.com was launched late in 2008, its almost old hat now and we wonder why it took so long. But the change is just beginning.
The most pervasive change is happening now and its going to change the entire web and all that we do. Wolf, was only half right, its not about advertising and searching and buying only, equally important is merging of publishing and communication with what we call the Social web.
Social web is just new word for communications and networking. It started with tanagers got noted by adults and is moving full steam into the mainstream.
Wolf should have added publishing and conversation are merging, and that is going to throw the monkey wrench into the media!
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