Sharing The Travel Industry's latest Technology
Rants and Reviews
PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Live Reviews, Round 3
Nov 17th
Innovation. This is the final round of the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit, where the presentations were very good.
If you missed my last reviews, here they are:
Round 1 Live Reviews
Round 2 Live Reviews
The final round of reviews:
| Time Presenting | My Overview | Product Name Twitter Tag, Presenter and Company name | Out of 10 |
| 4:10 pm – 4:15 pm
(5 min) |
Crawls social media sites. Directory of tweets for all the differnt tweets from cities on Twavl.com. Not really sure what he does after his presentation. | 3.1 ConnectMe 360 (ALPHA)
Product Name: Twavl #pcconnectme Brian Hayashi, Founder and CEO, ConnectMe 360 |
4 |
| 4:15 pm – 4:27 pm
(12 min) |
ProfitPlus drives 2 streams of Revenue for agencies. Custom quoting capabilities allow for similar demographics and trip details to be grouped together. Cohorts based segmentation. I will need to talk to him as Ensemble Travel uses COHORTs segmentation. This could be a good fit. | 3.2 Travel Guard
#pctravelguard Product Name: ProfitPlus H. Scott Ackerman, Vice President of Retail Sales, Travel Guard |
7 |
| 4:27 pm – 4:39 pm
(12 min) |
Helps users figure out where they want to travel. 18% of travelers on Luftansa’s website do not know where they want to travel. Affinity Shopper is a map based flight search that allows you to take budget into consideration. Drills down with an intuitive interface. When you drill down, it will give you a bar chart of rates over a range of time. Search can be without a timeline, or can be time specific. You can segment the results by activity in the area. Unrestricted search with many drill down options. | 3.3 Amadeus IT Group
Product Name: Amadeus Affinity Shopper #pcaffinityshop Dénis Lacroix, Vice President, Product Development, Sales and e-Commerce Platforms, Amadeus IT Group |
7 |
| 4:39 pm – 4:51 pm
(12 min) |
Is a trip feedback iPhone app. My fear is that Data is not always used during travel, data rates are still killer. It tracks a users movements during travel, and links it to a map. They have social media feedback to help grow virility. Cool features that allow you to really experience a friends trip. Currently have over 200k reviews. | 3.4 GlobalMotion Media Inc.
#pcglobalmotion Product Name: EveryTrail Joost Schreve, Founder and CEO, GlobalMotion Media Inc. |
8 |
| 4:51 pm – 5:03 pm
(12 min) |
Leverages the power of the social web to interact and win business. Changes the way customers can interact with travel customers. Uses voting to determine which content is good vs bad. Also states what the person / business’ reputation is. There is a contextual Q&A that allows for powerful feedback. Combines consumers and travel companies in the same space. | 3.5 Tourabout
Product Name: Tourabout, The Social GDS™ #pctourabout Ben Jackson, Co-Founder and CEO, Tourabout |
7 |
| 5:03 pm – 5:15 pm
(12 min) |
Innovative advertising blocks that jump out, play video and interact with. They are attempting to add an emotional aspect to ads. They are attempting to dream and imagine again. They are trying to focus on a story and then connect it with Expedia’s products. Really seems like a new advertising opportunity on the Expedia site using Flash. | 3.6 Expedia Media Solutions
Product Name: StorePoint Expandables #pcexpediamedia Doug Miller, Global Vice President, Media Solutions, Expedia Media Solutions |
5 |
| 5:15 pm – 5:27 pm
(12 min) |
A unique multi-destination planning and booking platform. Allows you to really drill down on personal preferences to allow for a very segmented travel product. You can choose the class of hotel, type of travel products you want and can put in your budget. You can currently book hotels, and they will soon add attractions. You can save trips into your profile to compare at a later date, or share them with others. Business model is revshare and white label. | 3.7 deciZium Inc.
Product Name: YourTour #pcyourtour John Schliesser, CEO, deciZium Inc. |
8 |
| 5:27 pm – 5:39 pm
(12 min) |
Grabs recommendations from a 40k strong army of local experts to provide travel advice. Can be used by travel agents to advertise their location. Growing to 700k reviews in 2 years. Travelers can pose questions to locals and they will respond accordingly. The program can be used using the Global Sherpa iPhone app. the locals get a system of points and rewards to motivate the contributors. They throttle questions so people don’t get inundated. Open API so that anyone can integrate this technology into their sites. | 3.8 Localyte Inc.
#pclocalyte Doug Renert, Business Development, Localyte Inc. |
8 |
| 5:39 pm – 5:51 pm
(12 min) |
They make content available in Multiple languages. On demand translations, and turn mono-lingual sites into multi-lingual sites. Provides a trust ranking that gives confidence in translations.
Their product life cycle is: Awareness Consider Purchase Travel Recommend Return |
3.9 Language Weaver Inc.
#pclanguageweaver Mark Tapling, President and CEO, Language Weaver Inc. |
6 |
| 5:51 pm – 6:03 pm
(12 min) |
Voyij makes it easy to find a deal that is good for you. It is a deals meta search. The focus is on deals and puts up all of the special offers. It gives a great deal of organization, syndicates Twitter deals and alerts customers when a deal is found that met their criteria. Lists are generated based on your destination airport. Their twitter deals helps eliminate the noise around twitter and only give relevant results. I can see the value of this type of system. I had a similar idea for deals from Ensemble travel. | 3.10 Voyij.com
#pcvoyij Brent Stewart, Co-Founder and President, Voyij Inc. |
7 |
| 6:03 pm – 6:15 pm
(12 min) |
Travel agent channel allows to create an any to any package on an element by element basis. Separates the shopping with the booking process. Looks pretty powerful. I will need to look into this more. | 3.11 Travelport
Product Name: Journey Manager #pctravelport Brian Batts, Online Product Strategy Director, Travelport |
7 |
PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Live Reviews, round 2
Nov 17th
Innovation. Here are the second set of presenters at PhoCusWright’s Innovation Summit. This is after seeing the presentations at the innovation summit with +/- on the ratings. Here is my original overview. The ranking is not a measure of how successful their business is, but rather what I fell their impact will be on the travel industry as a whole. 0 would be no change, 10 would be the industry will never be the same, exciting stuff:
| Time Presenting | My Overview | Product Name Twitter Tag, Presenter and Company name | Out of 10 |
| 12:42 pm – 12:47 pm
(5 min) |
Missed most of the presentation, but Planetism seems to focus on value deals for travel products with filtering capabilities. This is a busy space, and I am not sure Planetism will make an impact, but this is an alpha release, so this will be interesting to see moving forward. | 2.1 Planetism (ALPHA)
#pcplanetism Yameen Salahuddin, Founder, Planetism |
5 |
| 12:47 pm – 12:59 pm
(12 min) |
Looks promising, the system allows for regular marketing staff to generate dynamic ads that are scrapped from advertisers sites. Unique and great, but not as intuitive as it could be. May need to have some tech help for integration. | 2.2 Dapper
Product Name: Dapper Ads #pcdapper Paul Knegten, Head of Marketing, Dapper |
7 (-1) |
| 12:59 pm – 1:11 pm
(12 min) |
Seems like another substantial social media moderating and brand monitoring system. This is a very competitive space, and as Milestone already has a large customer base, they may gain penetration with their product. | 2.3 Milestone Internet Marketing Inc.
Product Name: eBuzz Connect – Social Media Management and Monitoring for the Lodging Industry #pcmilestone Anil D. Aggarwal, CEO, Milestone Internet Marketing Inc. |
6 (same) |
| 1:11 pm – 1:23 pm
(12 min) |
The focus is on group planning professionals. Qualified information with community elements. They have a number of itineraries that planners can access to help simplify their plans. Connects group suppliers with planners. They are looking to generate a social community element to connect travel planners. I am not sure if their technology is as up to date as possible, down loadable documents are definitely a “phase one” resource. | 2.4 http://ZipSetGo.com
#pczipsetgo Bob Miller, President and CEO, ZipSetGo.com |
5 (same) |
| 1:23 pm – 1:35 pm
(12 min) |
Globallink One Link is a 100% outsource system. In about 30 days they will provide a turn key translation service. They will also dynamically track changes to your site, and will update all of the content for you. This is a “proxy based” solution with minimal IT involvement. They store all of your web content in the various languages. Looks powerful, their live demo was powerful. | 2.5 Translations.com
Product Name: GlobalLink OneLink #pctranslations Matt Hauser, Director, Technology Sales, Translations.com |
7 (+1) |
| 1:35 pm – 1:47 pm
(12 min) |
Ancillary revenue for travel insurance is a “hot” category due to the large margins in insurance. The focus from margins and money to segmentation and categories. They are looking to qualify the consumer with more targeted products. Their segmentation seems to be effective with an 87% growth in their test case. | 2.6 Mondial Interactive Company, a subsidiary of Mondial Assistance USA
Product Name: Travel Insurance 2.0 #pcmondial Bob Dufour, President and CEO, Mondial Interactive Company |
7 (+1) |
| 1:47 pm – 1:59 pm
(12 min) |
Facebook innovation finalist. Traxo pools information automatically. Supports 40 sites. Their set and forget model would really help with adaption. I can see the value in this, there is a reward for investing time setting up your accounts. Also connects with your social networks to pull information together. Gives you permission based info on your network. Pretty slick! | 2.7 Traxo LLC
Product Name: Traxo #pctraxo Andy Chen, Co-Founder and President, Traxo LLC |
9 (+1) |
| 1:59 pm – 2:11 pm
(12 min) |
Their fight against commoditization is fought with great weapons. HD video from properties and destination products. Users are spending 7 minutes on their site. If they could have a video overlay with booking technology, they may have a powerful product. Looks good but may need to improve the UI. | 2.8 Voyage.tv
#pcvoyagetv Tedd Evers, Chief Revenue Officer, Voyage.tv |
7 (same) |
| 2:11 pm – 2:23 pm
(12 min) |
TravelTainment is a fuzzy logic (always gives results) online booking dynamic packinging tool for OTAs, as well as Travel agencies. That about says it all ;)
Tour operators can have their products added to the distribution mix through an XML feed. Not a bad concept for packaging products. |
2.9 TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group
Product Name: The new TravelTainment Internet Booking Engine #pctraveltainment Andy Owen-Jones, CEO, TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group |
7 (same) |
| 2:23 pm – 2:35 pm
(12 min) |
Competing on a lower margin than other OTAs. Why customers book with them is that they receive a decent rate as well as an incentive for the booker. Free flowers and pick-up? Why not.
They make money from positioning where hotels show-up in the search ranking. Low overhead, and decent connections with hotels makes for a pretty unique offer. Not bad. |
2.10 AboutAnywhere.com
#pcaboutanywhere Ashwin Kamlani, CEO, AboutAnywhere.com |
8 (+2) |
| 2:35 pm – 2:47 pm
(12 min) |
Enables conversation to go beyond the trip. This means that you get targeted info when its relevant to you. Suppliers and affiliates can issue messages to each customer. The scalability of this feature is in question.
Seems like a decent platform and I will attempt to use it. |
2.11 TripCase
#pctripcase Toby Cunningham, Vice President, Business Development and Product Strategy, TripCase |
8 (same) |
| 2:47 pm – 2:59 pm
(12 min) |
Look to connect online RFP forms to hotel CRM functionality. They are looking to avoid data reentry, and there is no standard.
SpeedRFP aims to simplify the group bookings process for travel planners and venues. They standardize the platfor to expedite the process for both parties. Seems like there is a need for this, and they may be on to something. Interested to see what their revenue model is. |
2.12 SpeedRFP
#pcspeedrfp Bradley Pirman, CIO, SpeedRFP |
7 (same) |
Were my adjustments fair?
PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Live Reviews, round 1
Nov 17th
Innovation. After my preliminary reviews, I wanted to provide live feedback on the presenters during the innovation Summit at PhoCusWright 2009.
Here are the first round of presenters:
| Time Presenting | My Overview | Product Name Twitter Tag Presenter and Company name |
My rating out of 10 after presentation |
| 9:15 am – 9:27 am
(12 min) |
Vinepulse looks pretty slick. I am happy I was able to see it in person. Looks very glossy, I hope it has the power to make itself valuable to the hospitality industry. Social media tracking is definitely an area of growth. | 1.1 10Best SolutionsProduct Name: VinePulse
#pc10best Brice J. Bay, President and CEO, 10Best Solutions |
6 (same) |
| 9:27 am – 9:39 am(12 min) | Seems to pack a punch. This is a very intuitive search engine that keeps it simple. They are generating revenue through integrated search ads. They also provide branded versions of content. | 1.2 Goby#pcgobyMark Watkins, Co-Founder and CEO, Goby | 8 (+1) |
| 9:39 am – 9:51 am(12 min) | The interface seems pretty easy to use. It works with your Outlook calendar and saves all of your travel preferences for travel, your reward cards etc. Actually makes more sense when I see it in person, if you use Outlook to manage your calendar, you may as well sync it with your travel bookings. | 1.3 TripwareProduct Name: Tripware OutBook#pctripware
Clark C. Rines, President and CEO, Tripware |
8 (+2) |
| 9:51 am – 10:03 am(12 min) | I thought they were focused on an online booking technology, however it seems that they are focused on finding the relevant social media conversations that are relevant to a travel business. Seems like a streamlined twitter spam tool imho. Great idea for monetizing social media, however, I am not sure how well this would be received. If someone was listening in on a conversation at a party, and then interrupted me to try to sell me something, I would not be receptive, is this different? | 1.4 GuestCentric Systems#pcguestcentric Pedro Colaco, President and CEO, GuestCentric Systems | 5 (-1) |
| 10:03 am – 10:15 am(12 min) | [x+1] targeted marketing based on an end consumer’s traffic history. They generate customized landing content based on history to lower the CPA. Looks neat, but the presentation was cut short. | 1.5 [x+1]Product Name: Site+1#pcxplus1
Jason Shulman, Chief Revenue Officer, [x+1] |
8 (+1) |
| (10:15 am – 10:27 am(12 min) | They are currently partnered with many major travel brands. Now they are focused on mobile apps with Nokia. This new mobile app is diet on data, helping travelers not spend an arm and leg to find the closest car rental location, as well as the best deal. They state that their main usage point is for those that do not book before hand, and wait till they get to the destination to arrange transit. Not sure if the demand is there. Airports all have car rental desks that are fairly easy to use. | 1.6 CarTrawlerProduct Name: CarTrawler Ovi Mobile#pccartrawler
Bobby Healy, CTO, CarTrawler |
5 (-2) |
| 10:27 am – 10:39 am(12 min) | Combine structured and unstructured information that gives users a rounded view of the data that they are looking for. This is potentially a powerful solution. The system saves your preferences and learns your preferences. | 1.7 ExaleadProduct Name: CloudView “Smart” Search#pcexalead
Paul Doscher, U.S. CEO, Exalead |
7 (same) |
| 10:39 am – 10:51 am(12 min) | iPerceptions provide data understanding where Google analytics provide a data dump. Combines attitudinal data and behavioral data to monitor the important aspects of the travel data. Can compare purpose of visit to task completion, seems useful! You can then find text reviews of the reasons why people didn’t book for example. Combines google analytics with surveys. | 1.8 iPerceptionsProduct Name: webValidator Continuous Listening Solution (premium) and 4Q (free)#pciperceptions
Claude Guay, President and CEO, iPerceptions |
8 (+2) |
| 10:51 am – 11:03 am(12 min) | Aside from print on demand luggage tags, Vanguard is introducing an RFID, with tag lcd thinfilm displays. Pretty interesting technology. He proposes a luggage tag that would notify you when your bags arrive. This would eliminate the issue of “why your bags are?”. | 1.9 Vanguard ID SystemsProduct Name: Luggagetag.com#pcluggagetag
Richard O. Warther, President and CEO, Vanguard ID Systems Inc. |
7 (+2) |
| 11:03 am – 11:15 am(12 min) | Creates 9 folders in a Firefox plugin format. Consolidates all of your bookmarks and generates recommended reservation options for you. Makes it easy to pull travel info from any site on the net. GoNomad stated that it needs to be able to move, so that it will not block access to certain sections of a website. Still a cool idea! | 1.10 gliider#pcgliider
Jordan Stolper, Co-Founder and CEO, gliider |
8 (same) |
| 11:15 am – 11:27 am(12 min) | cheaplimorates.com have a widget and full API that offers live limo rates to their affiliates as well as different partnership options for Limo providers. Pretty innovative for this niche. | 1.11 CheapLimoRates.com#pccheaplimorates
Alan Kushmakov, Founder and CEO, CheapLimoRates.com |
7 (+1) |
PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Presenters Round 2
Nov 16th
Innovation. Here are the second set of presenters at PhoCusWright’s Innovation Summit. Here is the link to the first set of reviews that I did. The ranking is not a measure of how successful their business is, but rather what I fell their impact will be on the travel industry as a whole. 0 would be no change, 10 would be the industry will never be the same, exciting stuff:
| Time Presenting | My Overview | Product Name Twitter Tag, Presenter and Company name | Out of 10 |
| 12:42 pm – 12:47 pm
(5 min) |
Impossible to tell, premiering here at PhoCusWright. Their tag line: “Travel. Better.” | 2.1 Planetism (ALPHA)
#pcplanetism Yameen Salahuddin, Founder, Planetism |
? |
| 12:47 pm – 12:59 pm
(12 min) |
Seems rather nice :) A dynamic product syndication tool to place a companies products on an affiliates site, with no IT integration. This could be a powerful tool for easily increasing syndication of travel products through the Internet. They feature:
|
2.2 Dapper
Product Name: Dapper Ads #pcdapper Paul Knegten, Head of Marketing, Dapper |
8 |
| 12:59 pm – 1:11 pm
(12 min) |
eBuzz is a social media monitoring service for the hospitality industry. This reminds me alot of Vinepulse, as they both provide an easy consolidated tool for a hotel brand to monitor their properties social presence. Not a bad idea, and a little competition goes along way. | 2.3 Milestone Internet Marketing Inc.
Product Name: eBuzz Connect – Social Media Management and Monitoring for the Lodging Industry #pcmilestone Anil D. Aggarwal, CEO, Milestone Internet Marketing Inc. |
6 |
| 1:11 pm – 1:23 pm
(12 min) |
This seems to be an online resourse for a diverse set of people. There are sections that are aimed at the end consumer, and resources that are focused on travel agents / OTAs. It is not clear what their core business proposition is, however I look forward to hearing more. | 2.4 http://ZipSetGo.com
#pczipsetgo Bob Miller, President and CEO, ZipSetGo.com |
5 |
| 1:23 pm – 1:35 pm
(12 min) |
Translations are a very intelligently positioned company. They offer turn key solutions for any end consumer facing business to localize their online content. With economic growth in developing countries (BRIC) there is increasing demand for this type of service. Interested to see what innovations they are brining to the table. So for now I don’t see any major innovation, but I do see a smart business. | 2.5 Translations.com
Product Name: GlobalLink OneLink #pctranslations Matt Hauser, Director, Technology Sales, Translations.com |
6 |
| 1:35 pm – 1:47 pm
(12 min) |
Not able to easily find what travel Insurance 2.0 is about on their website. Their travel press release states that they are releaseing a new platform that will maximize their affiliates insurance revenues. Interesting to see where this goes, this could be a great revenue generator for many businesses. | 2.6 Mondial Interactive Company, a subsidiary of Mondial Assistance USA
Product Name: Travel Insurance 2.0 #pcmondial Bob Dufour, President and CEO, Mondial Interactive Company |
6 |
| 1:47 pm – 1:59 pm
(12 min) |
This is a great idea put together by what seems to be an amazing team. Andres Fabris and Andy Chen made Traxo to connect travellers when they are in close proximity to each other. They are big fans of the KISS philosophy as they automatically import your travel plans from any trip planning wedbsite, and then, depending on your privacy settings, will broadcast your plans to your friends. They also tackle peer reviews. Interested to see this! | 2.7 Traxo LLC
Product Name: Traxo #pctraxo Andy Chen, Co-Founder and President, Traxo LLC |
8 |
| 1:59 pm – 2:11 pm
(12 min) |
Video is a great marketing tool, no questions there. Voyage.tv is looking to captivate an audience with great, high quality travel videos, and then transition that interest in to online bookings for that destination. So far their site has some great content, however the connection between watching video (on the top of the page) and then booking travel (hidden at the bottom) is not very obvious. Interested to see where they take this. | 2.8 Voyage.tv
#pcvoyagetv Tedd Evers, Chief Revenue Officer, Voyage.tv |
7 |
| 2:11 pm – 2:23 pm
(12 min) |
TravelTainment is a fuzzy logic (always gives results) online booking dynamic packinging tool for OTAs, as well as Travel agencies. That about says it all ;)
Tour operators can have their products added to the distribution mix through an XML feed. Not a bad concept for packaging products. |
2.9 TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group
Product Name: The new TravelTainment Internet Booking Engine #pctraveltainment Andy Owen-Jones, CEO, TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group |
7 |
| 2:23 pm – 2:35 pm
(12 min) |
Looks to be a hotels.com 2.0 type site. The interface looks snazzy, but aside from Twitter updates, I couldn’t see where the innovation was. They also need to work on the hotel search by name, it would just reset if it didn’t find anything, which is annoying. | 2.10 AboutAnywhere.com
#pcaboutanywhere Ashwin Kamlani, CEO, AboutAnywhere.com |
6 |
| 2:35 pm – 2:47 pm
(12 min) |
Tripcase’s claim to fame is that they are “the smartest free travel application in the world” What that means is that it can estimate wait times for customs, baggage etc. It will let you know if your flight was cancelled, and what alternative routes you can take. Seems like a fancy little app, and I am in the process of downloading it right now :) | 2.11 TripCase
#pctripcase Toby Cunningham, Vice President, Business Development and Product Strategy, TripCase |
8 |
| 2:47 pm – 2:59 pm
(12 min) |
SpeedRFP aims to simplify the group bookings process for travel planners and venues. They standardize the platfor to expedite the process for both parties. Seems like there is a need for this, and they may be on to something. Interested to see what their revenue model is. | 2.12 SpeedRFP
#pcspeedrfp Bradley Pirman, CIO, SpeedRFP |
7 |
Were my ratings fair?
PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Presenters Round 1
Nov 12th
Innovation. Last year I had the privilege of presenting rezgo.com at PhoCusWright’s Innovation Summit in 2008. The format is intense, 12 minute presentation after 12 minute presentation. While this can be a little overwhelming, I will be putting together a brief overview of all that are presenting to give some background knowledge on each company.
Here are the first round of presenters:
| Time Presenting | My Overview | Product Name Twitter Tag Presenter and Company name |
My rating out of 10 (10 being that it is very innovative and will change the travel industry) |
| 9:15 am – 9:27 am
(12 min) |
Vinepulse aggregates social media reviews for a hotel brand and provides a simplified interface for each brand stakeholder to have control of their determined aspect. It will allow for each brand to determine the importance of a number of alerts. I like the idea of providing a simplified interface in the travel industry, my experience is that the KISS rule is also the golden rule. | 1.1 10Best SolutionsProduct Name: VinePulse
#pc10best Brice J. Bay, President and CEO, 10Best Solutions |
6 |
| 9:27 am – 9:39 am(12 min) | Goby is a search engine that tries to answer “what would you like to do in your free time?” The sleek interface is simple, and the semantic wording of their categories is really well developed. The focus of Goby is on short escapes that are activity focused, and when you perform a search, it will link you to the 3rd party page directly. They may want to integrate their own hotel / activity feed to monetize their interface, or else I can only see it as a referral based business. Interested in seeing more. | 1.2 Goby#pcgobyMark Watkins, Co-Founder and CEO, Goby | 7 |
| 9:39 am – 9:51 am(12 min) | I think I saw this last year. They have developed a complete booking engine within Outlook. This is targeted towards the business client that wants a straight forward, get-to-the point booking experience. I can see this helping to streamline bookings for those of us without assistants, as it holds records of preferences for the user. This is innovative for an email platform, however I can only wonder if ecommerce will thrive outside of the browser. | 1.3 TripwareProduct Name: Tripware OutBook#pctripware
Clark C. Rines, President and CEO, Tripware |
6 |
| 9:51 am – 10:03 am(12 min) | GuestCentric Systems has created a one-stop-suite for independent hotels that do not have an online booking enabled website. Their suite includes a website, dynamic booking engine, a reservations platform for reservations management, as well as Internet hotel marketing. Seems to be a good combo, although this aspect of the travel industry is foreign to me, so I am not sure about what value this provides. | 1.4 GuestCentric Systems#pcguestcentricPedro Colaco, President and CEO, GuestCentric Systems | 6 |
| 10:03 am – 10:15 am(12 min) | [x+1] are in the business of connecting the right person to the right message, which should in turn lower your CPA and increase your sign-ups/ transactions. Their technology is built for advertisers as well as retailers to help optimize experiences. I am not sure on the specifics, however it sounds promising, and their case studies sound great. | 1.5 [x+1]Product Name: Site+1#pcxplus1
Jason Shulman, Chief Revenue Officer, [x+1] |
7 |
| 10:15 am – 10:27 am(12 min) | CarTrawler is an online car rental booking aggregation system that can be integrated within other booking platforms. This is a simple way for online booking companies to connect with ancillary revenue opportunities. I am not sure if what I would assume to be the decreased margins that their users receive is worth the cost, but I am interested to learn more. | 1.6 CarTrawlerProduct Name: CarTrawler Ovi Mobile#pccartrawler
Bobby Healy, CTO, CarTrawler |
7 |
| 10:27 am – 10:39 am(12 min) | Exalead’s Cloudview search is a ’semantic’ search engine for a business’ internal and unprotected data. While this is not sexy per say, it is a powerful way of maximizing a corporations online resources. Hard to know the true level of innovation for the travel industry, however this could be useful for a large operators / suppliers. | 1.7 ExaleadProduct Name: CloudView “Smart” Search#pcexalead
Paul Doscher, U.S. CEO, Exalead |
7 |
| 10:39 am – 10:51 am(12 min) | PhoCusWright’s own Claude Guay’s webValidator Continuous Listening Solution provides qualitative and quantitative feedback on a website’s performance. I am not familiar with the specifics, but his stats sound promising with a 90% completion rate, and easy access to is surveys, this may be incremental innovation, it is innovative none the less. | 1.8 iPerceptionsProduct Name: webValidator Continuous Listening Solution (premium) and 4Q (free)#pciperceptions
Claude Guay, President and CEO, iPerceptions |
6 |
| 10:51 am – 11:03 am(12 min) | Luggagetag.com says it all. About $15 for your own customized luggage tags that have your image/text on them. Really simple to use their interface, and a novel idea. Not sure how scalable it is, but interested to hear from them. | 1.9 Vanguard ID SystemsProduct Name: Luggagetag.com#pcluggagetag
Richard O. Warther, President and CEO, Vanguard ID Systems Inc. |
5 |
| 11:03 am – 11:15 am(12 min) | gliider is a plugin for Firefox browsers that allows the user to consolidate all of their travel information into one place, create a guide book, and also receive offers for the trip that the use is planning. The interface seems slick and easy to use, and the concept is pretty good for those looking to do alot of research before a trip. Looks interesting. | 1.10 gliider#pcgliider
Jordan Stolper, Co-Founder and CEO, gliider |
8 |
| 11:15 am – 11:27 am(12 min) | cheaplimorates.com is another appropriately named service that aggregates limo bookings. Their site seems to feature social media aspects such as connecting with friends whil looking for limos. This could be good for graduation parties and the like. Not a bad idea, and could be a success. | 1.11 CheapLimoRates.com#pccheaplimorates
Alan Kushmakov, Founder and CEO, CheapLimoRates.com |
6 |
Quick Facts About OpenSocial
Mar 4th
“Making the Web Social”
Sounds like a pretty lofty plan, but that was the goal of the founding members of OpenSocial said Jeff Huber, senior vice president of engineering, Google. This is a technology that I feel is beginning to alter the way that people interact with the Internet, and is also effecting business. This post will give a brief history, show some current utilization, and then ponder into the void of the future to predict the evolution of OpenSocial and related technologies.
Short History
In 2007 Facebook made a bold step by releasing its API to developers to create applications on their platform. They did this because they soon realized that once users sign-up and start linking with their friends, they will eventually get bored. So adding the ability to continuously add new features that allow users to connect was a great plan. The problem with this scenario is that there are more than just 1 Social networking community (believe it or not!) In some regions, Facebook is not king, plus there are numerous niche community sites (add link) that do not want the same generic reach that Facebook offers, but they do want to have the ability to add applications and gadgets to their social community.
Enter OpenSocial. OpenSocial is basically a set of web standards that give programers the freedom to write code for a cool app, and have the ability to integrate it with a number of social communities and web sites. This makes developing a application much less of a daungting task, as you write it once, and instantly have an audience in the millions.
Some of the early adapters of this technology were virtual Tourist, myspace.com, Linkedin, Salesforce, Ning, hi5, FotoFlexer, iLike.com, orkut.com, RockYou.com, Slide.com, Flixter and Viadeo.com.
So what?
Open social has been deemed the main competitor to Facebook as it allows for one identity to be shared across several web based services. With the future of computer development transitioning to online software as a service, it will be interesting to see if there will be one dominant player, or if we will continue to juggle “just another inbox“
Have you noticed open social technology?
All Hail Our Google Overlords
Oct 27th
A recent comment by Stephen Budd raised my awareness about how involved the Internet is becoming in our day to day lives. I use Google services everyday in my life, from email, search, maps and public transit. I like the company and I feel that they have profoundly altered the way that humans access and interpret information. Some people however, are starting to feel that Google has gone too far. If you search ‘Google’ the quoted term “Google Overlord” for instance, it will bring up over 8700 instances.
Is there a Google backlash? A little.
Are they still making money? Over $4 Billion a year in profit.
They have just launched their first mobile OS equipped phone, their first satellite, their own browser, and basically own online video, free email, online advertising, and oh yeah, the search world. So now they know what you are looking for, they know where you are, who you are talking to, and can take a photo of you where ever you are. This brother is getting bigger! Andrew Keen, a British-born author and entrepreneur in California’s Silicon Valley said, “‘They have amassed more information about people in 10 years than all the governments of the world put together.”
Look no further then Kevin May and company’s Travolution blog to see how the travel industry is taking to Google’s recent changes to their advertising model. Seems like travel folks are starting to feel peeved.
Well it turns out that the travel folks are not alone, the Guardian released this article highlighting some of the Pros and Cons of a Google world.
This is not to say that I am against Google, but that I am starting to be aware of its impact in my life, could you go a day/week/month with out it? I don’t think I could, and that is mildly concerning.
Travel Innovation Summit – The Battle For Centre Stage Part 2
Oct 24th
The list of competitors is complete, the first ever Travel Innovation Summit will now feature 28 travel technology competitors that range from small bootstrapping startup (Stephen and I…) to large multi-nationals (Sabre Rattling??).
Bruce Rosard (VP at PhoCusWright) just sent me some of the trends that have surfaced for the competition:
1. The growth of pure Travel 2.0 businesses is slowing—dramatically.
The Travel Innovation Summit demonstrators, along with applicants who were not selected for this year’s event, described very few applications involving new social networks or pure social networking.
2. Travelers will enjoy easy access to rich subjective, objective and experiential content for trip planning.
Look for the pairing of trip planning and established social network brands and other sources of objective and subjective content. To facilitate the learning and shopping process, first movers are emerging in semantic search. Tools that facilitate an easier trip planning experience by narrowing alternatives based on profiles, stated preferences and observed behaviors are coming.
3. Abundant, varied mobile applications are beginning to emerge.
Interestingly, many of the emerging mobile application innovations focus not simply on shopping and purchasing, but on a variety of content, including day-of-travel and concierge applications. Creative approaches to the mobile business model challenge also are arising.
4. The Long Tail is coming of age.
With low cost computers and more pervasive Internet access than ever, the Long Tail of travel is poised to spread beyond the traditional air, car and hotel market. Unique approaches, including Software as a Service (SaaS), are on the horizon for the effective, efficient distribution of additional content and services.
5. Air shopping is still a work in progress.
Innovators like Air Canada are redefining the airline seat as a product—think of a world where every seat is a SKU with unique characteristics and services—rather than a mere commodity. The complexities of air shopping mean new approaches are still in their infancy—with ample room to grow and mature.
6. Attention shifts from “learn, shop, book” in the travel value chain.
Innovators are recognizing that elements beyond “learn, shop, book” in the travel value chain can be monetized. Expect pre-trip, trip experience, and post-trip technology models to arise.
7. Building supporting business applications loses its luster.
Innovators are focused on the customer-facing applications in the travel value chain, with much less emphasis on the infrastructure services that support content development, content distribution, financial accounting and settlement, and even provisioning of Internet access.
I originally did a brief review of the original competitors and this post will finish with some of the latest entries into the arena. I have also added two new indicators, funding, to let readers know who owns the company and how much has been invested (I may need your help) and target: b2c, b2b, b2b&c.
I am biased in my reviews (maybe a little) because Rezgo is one of the competitors in this competition, so feel free to let me know if you think I am crazy off base.
Adventure Link
URL: http://www.adventurelink.com
Overview: Aim to be a GDS for the adventure travel segment. They claim to be “the 21st century equivalent to the ancient Roman Forum (minus the toga’s, of course)”. I am not exactly sure who powers who, but it seems that their back end in run by Trisept Solutions, and their product is fed by VaxVacation Access.
Funding: Not Sure
Target: B2B
Site look: 7/10
Potential to Shake Industry: 7/10
Innovation: 6/10
Success: 7/10
Clairvoyix
Overview:This is not my area of specialty, however their easy to understand design allows the common man to understand the process of Database marketing and the value it can have for any business. They give clear examples of this and it looks pretty good. They do need to update their Legal information on the bottom of the page though…
Funding: Seed/Early stage funding from goffventures.biz
Target: B2B
Site look: 7/10 (Update Legal)
Potential to Shake Industry: 6/10
Innovation: 5/10
Success: 8/10
Deal Base
Overview:A user generated hotel deal website that accepts deals from any source. They currently host over 7000 deals across multiple sites. Site guests can link directly to the hotel or booking site to complete the booking. I wonder if they have referral agreements in place or if they have an advertising based business model. Their Alexa ranking is quite low considering they are B2C.
Funding: Not Sure – Any Ideas?
Target: B2C
Site look: 7/10
Potential to Shake Industry: 5/10
Innovation: 6/10
Success: 6/10
escapia.com
Overview: I think Bill Furlong (CEO) has been listening to some of Rezgo’s meetings, his model is very near to ours, except it is for a completely different market, vacation rentals. His system gives property owners a booking system (front and back end) that allows them to accept bookings through their website as well as through 3rd part marketing sites. (Not a bad idea;)
Funding: Venture Capital – At least 2 different rounds equaling over 2.8 million
Target: B2C
Site look: 8/10
Potential to Shake Industry: 7/10
Innovation: 8/10
Success: 8/10
17 More reviews to come. Look for them in the following days.
What the blog?
Sep 26th
“The issue is no longer distribution; rather, it’s relevance.”
Brad Feld
Managing Director
Foundry Group
I couldn’t of said it better myself; the publishing landscape has changed for ever, the democritization of information and the proliferation of tools to distribute this information is impacting society as we know it. traditional news media has responded with over 95% of the top 100 newspapers all have blogs.
Technorati, the online blog catelog, has just released its 2008 State of the Blogosphere which highlights trends and themes from the blogging public, definately worth a read.
Some interesting highlights about corporate/professional bloggers:
- There is a strong differentiation between a ‘corporate blogger’ and a blogger who writes about their industry. With only 12% identifying themselves as truly corporate, while 46% are ‘professional’ (this is what I identify myself as)
- Corporate bloggers are pretty homogeneous (Male-70%, in relationship-75%, college grad-74%)
- The blogs are not making much money, of those that advertise, the median annual revenue was between $200-$300… better hope that added brand exposure can be justified ;)
The future of blogging
The article also asks senior analysts about their thoughts about blogging, and what lies ahead. I found an interesting comment from Jeremiah Owyang:
“The future of blogging will be an auto-synching of our lives directly to the web —often a quiet recording in the background”
I hope this comment was taken out of context, because I feel this 1984, Big Brother view of the future of blogging is kind of bleak. I find that blogs are most effective when they are not simple ‘reporting’ but add a human editorial view that sparks thought and conversation.
Testing New micro blogging app
Aug 29th
Well the Internet is so interconnected, I am now testing Utterz. This is a mixture of Jott, Twitter, Qik, and Shozu. Seems interesting. This post should be linked all through my other accounts… Lets see!
Mobile post sent by philcaines using Utterz. Replies.