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What the blog?

“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.

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Testing New micro blogging app

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Uttered Content

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The Top 27 Free Press Release Sites

The Internet has changed how the press looks for and finds news stories. While the conservative news industry is slowly warming up to this fancy thing call the Internet, there are a number of Press Release sites that allow you electronically submit articles and even embed links!!

The fact is, the written press seams to have more credibility then online news and media distributors (for now ) and having your company featured in an official press article is still great, free publicity. So for now you have to play their game.

Here are a number of Free Press Release Sites that I use to help promote Rezgo, and hopefully get picked up by official news agencies. If you don’t get featured by a large news agency, at least these sites will help your rank with Google. They are geared for the Tour and Travel industry and some may require payment, but most are free and generalized enough to help any company promote their press releases. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any others.

1. http://prcompass.com/
2. http://www.press-base.com/
3. http://www.clickpress.com/releases/index.shtml
4. http://ecommwire.com/
5. http://free-press-release.com/
6. http://www.prlog.org/
7. http://pressabout.com/
8. http://i-newswire.com/
9. http://free-press-release-center.info/
10. http://www.pr9.net/
11. http://www.pr-inside.com/
12. http://www.newyork-press-release.com/nationwide.php
13. http://www.newswiretoday.com/index.php
14. http://www.prleap.com/
15. http://prurgent.com/
16. http://www.pr.com/
17. http://prbuzz.com/
18. http://www.1888pressrelease.com/
19. http://pressmethod.com/
20. http://24-7pressrelease.com/
21. http://www.pressbox.co.uk/cgi-bin/links/add.cgi
22. http://www.prnuke.com/index.php?name=News&file=submit
23. http://www.prweb.com/
24. http://www.corporate.canada.travel/corp/media/app/en/ca/contributeNews.do
25. http://theopenpress.com/
26. http://travelindustrywire.com/
27. http://www.wireservice.ca/index.php?name=Submit_News

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Is there life for traditional marketing?

With the level of directly traceable and testable configurations that are available with online advertising, does traditional media stand a chance?

TravelMole just brought this interesting article to light. It turns out that for the first time ever, online ad spend has ‘outpaced’ traditional spending at $8 billion last year. It is projected that this will continue to increase to $22.8 Billion by 2012.

While this article does not contrast these findings with the dollar amount spent on traditional media over the past few years, it does raise an interesting point, where does traditional media fit in?

I found an interesting article on the IAB site that displays advertising spending trends over a 13 year period. As no surprise, internet has been adapted much more rapidly than either broadcast or cable advertising. Definitely worth checking out. In 2007 Internet advertising has surpassed both Radio and Cable network ad spend.

So what will the future look like for the remaining top media providers? Here are some trends that I feel will negatively effect the penetration of traditional advertisers in the next 10-15 years:

1. The Attention Economy - Gone are the passive zombies media bystanders. With TV on demand, video websites and Tevo, consumers now get what they what when they want, and commercials are not part of it!
2. Newspapers - Great for regionalized penetration, but with no instant feedback, and a low traceableness, not to mention the lowing of readership, the skies look gray for the traditional printed newspaper.

What do you think the future of news paper and TV distribution is? Is is a good complement, or will it eventually disappear?

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What are the latest buzz words?

I am not sure if it is a case of, once you hear it once you notice it more often, but I have noticed an increased frequency of Travel Industry buzz words that have been popping up everywhere. Do you know what I am talking about?

Here are a couple of terms that are really circulating on the news and at conferences. I will also give a brief definition to their intended meaning:

Perfect Storm - It now seams that everything is a perfect storm. Travel agencies needing help, airlines collapsing you name it.  Here is the Wikipedia definition:

“The phrase refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which, taken individually, would  be far less powerful than the result of their chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature, so that even a slight change in any one event contributing to the perfect storm would lessen its overall impact. “

Walled Garden -  This term is of particular interest to me, I am all for breaking down the walls (I recently bought a piece of the Berlin wall This term is popping up in the context of media restrictions, inter-industry collaboration and especially the Tele-Com industry. Breaking down restrictions on collaboration is a trend that next generation businesses are going to have to adapt to. As Don Tapscott points out in Wikinomics “If you don’t stay current with customers, they invent around you”. This is in reference to restrictions on products that don’t allow for collaboration and modification.

Here is the Widipedia definition of Walled Garden:

“A walled garden, with regards to media content, refers to a closed set or exclusive set of information services provided for users (a method of creating a monopoly or securing an information system).”

So I hand it over to you, what BUZZ terms have you been hearing lately? Any interesting new ones?

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Earth Day Essentials - The Tourism Industy Wakes Up

Today North America celebrates Earth Day (March 20th for the Euros I hear). This is one of the greenest days of the year, and a great time to reflect on how much the Tourism Industry relies on the Planet’s natural resources for sustenance. This is not a feel good, ‘I love Mother Earth’ post, but rather a resource that the tourism industry can use as a reference and reflection point.

Practical Ways that travel suppliers can get involved:

• Sustainable Travel International - Turn Key Programs
  
• Green Globe - Internationally recognized certification program
  
• Green Tourism Advice - Great top tips and case studies for accommodations and tour operators

Back Ground information on Earth Day and related topics:

• Earth Day Wiki - a good overview of the history of Earth Day
• Environmental Accounting Wiki - This new approach to accounting incorporates externalities and gives the full picture of corporate impact on the environment, worth looking into.
• UNWTO Sustaiable Developmensin Tourism - Great news and reports tracking the efforts that the UNWTO is undertaking.

Personal Goals:

I for one, am making little changes, I have sold my car and only walk, bike or take the bus. Here are some of my future goals:

• Limit my garbage to 1 grocery bag per week.
• Recycle everything that has the potential to be recycled.
• Support local produce (BUT I LOVE BANANAS!!)

How about you, do you have any great resources that you use to guide your environmental strategy? How about your personal goals, what changes are you making in your everyday life?

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Alexa Rank Spank?

Recently Alexa made a “big change” to their ranking algorithm. They now “aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.”

I know this sounds like a better way of calculating an accurate rank, however, there is no knowing what “additional sources” they are using. You used to be able to calculate their bias based on the fact that you knew that their rankings came from users with the Alexa toolbar. You were able to gage the type of user that would have such a device, and have a better understanding of your ranking amongst those users.

Where do these new sources of user information come from?

Most of the sites that I work with have dropped significantly:

Alexa Rankings	Before	After
http://www.tourismtide.com	460,000	1,972,759
http://www.rezgo.com	180,000	201,794
http://www.sentias.com	320,000	304,776
http://www.tipsfromthetlist.com	260,000	314,818

Conclusions:

1. Where ever Alexa is getting their Internet usage stats from now, I can tell that they have less of an interest in Tourism Technology then the former data pool.
2. Changing your domain (tourismtide.blogspot.com to tourismtide.com) can be painful. Both my Alexa and my Technorati were destroyed.

Have you noticed a change in your rank? Do you know where Alexa is getting their new user statistics from?

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Not OK to Flog in public spaces

The EU has just passed word that Flogging (corporate posting) under an alias is illegal. There are two categories that they are focusing on; misleading practices and aggressive practices, says Travelmole.

While this legislation is put into place to add validity to UGC online review sites ala Trip Advisor, it will be difficult and costly to enforce. It seems to me that this is another unenforceable law put into place to provide businesses with guidance for conducting business.

This article was picked up by Stephen Joyce and Joe Buhler who both feel that this legislation runs contrary to the “wisdom of the crowds”. They feel that the masses are able to sift through the ‘Flog’ reviews, and due to the number of reviews, get an honest opinion of a Hotel/Destination/Tour.

I am torn, as I mentioned in my recent article on authentic reviews on Trip Advisor, I think there should be accountability for those that submit content on a social review network. Should we not at least ask that guests can prove that they stayed at a location before they can submit a review?

This does have the greatest effect on properties with only a few reviews, but as more value is given to UGC, I can see corporations devising ways to cheat the system for their own purposes, and unenforceable laws won’t prevent this. How far fetched is it for a company to pay 100 people in India to write various reviews on a property for next to nothing, this would provide huge brand benefit.

What do you think? Do we need to legislate and add verification systems, or is the “wisdom of the crowds” sufficient for long term growth of user generated reviews?

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Travelocity’s Michelle Peluso’s Thoughts

I found this old blog post that I never published, it is a bit of free hand note taking when I was listening to Michelle Peluso at PhoCusWright Orlando 2007. I have cleaned it up a bit, and there is some interesting thoughts:

What is the future for Travelocity?
“Expanding into the Asian and European markets. Shift from a price focused commoditization into an experience based format. Using Kayak, they still recreate the the Travelocity experience. More emphasis changing a transactional interface into experiential purchase.”

How do you plan on doing that?

“We need to separate and segregate the customers base. Different people have different travel needs. Experience finder helps people scroll through a series of media and reviews. We need to partnership at a deeper level. Leverage the relationship and maybe integrate UGC to enhance the online experience.”

How will you handle Longtail product?

“So far we are all terrible at it, but getting better. There is an audience for a smaller product, and the trick is to not crowd the site with all of the content out there, provide relevance, and great parters.”

Build vs. buy

“We will not be specialist content providers, we can do it through partnerships.”

Charge booking fees?

“Increased services, and consumers have confusion with service fees, if you provide value, consumers will pay for the service.”

Her thoughts on long tail products make me think of how Sentias can leverage Rezgo to help OTAs distribute disparate tour suppliers. Give me a call Michelle,

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