This Tweet inspired me to this post.
- Darren Cronian posts a provocative Familarization Trips in the Travel Industry Should be Banned
- Today Times Online posted this post: Should travel agents travel to learn? -Times Online
When you look at Darren’s post you see a lot of debate by the sheer number of comments.
Now what made Times Online post this and gladly announcing it on twitter? I have the suspicion that they thought “Hey, nice debate!”, let’s get a piece of the cake and replicate it on our site.
If I would be Darren, I wouldn’t be glad with the post. By it’s sheer volume Times Online undoubtedly will draw away part of the discussion from Darren’s site.
Moreover the Times Travel post is nothing more than one huge quote without adding any thought of their own. So I tweeted that there could be a copyright issue here.
One of my followers already commented “Bad Case of Lazy Web”
Another one commented “Darren should be glad with this media attention”.
What would you say?
P.S.: Oh and yes my thought on the question: Travel agents should be allowed to familiarize themselves with destinations, despite the economic downturn and the lay offs. It is simply part of their work.
Update after 8 comments
It turned out that Darren had asked Times Online to help out and they courteously did so by directing the answers and comments to Darren’s blog: Click their final link, which isn’t very obvious. My assumption was incorrect, at least in this instance. Sigh: It is hard to keep up with Twitter as a blogger:-)
It’s inevitable that one debate will end up distributed across several sites – generally we all try to attract a bit of the traffic when a big debate kicks off – but definitely not on to just reproduce the post and try to divert comments.
I’m old (trade) media, and my usual response in these instances is to leave a comment from a travel industry viewpoint, quote my comment in a blog post and direct readers to the original – if someone comments on my post fine, but it’s mean and ultimately futile to try and take over from the person who started the discussion.
The old media habit of wanting to own a debate dies hard, but it has to die if we’re going to add anything to the blogosphere…
(All that said, I don’t want to assume the Times was being cynical here – it might just be a clumsy effort to get involved. And it’s true that the mention won’t do Darren any major harm.)
(Actually, let me qualify my previous comment – I don’t think they’re trying to ‘divert comments’. The reprint finishes with a link encouarging readers to add comments to the *original* post. My bad.)
If Travelrants is happy with it then my opinion on whether what the Times did was right or wrong is a bit irrelevant. Still, if it were me writing a post for Jaunted on someone else’s work, I would quote less, analyze/respond more — and if I saw someone had done this to one of our posts, I would not be pleased.
Nice post.
I suspect Darren want also to play a SEO game with this provocative post 😉
Tall, talk, talk, but please talk about me, it’s the only think that interest me !!!
Wish you a good week-end Guido
Claude
Hi Guido
I asked Times Travel and the Guardian for help getting a few more consumers giving their opinions on the discussion, because I felt that it would be good comments from both sides.
There’s no copyright issue, they were simply quoting me “” me on my own opinions on the blog. The fact that a national newspaper wanted to help generate a discussion on another blog I think is fantastic, and hat’s off to them for helping out.
p.s. Let me rephrase that — Kevin May from Travolution mentioned getting more consumers comments and I agreed.
@ Claude
What’s SEO? 😉
It was no game, yes, it was provocative, but aren’t blogs here to create discussion? I feel that the #1 role of Travel Rants is to get discussions started. Also, it would be difficult for a lot of people to write about the types of posts I do because of their association with the travel industry.
Search Engine Optimisation never came into my mind.
Well Lady and Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for you comments.
Always amazing how fast internet works. I step away from my computer to look after some guests in 3D and to have dinner and whoop there you are with 7 comments.
@Nathan I believe you are right to the point as to the fact that discussions tend to spread around.
Shortly after publishing this post I saw that Darren actually had asked for help, also via Twitter.
I overlooked the bottom line where Time Online asked to comment at Darren’s Blog, (but it kept the window on their site open for commenting).
Finally it is really amazing that the herd of travel professional sheep is out after Darren on this subject rather than on many other subjects he uses to raise. Then they do not comment at all, or, to further the analogy, behave like meek lambs.
Cheers!
@ Guido
Thanks for updating the blog post 🙂
I know travel agents and tour operators read my posts but you are right that not many of my posts generate comments from travel agents. A number do, but prefer not to (or can’t) mention who they work for.
Which is fine.
First of all isn’t it a travel agents job to be informed about the destination? O.o
Secondly, Darren for obviously striking a chord here. Times wouldn’t have noticed if your message wasn’t worth considering. But I can’t help but find it a sign of the times when mainstream media looks to independent and new media for leads on where the conversation is going.
Welcome to a brave new world.
Jut s a note to self:
On Twitter Sam Daams pointed me to the opposite of the above post: a well balanced post in the Washington Post about how Blogs try to piggy back on (very) traditional media….