Category: Blogging

Travel agents and Their Perks – Old Media vs New Media?

out-50

This Tweet inspired me to this post.

  1. Darren Cronian posts a provocative Familarization Trips in the Travel Industry Should be Banned
  2. 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:-)

The 2009 Winners of the Lonely Planet @LPlab Awards for Best Travel Blogs

lpawards_badge

Further to my anouncement:

It’s not now officially published (yet – at least as far as I know-), but. Matthew Cashmore of @LPlaps has twittered the results of the awards ceremony in Sf live.

  1. Best Destination Blog
    Go Visit Hawaii
  2. Best Expat Blog
    Notes from Spain
  3. Best Consumer Travel Blog
    Intelligent Travel – Nat. Geographic
  4. Best Travelogue
    World In Slow Motion.com
  5. Best non-English Travel Blog
    Lavoltadels25.cat
  6. Best Spanish Language Blog
    blogdeviajes.com.ar
  7. Best French Language Blog
    toothbrushnomads.com
  8. Best Italian Language Blog
    ilreporter.comilreporter.com
  9. Best Micro-blogging
    twitter.com/soultravelers3
  10. Best Video Blog
    twoguysaroundtheworld.com
  11. Best Themed Blog
    soultravelers3.com
  12. Best Image Blog
    elsuenodeindia.blogspot.com
  13. Best Group Authored Blog
    SpottedbyLocals.com
  14. Best Podcast:
    indietravelpodcast.com

and the over all 2009 Lonely Planet award for Best Travel Blog is for:
twoguysaroundtheworld.com

Congratulations to all winners! And: Tough for all losers, but you’re all great!

Note: if you compare these results with the outcome of the public voting round, it is clear that the judges really did have something to say in this procedure.

Some 20+ random Tips for Twittaholics

Happy Hotelier's Tweet Wheel
Happy Hotelier’s Tweet Wheel [The site is out of order since]

Twittoholics ?

Some claim Twitter is already over its top and some say it’s going to eat Google now that it has its own search facility…..I don’t know, but I do see Twitter becoming an ever growing source of (travel) information and (travel) inspiration for travelers and for myself in particular. So probably I’m a Twittoholic already.

Some 20+ Random Tips, Lists and Tools for Twittaholics

I’ve been looking around a bit, because as soon as you hit the magic 2000 Twitter cap – the number of people you can follow without Twitter blocking you until, as I understand it correctly, you have at least 90% of 2000, or more than 1800 followers yourself-, you will have to make decisions about who to follow and who not to follow on Twitter. In addition, the more followers you are getting, the more difficult it becomes to pinpoint a certain person if you want to share a certain piece of information with that person.

I’ve started to try and make my own Twitter Followers page manually by simply copying and pasting code from my followers page on Twitter. However I found out very soon that to be too time consuming. So I’ve looked for alternative ways to get some overview on Twitter. Better alternatives to get that overview is Friend or Follow (number 17 of the list) or Twitter Karma (number 11 of the list):

Not in a particular order, more in my usual hap snap way, here are some of my findings for you:

  1. If you’re new to Twitter look at this short video introduction: Twitter Introduction.
  2. Mashable posted Twitter Toolbox 60+Tools and Twittermania: 140+ More Twitter Tools! and more on the Twitter Tools subject.
  3. i-Stuff… Interesting Stuff that Matters: Twitter has an ample series of posts about Twitter Tools with annotations.
  4. If you’re interested in the Top 100 Dutch Twitterati, you can find them at Top 100 Twittergids NL.
  5. The Dutch site Twittergids is helpful anyway to pinpoint Dutch Twitterati in several categories. In its Travel Section I occupy the second position for the moment.
  6. Kevin Rose posted 10 tips 10 Ways to increase your Twitter Following recently.
  7. The post Dirty Secret Increase Followers Twitter also has some good tips. There I found the best balancing tool to balance those who follow you and those you are following: Less Friends Com.
  8. Kidtech Guru published a list of top 3 Twitterati in various countries
  9. Ouside my Brain listed some of the funniest Tweets he knows.
  10. Then you have the “real” Twittaholic with 1,000 top Twitterati. A list I’m not (yet:-)) on.
  11. Twitter Karma does it for me for the moment as it gives you a quick overview of the Followers and those you are Following with an option to block follow or block unfollow.
  12. WeFollow is the latest trend. Seems to be a start up of one of the guys behind Digg. I proudly Twittered that I was number one under their Hotel tag, but was soon repositioned as the number 2:-). Its Hotelier tag counts only 3 hoteliers Its Travel tag presently counts 79 pages with 1,963 Travel Twitterati
  13. Maybe interested in the Austrian Top 100? I am. I found a cool cook there.
  14. Amsterdam Based Twitter Counter can be useful.
  15. With FriendorFollow you get a quick overview of your followers or those you follow. For balancing it is less handy than Karma because you’ll have to manually follow of unfollow.
  16. Twitter Grader is another useful ranking tool to monitor your fellow Twitterati On its Dutch List I’m number 36 today
  17. Tweetscan is fine
  18. See my next post: Give you beloved one a pc and teach him/her to Tweet, you might keep your relation in tact:-)
  19. Tweepi seems a decent tool to more or less mass unfollow people. I found it at Mashable in their Spring Cleaning post.
  20. Top 50 Twitter Tracking and Analytics Tools For further reference.

Last edited by GJE on January 2, 2017

Google Invests in Pixazza, An AdSense for Images

pixazza

If you’re using images in your blog, you could be poised to make a nice little chunk of change from Pixazza.

The site launches today and hopes to become the AdSense for images. It uses crowdsourcing to match products in photos on participating sites with similar products available for purchase, and essentially turns bloggers and content creators into affiliate marketers who can cash in on Pixazza’s merchant network.

Publishers just need to create an account, login to the site, and embed the JavaScript code in the header section of their website. Then, by default, images even from previously published content are added to Pixazza’s shoppers’ queue, and once each image has been analyzed, a mouse over call to action will appear over each image.

via Mashable | Google Invests in Pixazza, An AdSense for Images.

Underway to #itb09 In Berlin

Just a few observations:

  • I drove. I didn’t fly. Why? Because as a Hotelier I can’t fly. I never know exactly when I can leave. There is always something. Now I had to wait for a guest who was tied up in a traffic jam. After checking him in I could leave…and immediately drove into one traffic jam after another myself. Do I mind? Not at all. Nowadays I dont have to commute anymore’so I don’t get stressed by traffic jams anymore. I love driving my French built Limousine (which is something else than a ” Limo” in the USA. In 4 weeks I drove to 4 in Europe: Bern (well I drove past it to be honest), Paris, Londen and now Berlin. I even didn’t have enough time to report here about all thes trips in full. Coming soon.
  • Usually I take my Ipod. But it was frozen again. I have stated elsewhere that I’m always able to freeze an Apple thingy. Underway the Northern German radio stations offered very good music. The last hour was about Kraftwork and how many times Das Modell has been covered. Above some footage of one of the original Kraftwerk versions in English. Simple and still up to date and especially applicable to the travel and hospitality industry as a whole at itb. My association is with Cabaret depicting the Berlin of the late 20ies and beginning 30ies so well. Just after the big Depression ….
  • Speaking of the Depression: I saw train loads of BMW’s and truckloads of Mercedesses being being transported into The Netherlands and many many many Polish Vans transporting second hand cars into the direction of Poland. In addition I have never seen so many heavy transports coming to and fro the direction of Berlin in one evening. In a way it seems to level out a bit: Stock exchanges up a bit. Milan heavily beaten by Liverpool. Lufthansa agreing to pay their cabin crew (16,000 of them) an extra of 3% over 2008, plus a Euro 100 lump sum bonus plus a 4,4 %higher salary over 2009. So they didn’t strike and don’t keep up many who want to be at itb like the fresh snow did last year. I wonder how Lufthansa can earn that back with the big summer rate fight that is immanent now.

Offl