Category: Twitter

My 5th Twitter Birthday

@HappyHotelier -- Twitter Birthday - twbirthday.com 2013-03-13 00-30-39

My 5th Twitter Birthday

Fun to see how many ages internet wise I’m around on Twitter. Would love to see my archives once. It seems in some parts of the World they are available for downloading

Update

I was able to find my archive! For those who don’t know: It is somewhere in your Twitter settings where you can apply for and get a link to a zip file with all your tweets. You then can unzip the file and read all of your tweets with a browser. There are even links to the actual tweet at Twitter, albeit without much context, but from Twitter you can embed tweeds like I did my with my first ever tweet here.

Last edited by GJE on March 23, 2013 at 1:04 am

Shocking: Booking.com attempts to Hijack Dot Hotels gTLD

ICANN Logo

Booking.com Seems the Sole Candidate to become a .hotels Registrar

A twitter friend pointed me to a French site Tendance Hotellerie that found out Booking.com is the sole candidate to distribute the dot.hotels top level domain when ICANN signs off on Booking.com’s application.

If that will be the case, it is clear to me that other hotels or hotel chains will not be able to obtain any .hotels extension anymore, because I simply doubt that when Booking.com B.V. gets the registrant status It will grant any hotel chain a .hotels extension.

This seems not in line with the aims of ICANN with the new TLD’s to offer the users more choice, more competition and to make the internet more transparent.

Here is the application of Booking.com B.V.

Even from the application it is clear that Booking.com wants to control this whole TLD:

Given the fact that the Applicant is a hotel reservation agent, it has a vested interest in giving its visitors and clients a clear and predictable naming scheme in the .hotels gTLD. Since visitors and clients are mainly looking for hotel
reservations on the basis of their geographic destination, the Applicant may
indeed develop plans in order to register domain names that exclusively contain
geographic names (country names, city names, names of regions, etc.).
However, if such domain names will be registered, the Applicant will do so
considering the following confines:
(i) these domain names will be exclusively registered in the name of the
Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator, and not in the name of a third party that is not controlled by the Applicant ⁄ Registry Operator, unless agreed upon otherwise with the authority competent for giving its consent in accordance with
Specification 5 of the Registry Agreement;
(ii) where consents are required prior to the registration and use of a domain
name referred to and in accordance with Specification 5 of the Registry
Agreement, the Applicant will obtain such consents before actually registering,
delegating and using these domain names…..

It is clear for instance  hilton.hotels will be registered by booking.com B.V. and not be available for Hilton to register….

Objections?

Yes! As an independent hotel owner I object and I will file an objection.

ICANN-(ICANN)-on-Twitter-2012-10-01-17-15-35

By coincidence ICAN’s Twitter account @ICANN mentioned a link to file objections today.

Objections can be filed on several grounds. Here is a Icann Brochure that makes it a bit more clear.

Dutch Queen Beatrix turns 74!

Queen-Beatrix-ANP-17489792
Queen-Beatrix-ANP-17489798

Today Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands turned 74. Happy Birthday to our Majesty!

These two beautiful photos (from ANP) were taken a while ago when she visited a mosque in a Muslim country. Off course our peroxide blond parliamentarian asked the question why she made a political statement by covering her hat with a shawl. Luckily, according to certain polls, the guy lost 3 seats in Dutch Parliament after he’d posed the question on twitter.

Only One 2011 Resolution: Catching Up on my Eternal Backlog

Clog with Backseat

  1. Backlog I said, not BackClogged…However this photo with two of my travel blogging and Twitter buddies, Darren Cronian (@Travelrants) with Kayt Sukel (@TravelSavvyKayt) in the Clog’s backseat, is symptomatic for my eternal backlog. May 14, 2010, I had organized a small Travel Tweetup in The Hague and the Keukenhof with two additional travel bloggers. I even haven’t reported about it properly. Only by the date the photo has I can remember the date of the fine day we had. And I do have a couple of great photos yet to share of that day…and tons of other photos to address as well..
  2. My 2010 sole New Year’s resolution was finalizing the move from a static site to a dynamic site for Haagsche Suites. Even that is not finalized yet.
  3. I have around 300 draft posts spread over 2 blogs. So the first step in decreasing the numer is sharing these links of one of my oldest draft posts still viable and maybe worthwhile to browse: Being Peter pointed me to Blog Council Org, what is now Social Media Org a sort of platform for blogging fortune 500 companies.

Happy 2011 to all of my readers!

My Impressions from a Thought Provoking TBCamp10

The TBCamp10 After Party was best

The TBCamp10 After Party was best!

I’ve attended TBCamp10 with my camera that some people envy. They probably don’t know the actual weight of the darn thing when hanging from your shoulder all day.

  1. Darren (of Travel Rants) was able to secure the help of a very nice lady to hand out name tags which were new for the event. Mind you, he had single handedly printed the lot as almost single handedly he has succeeded to create the third edition of this event. Thank you Darren for organizing it again.
  2. What I have missed in preparation of the venue is:
    A) A list of attendants. Darren has given a link to a list that seems having disappeared.
    B) An introduction to the speakers.
    Why is that important to me? Then I’m more able to mind map those who are attending.
    On the other hand this is not so bad because now, as usual, I let my camera is find its own interesting people.
  3. When I entered the venue I was met by a welcoming warm sound wall of conversation. Travel bloggers do relate!
  4. The venue was huge. Approximately 130 to 150 bloggers and PR types and hangers on around and about. Not until after the venue I realized there were many of high profile types. Off course with such a huge group it is not easy to relate to all who I would have liked to relate to.
  5. Amazingly Kevin (of Tnooz) got the posse totally quiet as a good moderator. He introduced the sponsors and the speakers. After that everybody was amazingly quiet during the speeches certainly when taking into consideration how chatty and outspoken bunch travel bloggers usually are.
  6. What also amazed me that 2/3 of the attendants rushed out as soon as the last speaker had stopped. That was at around 9.30 far before the anticipated 11.00 PM closing. These people didn’t grasp the whole idea of the venue: Getting to know each other better irl…..
  7. Being concentrated more on catching the people with my camera, I hardly paid attention to the discussions, but am glad some people published what they said and thankful to be able to read back some tweets.
  8. I have the impression this is a very British event. Although I’m reasonably well versed in the English language, some of the discussions are too fast for me and maybe a bit insiderish… Brits remain Brits, they can discuss in circles and they are masters of the understatement.
  9. Avatars do matter! especially at such venues. If you enter a room full of people you haven’t met irl, it is always helpful to relate a person to their twitter account or their blog. Therefor I’ll illustrate this by giving away prices here for those who are most true to their avatar.
  10. Sadly loads of people were there I would have liked to communicate with…well maybe next time
  11. What I hope will happen is a nice roundup from various people who attended. After Sales service for an event is also very important.
  12. Oh yes, as usual, I got carried away…, before I forget: Why was the event Thought Provoking?
    1. Of all people attending only one raised his hand when asked “Who makes more than UK pnd 1,000.- per month from his blog?”. (I know of some who were not attending among one who was tweeting from her HQ as if she was attending)
    2. Traditional Printed Press is experimenting with paid travel content and proudly announcing they have approximately 100 K paying customers…(but see a former competitor comment below) .
    3. Travel bloggers do relate and I feel at home with them!
    4. Buddy Press is not where it should be…whenever I’ll create a community I’ll be going to use the paid Ning thingy
    5. The after party in the Beduin bar was best…luckily the taxi driver found my personal B&B back for me.
    6. Online communications almost only mobile…a year ago almost unthinkable

Okay publishing it to be fast… Will be fleshing it out to be complete… soon…also as usual:-)…but first uploading the 300 something photos….[update: here they are via Fluidr ]

Check out these:

Last edited by GJE on November 13, 2010 at 00:20 AM