Category: Twitter

#winewednesday – Question: Who “Owns” a twitter hashtag?

twesomellier-launches-winewednesday1

The story is quite simple:
Shortly after the birth of #traveltuesday (read my post here), Eric aka @TwSommelier had the great idea to launch #winewednesday on Twitter and today we have the second #winewednesday.

A great idea indeed, but, but, but: To my view that doesn’t mean that TweSommelier “owns” the hashtag neither does he “own” the discussion. I believe the following:

  1. The tweets are “owned” by the respective twitterati
  2. Without the participants there is no #winewednesday
  3. This good initiative should have a more solid foundation than one mere Twitter Account holder, no matter who the account holds.

The reason for this post is twofold:
Last week, shortly after the first #winewednesday, I asked TweSomelier who would recap the #winewednesday event and I meant that on a weekly basis. His answer was that he had just recapped it in a couple of tweets. Now my problem is that whenever he decides to terminate his twitter account, all participants stand to loose a great experience. So my suggestion is to give #winewednesday a more permanent basis than one based merely on a Twitter account. I’m sure there are more participants out there who are willing to participate in a more permanent form.

Then I hit upon Twibes and created there Twibes/WineWednesday. As soon as TweSommelier noticed, he asked me to hand over that Twibe to him as the founder of #winewednesday. At this moment Twibes is in Beta and it is far from clear whether it will have any value at all eventually. Today it doesn’t have a lot of value as the tweets only are one page long and do not go back in history. Twibes is clear about the Twibe owner: The one who first tweets a group is the group “owner”. Twibes doesn’t provide (yet) for handing over a group. Should I hand the twibe over to TweSommelier? For the moment I’m not prepared to “hand it over” (apart from the fact that that would mean striking the Twibe and ask TweSommelier to re establish the Twibe), because I dare TweSommelier to give the whole #winewednesday movement a bit more permanent basis. Maybe I’m on a wrong track. So I’m asking my readers:

What do you think we should do?

  1. create a community Winewednesday blog?
  2. Create a Wine Wednesday Ning community?
  3. Leave it as it is? or
  4. Other suggestions?

Exciting Twitterday at Travolution’s #travsummit

There was a really hilarious video about airline surcharges, but now it’s taken away from Youtube [ed July 2010]

Originally I was planning to attend the Travolution Travel Summit in London today. However, some wonderful guests from Down Under had booked in my hotel, so I couldn’t afford to hop over to London, but in between I could have a look into the stream and sometimes throw in a thought or question.

As Twitter is the trend in conferences nowadays – you see rows and rows of people with laptops, blackberries and Iphones Twittering away- you almost don’t have to attend them in Real life.

Just sift through under 1,000 tweets at Search.Twitter.com/#travsummit and you know almost all.Note my clever little trick in altering the number of Tweets in the search url from 50 to 100. So you have only to scroll through 10 pages of Tweets. Also remind that after a certain period Twitter seems to flush its search caches.

Some notes from the #travsummit stream some of which I have to check out more in depth:

  • On a personal note, if I would have attended, I would have been torn between Looking and listening, posting Tweets and making photos. At the next conference I will attend, I will be making photos only. I missed catching the faces today.
  • The word boring is becoming Cool. “Just keep your eyes on the ball” as Bill Marriott says it in an recent interview with startup Hoteliers Magazine and do what you are good at is a wise advice in the present economic circumstances
  • Everybody points to USG (User Generated Content), but it is my experience that only 40% of my guests produce USG in the form of writing into my guest book and only 5% write a review online.
  • Google top 5 tips for conversion: -No doubt. -Simple check-out. -Limit steps. -Limit warnings. -Quarantine check-out (thinking about redesigning my hotel website).
  • Travellers typically make 12 searches on 22 websites over 29 days before making their first booking says Google.
  • Home Away vacation rentals is growing very fast.
  • MS demonstrated an interesting huge new touchscreen Surface. Go see the Demo video taken at Sheraton Hotels and Resorts. European price approx UK PND 11,000.
  • Together with Photosynth (also from MS) Surface has some cool features

Other Travel Bloggers:

  1. Jeremy Head is one of the first posting about the summit at his Blog Travel Blather Travolution Summit: 7 things I learned today
  2. Worldreviewer is a good second who posts about the summit.
  3. Stephan Ekbergh posted about it
  4. Ben Colclough of Trailbeater posted about it
  5. I almost forgot Hotelblogs who devoted several blog posts on the summit:Business Leaders on Stage, Update from Ailines, Innovators in Digital and online Travel and some more

Latest Update April 22, 2009 17,00 hr … It took me almost 12 hours to find the video back. And at Travolution you will find more coverage. Rest my post further:-)

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.

Twitter Romance? (#itb09 sequel)

Twitter Romance?
Yes it is there! You only have to have an eye for it!

The inspiration for this post started with a tweet from my Icelandic Twitter friend @Hjortur of Marketing Safari:

twitter-romance-1

According to the Telegraph Jennifer Aniston has broken up with John Mayer,
because of his Twitter Addiction.

Whereupon I immediately answered: “She should have done this More Attention Please!“. (Due to some Twitter hiccups (as usual) the post itself is presently not available. Err not available in my Twitter stream, but I could find it back.) My post describes how a lady complains about the fact that her husband spends more time with his pc than with her. Reason why she has set up her own Blog and quotes:

My Blog with my nude pics receives more unique hits than the blog of my husband. This is my revenge. I wish he had more time for me than his PC

Quote from the famous Post Secret (10/12/2008 Sunday Secrets).
In the meantime Hjortur Retweets this:

And shortly thereafter this:

And Inga comments this

“Now why is this so Romantic?” You might ask

The answer is very simple – and I only realized it by checking out Inga after his retweet- : Hjortur is the Twittahholic of the family and Inga is his wife!

Imagine the long dark afternoons and evenings and nights in Iceland and a couple in one house: He with his pc and she with hers. Apparently Hjortur found the perfect solution for his addiction to Twitter and the possible impact that could have on his relation: He simply made his wife a Twitter aficionado herself and sometimes very romanticly twittering to each other. Moreoevr: if you read this post 15 years and 15 reasons of Inga about her relation with Hjortur, then you’ll know that Romance is okay with this couple.

“And what is the connection with #itb09?”
First: Hjortur would have loved to attend #itb09
Secondly: This couple in the same house tweeting romantically to each reminded me of the Bloggers Summit opening session at #itb09 where some 50 bloggers behind their laptops were twittering away to the whole world and each other, while they were introduced to each other. All of a sudden the moderator of the event suggested:”Maybe it is a good idea to look up from your computers screens and look at your neighbor and TALK rather than Tweet to him/her” which drew an Homeric laughter of the audience.

Idea
In the meantime I have suggested to Hjortur and Inga to start writing (or twittering) a Twitter Operette. She sings you know!