The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
As a matter of fact I was experimenting with Netvibes and its Ginger version already. Just before noting Travel.Alltop I had made a public page on Netvibes by the name of Happy Hotelier’s Travel Readings, which was inspired by the way Edu Williams had formed his public Turismo (En) page.
Look for yourself if this is an alternative for your rss feed reader and give me your thoughts.
Off to baking my own bread:-)
Again, I must have been under the rocks. This is existing and happening on my doorstep (or in my backyard): Yesterday and today The 2008 Next Web Conference is being held in Amsterdam.
What is The Next Web Conference?
The Next Web Conference is THE European conference for industry thought-leaders, leading web-companies, innovative Startups, visionaries and real Web savvies. This third edition will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on April 3rd & 4th, 2008.
Twitter
How did I find out about Next Web? Recently I joined Twitter as a result of attending the ITB Berlin Travel Bloggers Summit where I felt a bit as an outsider as I observed some fellow travel Blogger busy Twittering away while I was fudzing around with my old laptop in order to get a proper WiFi connection which was not stable at ITB.
At first I was afraid Twitter would be nothing else than ICQ that I used a lot eons ago. I am still a bit proud I have a very low ICQ ID number (under 100K while the last time I looked years ago they were in the 9 mio) laying around, but I don’t use it anymore. Also because after ICQ a whole lot of similar chat programs came around. When you are concentrating behind your computer it is frustrating to see the pop up screens flying over your computer or ICQ spammers harassing you. It may have become much better nowadays, but I won’t look at it. One of the advantages is that you can spread around your new posts via Twitter Feed, which as I am writing this is temporarily out of service, from a company not related with Twitter. The Blackberry and Iphone aficionados can keep in contact with each other and SMS Twitter feeds to each other.
Via Twitter I noticed that Robert Scobler, one of the Blogging Gurus (Yes from Scobleizer) was traveling to Amsterdam to give a presentation.
Early this morning another guy made the comment that two guys were paying attention to the presentation and the other 699 attendants were playing with their laptop, blackberry or Iphone…..
This comment triggered an old story of one of the partners of my former law firm who gave a presentation in Japan for the first time. I am now talking about late seventies/early eighties. When looking to the audience he saw everybody sitting with their arms crossed and a small bag in front on their tables instead of busy taking notes. After the presentation everyone left in a hurry. This was unusual because he was used to everybody coming to him with questions or to exchange business cards…..It turned out that he had speeched to an audience of private chauffeurs of the captains of industry who he was led to believe he would be speaking to. They all had their little Dictaphones with them and hurried to their bosses after the presentation, which story brings me:
Back to The 2008 Next Web Conference
The modern times learn me that you can behave like those wise Japanese bosses from the story above:
There are 25 startups featured who paid a hefty Euro 2.500 for having their 5 minutes of fame.
Barcamp Amsterdam IV
Tomorrow the conference will be followed by BarCamp Amsterdam IV. You can give them a notice if you want to join here. I will see if I can hop in.
If you like you can follow me at
Twitter | Happy Hotelier.
Post Alia: Most attendants seem to stay in the Lloyd’s Hotel in Amsterdam.
Added March 5:
If you want to know the twitter people with the most followers, click Twitterholic.com
Recently I saw referrals coming in from Travel.Alltop.
According to its Blog Travel.Alltop was launched on March 28, 2008. They thanked Gary Arndt, Chris Holdren, Glenn James, Paul Sanchez, Sheila Scarborough and Jen Leo. Since I don’t happen to know these people, I more or less wonder how I got on their shortlist.
Wat is Alltop?
Alltop is a site syndicating links from “all the top†sites on the web on various subjects. They divide them in single aggregated pages on topics such as:
To name a few of my favorite subjects.
I believe they should create architecture as well
Each page has 30 plus, each with 5 posts. Some of the Travel collection (now 61) I do know well to very well, some are new to me.
Its design is really Zen like.
About Alltop
It was Launched on March 12, 2008 See: Announcement
The people behind Alltop are also behind Truemors, subtitled “Breaking Rumors”. They were inspired by Popurl when they realized Popurl were sending them a lot of traffic.
Alltop and Treumors are owned by Nononina
It is “two guys and a gal†in a garage—or more accurately, one guy in home office (Will Mayall), one gal on a kitchen table (Kathryn Henkens), and one Guy in United 2B (Guy Kawasaki). They’ve been working together since the previous century and are still friends. If you can figure out the origin of the name “Nononina,†Guy will send you a free copy of The Art of the Start.
Their Strange Banner
From their FAQ
Q. What’s with the banner near the bottom of the page? Is that a bug?
A. You fail the test. We put the banner there on purpose. We wanted to flip convention on its head by reversing the positions of the header and footer. Our (tiny) header is everyone else’s footer, and our footer is everyone else’s header. We did this to emphasize that “content is the top priority†at Alltop, not our brand identity. Also, the translucent banner contains a pun: “We’ve got [topic] covered.†Get it? Though we never planned it this way, some people also use it as a page marker to keep track of where they are on a page since the banner remains stationary and you scroll the headlines.
Why Alltop and not Netvibes?
Another funny comment in their FAQ:
Q. Couldn’t I build my own custom aggregation using a feed reader, customizable home pages, Netvibes, etc?
A. Yes, you could—knock yourself out. While you’re at it, you could backup your hard disk, bake your own bread, iron your own shirts, floss daily, tune your own car, and bike to work.
.
The Connection
In digging a bit further I believe I found the connection: Trendhunter
Here is a picture of Guy Kawasaki I found on Trendhunter:
His Blog is titled How to Change The World. It featured Trendhunter a year ago (ha ha and he added Trendhunters’ Dutch competitor Springwise as an afterthought. I’ll explain my laugh in a separate post). And off course Trendhunter featured Alltop. An interview with him can be found here.
Let’s see how it develops.
I discovered Unique Small Hotels.
It seems a derivative of Booking.com, but because it unveils very little about itself I’m not sure.
As owner of a unique small luxury hotel I am always looking for small luxury hotels and B&B’s.
After checking out some of their offerings I can agree with many of their picks. Maybe I should look at them first for my next Nothing Zen series of posts.
Update February 2009: It turned out that they had teamed up with Booking.com. This affiliation was terminated and now sadly all what remains is a website under construction. Maybe to sell the Domain? I have removed various links here that were obsolete.
Update January 2020: They seem revived again.
One of the best April Fool’s Day stories:
Google’s Official Blog announces that Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are teaming up with Sir Richard Branson to form Virgle to take us to Mars in 20014.
Read more here.