Chris Anderson’s Free & the Booking Engine

I’ve been a huge fan for Chris Anderson for a long time. It seemed to me that the “Long Tail” completely supported my own motivation behind building Rezgo, a web based booking engine that would put inventory and distribution control into the hands of the individual supplier. Now with his latest article in Wired magazine and his upcoming book, I am again inspired by his words. In his article titled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“, Chris explains that because of the decreasing costs of hardware and bandwidth, it is possible to monetize digital businesses... Read more »

Engaging Bloggers - PR dos and don’ts

Like many of my T-List colleagues I have begun to see my inbox grow steadily with emails from PR firms inviting me to interview Internet entrepreneurs or to check out the latest and greatest new website.  Let me clarify that, to me, there is no difference between these messages and the ones I get for cheap stocks, gambling sites, or male enhancement products.  The most annoying thing is that these PR companies feel their pitches are wrapped in a clock of legitimacy because they are coming from a PR department.  Let me re-iterate that they are still spam.  For the sake of those PR companies... Read more »

User Travel Guides vs. Professional Travel Guides

Frankly I’ve always enjoyed travel guides especially the well written version by Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, or Columbus Guides.  Since the growth in popularity of user generated sites like Wikitravel and World66 I’ve cast off the shackles of paper and gone digital for my guides preferring the advice and recommendations of average travelers.  The BBC recently reported that a Lonely Planet author admitted that he hadn’t even visited some of the countries he wrote about, bringing into doubt the reliability and credibility of not just the Lonely Planet brand but all travel guide... Read more »

Traditional Journalists Use Blogs for Story Ideas

One of the reasons why blogs are such a good idea and why I enjoy following blogs, especially those on the T-List, is because they are a great source of knowledge.  At ITB Berlin in March a number of T-List bloggers, including myself, sat on an expert panel and debated the role of blogs versus traditional journalists.  There was much discussion about whether citizen journalism would replace traditional journalism and about the credibility of user generated content.  My take has always been that the two will eventually find an equilibrium and that they may also feed off each other, one supporting... Read more »

Fake Social Media

Thanks to Joe Buhler for writing his post about the post by Peg Davis titled “Keeping it real… fake: Social Media “don’t”s”. The timing of this post coincides nicely with the announcement that flogging is now illegal in the EU. Peg’s post discusses how to garner favour with the elusive Gen Y and how companies should be embracing user generated content or participating in the social media landscape. This is, ofcourse, a subject I am passionate about because, being part of the Gen Y, I can speak first hand about how social networks should work and how... Read more »

So what would a Google + Expedia Look Like?

I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a subsequent rise in Expedia’s share price. For the most part I’m not a big fan of rumours, but it did get me thinking about what such a beast would look like. In November of last year Tim Armstrong from Google presented at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando and stated in no uncertain terms that Google has no interest in entering the travel space. So why, less than four months later, would that message have changed so dramatically.... Read more »