Virtual reality will have a big impact on travel, according to Expedia

June 15, 2010 | Online TravelPrint this article

According to Expedia, this can be anything from translating a menu using Google Goggles to putting the guidebook to one side and using a virtual reality layer on your phone to picture the street in front of you and get links to restaurant reviews or travel information.

Nigel Pocklington, VP Global Marketing and Strategy, Expedia, says virtual reality is likely to have a big impact on travellers in the near future.

In an interview with EyeForTravel, Pocklington referred to an offering from layar.com. The Layar Reality Browser shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of the real world as seen through the camera of your mobile phone. This technology is called Augmented Reality. The company augments the real world as seen through your mobile phone, based on your location. The idea is simple: Layar works by using a combination of the mobile phone's camera, compass and GPS data to identify the user's location and field of view, retrieve data based on those geographical coordinates, and overlay that data over the camera view.

In order to know more, EyeforTravel's Ritesh Gupta spoke to Pocklington about new innovations and some of the existing options for users to plan their travel planning and buying process. Excerpts:

Which according to you has been the most striking or potentially path-breaking development from the travel sector in the last six months or so? Would you call it a real innovation at this stage?

Nigel Pocklington: I'd nominate a couple of developments from the past six months that have had a lasting effect on the industry. The first is in mobile, where Virtual Reality is likely to have a big impact on travellers in the near future. This can be anything from translating a menu using Google Goggles to putting the guidebook to one side and using a virtual reality layer (such as layar.com )on your phone to picture the street in front of you and get links to restaurant reviews or travel information.

Closer home, I think the Hotels.com WelcomeRewards programme in the US – which gives a free night for every ten bought, regardless of hotel - is a real innovation in loyalty programmes that have historically tended to be restrictive and complex.

What do you make of some of the new travel companies or start-ups which are emerging? Any area which you feel needs to be followed at this stage in the travel sector in terms of its potential or opportunity?

Nigel Pocklington: We can already see a meaningful percentage of travel bookings coming from mobile devices in several Asian markets, and this trend can only grow, quickly.

Top US online travel agencies have referred to the performance of their international business, hotel reservations and also advertising and media revenue as the highlights of their business. Can you elaborate on what do these signal as far as the OTA business is concerned?

Nigel Pocklington: This signals that there's still a significant growth opportunity for OTAs as online booking increases its penetration of Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Brazil, Japan, Korea and Mexico are now amongst Hotels.com's fastest growing significant points of sale.

Do you think delivering the best available, the most compelling offers exactly at the time of searching continues to be the biggest opportunity?

Nigel Pocklington: Selling travel well has always been a mixture of creating excitement about the trip and reducing anxiety about the product itself – with the growth of online increasing customers' expectations of speed. I agree that it's important, but so is offering the best possible description of the product, and making sure the customers feel that they are getting the best deal possible at the time of booking.

The travel industry has witnessed a series of initiatives over the past few months, resulting in a fully customisable offering as per a traveller's preferences. How do you think today e-commerce in the travel sector has moved towards personalisation?

Nigel Pocklington: We are moving towards slowly towards personalisation and there are some clear reasons for this. Travel isn't bought all that frequently, possibly only two or three times a year, so our ability to build up an accurate picture of travelers' needs – which may change in any case between business and leisure travel for example – is much lower than other industries. We are seeing this begin to change though, and within the constraints of increasing concerns about user privacy, I'd expect more investment in this. This is certainly the case for Hotels.com.

Would it be right to say that the travel industry has always placed adoption of new technology at the bottom of the priority list? In this context, do you think the development of a mobile website is often overlooked as the foundational step of being engaged in the Mobile space?

Nigel Pocklington: This is certainly not in the case of the online travel industry. At hotels.com we've had an iPhone application for more than two years. I'd agree that ensuring mobile compatibility is the foundational step to be followed up by the development of genuinely useful applications.

How do you expect the power of social media to nudge ahead of some of the traditional online travel booking and planning channels?

Nigel Pocklington: We can't ignore the size of social media, and its potential to help users engage with our brands, but it needs to be seen differently to the more transaction focused marketing channels – it's a dialogue, not a broadcast. I would expect to see more investment in this area across the travel industry, especially because customers will come to see Facebook and Twitter as communication channels alongside the more traditional telephone and email, but it needs to accommodate the very different nature of the medium. It poses a new creative challenge and opportunity for marketers.

Making real estate look good in Google's 3D world

The Best Western President hotel in Auckland, New Zealand, here highlighted in purple on Google Earth.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

In the physical world, people knowing they'll be judged on appearances often prefer to put their best foot forward.

But there's a direct analog of the real world taking shape inside thousands of Google computers, a collection that began with addresses and roads and that's extended to photos and 3D buildings. What do you do when it's time to spruce up for virtual visitors?

You can of course learn how to create 3D models and submit them to Google. But a New Zealand start-up is hoping you'll do the same thing most people do when they need to design an addition or build a Web page: hire someone with the appropriate expertise.

Estate3D will build you a virtual model of your house that can appear on Google Earth and Google Maps--and for that matter on your own Web site if you want. The cost is $99 for a basic building.

It's not the only outfit, either. WebEpoch offers similar services. Google's SketchUp tool for 3D modeling has found a niche in architecture circles, and firms including Sketchup2India, Sketchup4Architect, and LunarStudio are among those who use it in their services. A company called In3D is reconstructing many Napa Valley, Calif., buildings in Google Earth.

"As more businesses become aware of the value of having a 3D presence in Google Earth, businesses are appearing to support that need," said Bruce Polderman, the Google Earth product manager.

It may sound like a frivolous expense. But don't laugh off the idea too hastily.

A company called In3D produced this 3D model of Newton Vineyard in St. Helena, Calif., that appears on Google Earth and Google Maps Earth View.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Some virtual land grabs fizzled--the rush for a presence in the Second Life so far was mostly a fad. Google Maps, though, is used by millions, and Web browsers are advancing to the point where the 3D buildings of a virtual realm will be much easier to display.

Who might care? The same sorts of people who care about their buildings' appearance in the real world have a reason to care--those with a lot of tourist traffic, real estate agents with distant customers, or stores on main thoroughfares.

A business won't live or die based on whether it's got a 3D presence on Google Maps, but having one could be smart. With the direction things are headed, it's likely people with car navigation systems will be able to see your online presence before they see the real thing. If nothing else, an accurate view could help people find your building faster.

And more broadly, the marriage of geographic detail and the Net is increasing in importance. Even as Facebook seeks to bring Internet data to the real world, Google is a powerhouse in the idea in bringing the real world to the Internet.

Technology underpinnings
There are several aspects of technology that are bringing this virtual world to pass. First, of course, is the Internet. It may seem obvious, but don't forget there was a day when mapping software was something you bought on a CD that stored the maps. The Net provides a mechanism not only to store a tremendous amount of data, but also to update it frequently and deliver it to everything from phones to car navigation devices.

More specifically, there's Google Maps and Microsoft's rival Bing Maps. These provide ever-more-useful services to people, not just finding your aunt's house in Cincinnati but also integrating higher-level data such as comments and star ratings about businesses. Google has built access to Google Maps into newer Android phones through its navigation app that can replace sat-nav devices as long as your phone has a Net connection.

Google Maps got more immersive with the 2007 launch of Street View, which endowed the service with a personal rather than bird's-eye view. (Bing Maps has a similar concept, complete with a relatively seamless zoom that transitions between the street-level and bird's-eye views.)

The next piece of the puzzle is Google Earth, which has a 3D virtual map of the entire planet, including terrain such as mountains and valleys. This software package isn't widely used compared to Google Maps, but Google has begun building Google Earth's 3D interface into Google Maps through a feature called Earth View.

A warehouse that Estate 3D built, shown in Google Maps' Earth View.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

That 3D view requires a plug-in today, but you can bet that WebGL, which provides a mechanism for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics in the Web, will make it more accessible. Though Microsoft has responded coolly to adding WebGL into Internet Explorer, a WebGL plug-in approach could sidestep that significant limitation. The full interactivity of Google Maps--navigation, business ratings, and such-- would also have to be added.

Google Earth also comes with 3D buildings that show in Google Maps' Earth View. This is where the opportunity lies for companies such as Estate3D.

Last, Google's virtual world is an exercise in crowdsourcing. Although Google has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, a sizable chunk of the world's population has been helping Google expand its database, including by mapping roads where Google doesn't have data or taking geotagged photos that end up in Street View. Last week, Google said 10,000 people submitted 25,000 suggestions in the five months since Google launched bike directions.

Where Second Life was largely detached from the real world, Google Maps is anchored firmly to it. It's an electronic interface that people use to get things done in the real world--including commerce with real currency, not Second Life's Linden dollars. In other words, it's a virtual first life.

Inside Estate3D
Estate3D is just getting started right now with its 3D building service. Ash Scott, who along with Hamish Evans are the company's principals, already is a contractor for creating 3D models. So far, the biggest model they've produced is the BDO Tower in Auckland, New Zealand.

"I got interested in this idea because I really enjoy 'geo modeling' and could see the opportunity for a low-cost, semi-automated system allowing people to get their buildings into Google Earth and, via the Google Earth API, to show their buildings off in 3D on their Web sites," Ash said.

Estate3D created this model of Old Corban's Winery in Gisborne, New Zealand.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The company aims for a three-day turnaround to send their customers the file with their 3D building. They also submit the building to Google, which runs the building through a three-pass audit to make sure it's up to snuff before making it available through Google Earth and Maps. That usually takes up to two weeks, he said.

One issue potentially of concern to would-be 3D modeling entrepreneurs is that Google itself is competing with them. With 3D laser scanners now fitted to the cameras for Street View, Google is building its own 3D models of buildings at no charge.

There are a lot of buildings in the world, of course--Seville, Spain, arrived on Google Earth in 3D in July, for example, but there are a lot of cities in the world.

Ash doesn't see Google as an Estate3D competitor, though, and Polderman seems inclined to agree.

"User-generated models are often higher-quality than auto-generated models because they were developed using ground-based photos," Polderman said. "Users also frequently include rich metadata with a model, making it more valuable than auto-generated ones. User-generated models are strongly preferred and, if are equal or better quality, will replace the auto-generated model."

Making the models isn't simple. Even with customers supplying the photos that are applied to the virtual walls, Google has limits intended to keep Google Earth and Maps as responsive as possible. Buildings must be empty shells with no ground floors or internal walls. Graphics must be highly compressed. Structures with repeating elements can reuse the same component multiple times.

It's work, Ash said, but it's also pleasure.

"It isn't a straightforward process," he said of making the 3D models, "but it's very satisfying."

Checking-Up on Checking-In

Foursquare's Crowley: The Giants Are "Generic," We Are Fun. I Wonder Who He's Referring To…

by Evelyn Rusli on Aug 21, 2010

Foursquare may have a tenuous partnership with Facebook Places— but don't let theKumbaya presentation fool you, these frenemies are gunning for the ultimate mayorship andDennis Crowley is feeling very confident.

On Friday's taping of Gillmor Gang with former TechCrunchIT Editor Steve Gillmor,Kevin Marks and John Taschek, Crowley discussed the opportunity for places, outlined his plan for the next iteration of Foursquare and knocked Google for its social awkwardness. While his disgust with Google's mismanagement of the ill-fated Dodgeball is well documented, in his explanation you don't need to read between the lines to understand he's also talking about Facebook and how he plans to beat Goliath.

"It's difficult to build services that are supposed to scale to you know 30, 50, 100 million users right off the bat, because they got to be kind of tailored down, by definition they have to be a little bit generic to speak to that large of an audience. And one of the benefits that we get from starting from scratch and starting as a mobile, social, local startup is that we start with zero users and we can put whatever personality and whatever face we want to on the product… Part of what you see on Foursquare, which is the game mechanics and the snarkiness and really more importantly like the fun and the playfulness that we build into the product, because I think that's the stuff that most people relate to. And you can poo-poo how like those touchy-feely things don't mean too much to users but I really think that's the core and kind of the soul of the service and people identify with that."

Still not convinced that Crowley's painting the picture of Facebook as a generic-borderline-boring service, versus Foursquare, the hip, edgy, playful alternative? Let's step back and consider recent evidence. Earlier this week, Crowley blasted a seemingly harmless tweet: "Call from my 86 yr old grandma: 'Hello. I want to know if this Face-Book is like yours. It sounds like Four-Squared, but without the fun.'"

In a word, that's what Crowley has brought to this undercover dogfight: fun.

Although it may sound silly, Crowley's argument is logically sound. The core of "fun" is his most potent weapon to staying relevant.

Facebook is so huge (500 million large versus Foursquare's 2.8 million) that its check-in service has to be simple and minimal to accommodate such a huge and diverse group— anything too quirky or outlandish runs the risk of alienating factions. While Foursquare cannot dream to compete with Facebook's installed base, the startup can certainly differentiate itself by offering a creative, more dynamic product that is less utilitarian and more personality-driven.

As Crowley explains on the Gillmor gang show, he does believe that Facebook has a major role to play in the location ecosystem. Facebook can aggregate check-ins from different services and introduce new users (millions upon millions of them) to the world of check-ins. Thus, if Facebook stays in its corner, the relationship could be a very symbiotic one for Foursquare, which saw arecord number of sign-ups on Thursday.

In the meantime, Foursquare is certainly not content to just wait and watch this play out. The rapidly expanding team is working hard to push out the new version within the next two weeks. Crowley, who says he's "embarrassed" by Foursquare's current game mechanics, says the next iterations of Foursquare will focus on "reworking and rethinking…the way the tips and the to-dos work, because that's going to be core of the system."

In other words, when it comes to the basic check-in, Facebook can be the king of the hill, but when it comes to creating the most engaging, valuable location experience, Crowley is ready for a fight.

Below are highlights from the Gillmor Gang show/ or see video above:

On the opportunities with Places
"I think there's been a lot of folks who've tried to do… check-in aggregation services in the past and ultimately I think that's going to be, that's probably a good thing for the industry just so it's not as fragmented…We've been looking at their API and playing with it a little bit, there's a good chance we're going to push our check-ins into the facebook feed and there's a good chance we're going to pull their check-ins out of it. But I think the big win here, just as Twitter and Facebook taught the world how to share things online photos and status updates and social commentary, I think Facebook is going to teach the world what check-ins are all about."

On the differences between Places/Foursquare
"We don't ignore the past. I think one of the great things about Foursquare is that we got a critical mass of users that interact with us two or three minutes every day. Like they do three or five check-ins, on a daily basis that's not a lot of content, not a lot of data that we're getting…but over the course of weeks and months it ends up being a lot interesting data about the types of places that people go, the types of things they enjoy doing, the types of people they hang out with. You can cut that stuff up and recycle it back to the users in…lots of interesting ways and I think that's going to be a big opportunity for us."

On the problem with Foursquare's game mechanics
"I think the game mechanics, they really need a lot of work. They really need a lot of improvement, there's a lot of stuff in the product that we're not happy about, there's a lot of stuff I'm kind of like embarrassed about, there's a lot of things that we need to fix. And people love it as it is. Another big push that you're going to see from us in the next couple of months is redefining and redeveloping a lot of these game mechanics. Just because we've gotten much smarter about it. And I think once we start applying a lot of the stuff we've learned to the stuff we've already built, then we'll really start to blow people away."

The next iteration
"The next version of the Foursquare app comes out in probably like two weeks or so and we're really reworking and rethinking like the way the tips and the to-dos work, because that's going to be core of the system. …We've been thinking for awhile, what's act two for us? And act two is OK let's take all this information about what people are doing, what people want to do, and let's build this back into the app in a way that's manageable for people and easy to share."

On Google's location/social strategy
"I think they've just always struggled with social. That could be an entire different, an hour long conversation over what is it with social that they don't get… My belief has always been that in order for services to take off in the near term, in order for them to develop that passionate user base of people that go out and turn into advocates. The services need to have some kind of personality to them and some kind of identity to them and I think it's really difficult and I felt like we ran into some of this when we were at Google. It's difficult to build services that are supposed to scale to you know 30, 50, 100 million users right off the bat, because they got to be kind of tailored down, by definition they have to be a little bit generic to speak to that large of an audience. And one of the benefits that we get from starting from scratch and starting as a mobile, social, local startup is that we start with zero users and we can put whatever personality and whatever face we want to on the product. Part of what you see on Foursquare, which is the game mechanics and the snarkiness and really more importantly like the fun and the playfulness that we build into the product, because I think that's the stuff that most people relate to. And you can poo-poo how like those touchy-feely things don't mean too much to users but I really think that's the core and kind of the soul of the service and people identify with that."

On why the world needs more than one social graph

Our social graph is more representative of the people that you meet in the real world. I am starting to believe, if you asked me a year ago, Why would you ever need more than one social graph?You need representation of a couple of them. Between the three, Facebook is literally everyone I've ever shaken hands with at a conference or kissed on the cheek at Easter. Twitter seems to be everyone I am entertained by or I wish to meet some day. Foursquare seems to be everyone I run into on a regular basis. All three of those social graphs are powerful in their own

Facebook Connect came along and it really made the social graph open to everyone and makes building social apps easier. We think, oh, we are just building our social graphs on top of Facebook . But Facebook could benefit from our social graph, and Facebook could benefit from Twitter's social graph. You maybe are not just sucking data out of one, and that is the end of it, but maybe sucking data out of one and putting it in another and they are all working to make each other a little more powerful and a little more accurate.

For Travel Planning, Search Engines May Not Be Your Best Destination

Jul 25, 2010 at 2:59pm ET by Chris Sherman 

It's that time of year when many of us turn to the internet for information, advice and maps to help plan a getaway for some rest and relaxation. Many people start with search engines to help them find travel related sites. Others seek out maps to help plan routes or check out street level images of hotels, restaurants and attractions. Still others turn to social rating and review sites, hoping to benefit from the experiences of others rather than relying on marketing hype from travel service providers.

There are a ton of great resources out there to help you research and plan your holiday. But there is no single, comprehensive source that will give you everything you need to know. And some sites with some really excellent resources are sadly lacking in tools or information easily found elsewhere.

This is the first of a two part series looking at the best travel search resources on the internet. I'm going to start, naturally, with the three major search engines. Of the three, just Bing and Yahoo have prominent and rich travel verticals (but don't count Google out—more on its apparent plans in the travel space later).

Next I'll look at the online versions of popular travel guides featured prominently at your favorite bookstores. Like their print kin, these are generally rich with information, photos, maps and advice. Some leverage the interactive potential of the web, offering tools, customization, mobile apps and more. Others are essentially online brochures.

I'm purposely avoiding the major online travel agencies like Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity,Orbitz, Kayak and others. They're useful sites, but their primary function is to either sell you a travel product or refer you a seller's site. Rather, I'm going to focus on sites that either help you search for travel information, or help you plan and assemble an itinerary independently of how you intend to travel.

So let the journey begin.

Travel planning with Bing, Google & Yahoo

Many people almost reflexively begin travel planning with the major search engines. And why not? All three offer good mapping services—in fact, Hitwise ranks Google Maps as the #1 travel site with a 15% market share, nearly double the share of #2 Mapquest and 5 times third place Expedia.

But as useful as the major search engines can be in helping you plan a trip, they all have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to travelers aid.

General travel queries

For a query like "duluth vacation," each search engine offers a very different set of results. Both Bing and Google results for the query "duluth vacation" (Bing, Google) skew toward heavily SEO'd property and rental sites, with a few links to information resources. Both also offer a local map and easy access to local search listings, as well as a set of suggested related searches that can help you refine your query. Yahoo's results are a bit broader, including links to more info from Yahoo's travel vertical, Trip Advisor and the Vacation Rentals By Owner website.

Bottom line: If you're just starting your vacation planning, general search engines can help you get a good initial "lay of the land." But if you have a good idea of where you want to go you're better off going directly to one of the travel planner sites I'll be reviewing later this week.

Using maps for travel planning

For a long journey, it's useful to have detailed driving directions, overhead and street-level images to help you get a sense of place, and particularly if you're traveling in urban areas, real-time traffic info. All three major search engines have very good and usually accurate (careful, though! not always) maps at Bing Maps, Google Maps and Yahoo Local Maps (this is a link to the beta version which I think is better than the current service).

Of the three, I prefer Google for driving directions, primarily because it has autosuggest enabled, making it easy to select different variations of keywords for your query (though Bing and Yahoo have autosuggest for web search, they don't offer it for maps). Google also offers alternative routes for some trips. By default, all three mapping services look for the fastest, most direct route to a destination, which in most cases is what you want. But if you're more interested in a scenic route, especially for longer trips, you'll want to experiment with adding cities or landmarks as waypoints between your starting and ending locations.

Arguably the biggest difference between the three is in the print versions of your itineraries. Each offers a map of your journey, but renders step-by-step directions differently. Bing's are visually rich, with road sign symbols, visual turn indicators and nice total miles/time markers for each step. In addition to the map of your complete journey, Bing also includes smaller maps of your beginning and endpoints. In the list of directions, Google offers road sign symbols and visual turn indicators, but the layout isn't as easy to read as Bing's—for some, an important difference when you're simultaneously driving and trying to read directions. Yahoo's driving directions are the most spartan, but it also offer options for beginning and end point maps. Here are sample driving directions from each of the three—click on the links to see the complete list:

Bing map & directions: Newport Beach to Brooklyn

 

Google map & directions: Newport Beach to Brooklyn

 

Yahoo map & directions: Newport Beach to Brooklyn

 

Bottom line: Each of the major search engines' mapping functions are useful, with just a few variations in features. Which one you ultimately use will likely be more determined by your comfort factor than due to differences in functionality or accuracy.

Search engine travel verticals

At the moment, just Yahoo has a fully-fledged travel vertical with its Yahoo Travel property, with comprehensive booking, research and planning tools. Although positioned as a vertical, Bing Travel isn't as comprehensive as Yahoo (Bing does aggregate travel articles from other sources and publish some original content, though it isn't easy to find). However, Bing does offer some excellent and unique fare and rate comparison tools that help you find good deals on travel—it just lacks the guides and other tools that Yahoo offers.

What Bing does that no other travel site does is attempt to predict when to buy, when to fly, and where to stay based on a huge volume of airfare and hotel rate data it processes every day.

At its most basic, you can enter two cities and the dates you want to travel, and like most travel sites Bing will present you with a list of airfares, hotel offers and links to book online. But Bing takes this a step farther, and also tells you if this is the best time to make a booking or not:

If Bing suggests that you wait, when exactly should you book? To find out, click the "Flexible search" link on the menu bar:

Re-run your flight search, and you're presented with three options: a map, showing your route, a graph, showing you when to travel, and a grid, showing options when you vary the length of your trip. To determine the best time to buy if you have fixed dates, select the graph:

This shows a chart of predicted prices over the coming month for your itinerary, based on historical data and other factors (such as holidays, major conventions or events happening in your destination city, and so on). Note: you'll need to be careful here, as the chart shows the dates when predicted fares for specific dates should be lowest, not the date you should purchase a ticket. Airline fares constantly change—what this graph shows you is a probable trend in fares, not exact pricing. You'll need to think about other factors like early purchase discounts when making your purchase decision.

If you have some flexibility with your travel dates, you'll get another interesting view of predicted prices based on the duration of your stay mapped with suggested departure dates for your trip:

Notice the more than $400 dollar difference if you simply change the dates and duration of your trip! Using these tools, it's possible to save some serious coin when making your reservations, usually without doing anything other than following Bing's recommendations.

If you're looking for a hotel, Bing will also look at historical prices and will offer an opinion about the rate a particular hotel is offering:

Although Google has sent a clear signal that it intends to become a big player in travel with its recent purchase of travel reservations software company ITA, as well getting the team behind travel guide site Ruba to "join" Google, for the time being its only pure travel related services apart from maps are flight tracking and currency conversion—just type any U.S. airline and flight number (united 929) or monetary conversion (100 USD in ZAR) directly into any Google search box.

Bottom line: Bing's travel vertical offers unique planning tools, and some useful information (if you can find it). But in general, if you're looking for travel guides, route planning tools and other resources to help you with your trip, you're better off with Yahoo travel or one of the other travel planning resources I've written about in The Thirteen Best Online Travel Guides.

Moving forward

General-purpose search engines try to offer reasonable results regardless of the type of query. But to get really useful travel information, you're almost always better off seeking out specialized resources. Read on for an in-depth look at the web's most useful travel planning resources:

>> The Thirteen Best Online Travel Guides