Travelocity enters blogosphere

Connecting readers to expert information, Travelocity enters travelers' turf through the company's new web log – The Window Seat consumer travel blog. Serving as an expansive resource for travelers, this first-of-its-kind blog by a major online travel company reveals relevant and uncolored travel advice as well as insider tips from a team of travel industry experts spearheaded by Travelocity editor-at-large, Amy Ziff.

The Window Seat blog offers a unique fusion of expert information gathered from a decade of experience in the travel business with first-hand accounts from travelers themselves. With information ranging from seasonal destination finds and airport security changes to where the stars headed on their last holiday, The Window Seat blog provides a new perspective to enhance the travel experience for every traveler. As explorers chime in on past travel experiences, future dream trips and their new favorite hot spots, The Window Seat's team of experts will be on hand to answer difficult travel questions, dish on destinations and discuss travelers' woes and wins.

"We're proud to be launching The Window Seat blog, which is written by and for travelers," said Amy Ziff, Travelocity's Editor at Large. "I can't think of a better way to share our collective travel experiences and expertise than through a blog."

The Window Seat blog was born out of travelers' need for a forum to share common passion, concerns and questions before they hit the road or head to the skies. As Travelocity's team of editors share their passion for travel near and far, they provide useful resources for travelers in need – even if it's merely an intriguing travel story to scratch their travel itch.

Bloggers can explore everything from local favorites to last minute travel ideas through segmented categories such as:

- Tailored trips: Made-to-fit travel experiences for bloggers interested in family travel, holiday and seasonal travel, festivals and cultural events and more.

- Trip Tips:  General advice for the traveler seeking information on air travel, car rentals, cruises, hotels and more.

- Main Routes: First-hand experiences and recommendations on popular travel destinations and those off-the-beaten-path.

While checking out their view from The Window Seat, Travelocity editors also provide useful links to their favorite travel blogs and resources, allowing visitors to research current TSA packaging regulations and destination videos. Bloggers who visit The Window Seat are invited to add relevant content and will be able to upload photos and view destination videos in the future.

"The Web provides great traveler resources," says Ziff. "The Window Seat provides a great venue for sharing advice, asking questions and rehashing your favorite travel stories."

Related Link: Travelocity's "The Window Seat"

Forbes Traveler releases list of top 400 hotels, resorts

ForbesTraveler.com has issued its first-ever ForbesTraveler 400 list – a compendium of the world's best hotels and resorts. ForbesTraveler 400 properties were selected by a panel of more than 80 travel experts who are unaffiliated with hotels, including prominent tour operators, editors and writers, travel industry executives, CEOs and travel agents.

To create the ForbesTraveler 400, ForbesTraveler.com editors compiled a list of over 600 of the world's top-ranked hotels from a variety of respected sources (brand-new hotels and hotels closed for renovations were excluded); allowed for individual nominations beyond the original pool of properties; and asked the experts to rate each property on seven criteria: service, room & bathroom, décor, food & beverage, public areas & facilities, sports & recreation, and location.

The survey results determined the world's top 400 properties, and the reviews were written by professional travel writers who personally visited each property without receiving complimentary rates or stays from the hotels they covered. All of the 80 panel experts are listed at forbestraveler.com/jsp/panel.

Related Link: ForbesTraveler 400

Ask.com unveils new local search

Ask.com is unveiled on Monday a new local search service that lets people find maps, directions, businesses, events and movies--all through one interface.

The service, called AskCity, integrates data from other Web properties owned by InterActiveCorp, including Citysearch.com for business reviews, TicketMaster for event tickets, ReserveAmerica for campground reservations, Fandango for movie ticket purchases and OpenTable.com for restaurant reservations.

Users can narrow their restaurant searches by cuisine type, neighborhood, street name or zip code, as well as book a reservation through the site and send information to a phone. Users can also plot out routes to multiple destinations, make annotations directly on the map, save it and e-mail to others.

"This is the first time we've done a real integrated channel with Ask and other IAC properties," said Doug Leeds, vice president of products at Ask.com.

The service is launching as competition with other search engines on mapping features heats up . The search site will eventually integrate data from other IAC properties such as Evite, Match.com and RealEstate.com, and further down the road, Gifts.com , Leeds said.

Venice

IAC To Launch AskCity; Local Info Services Site

Reuters reports that IAC and Ask.com are launching a new local information services site named AskCity on December 4th. The site will combine IAC's portfolio of Ask.com, CitySearch, Evite and TicketMaster by providing information and services such as Web search, city guides, maps and event listings.

The future of local news?

Chris Tolles, the head of marketing, for Topix, the news aggregator, may be the only guy in the Valley who speaks faster than Marc Andreessen. By the time he was done with his two hour brain dump Tuesday in Wired's dining room I was whipped.

But it's good he came by. I haven't been paying enough attention to what he and his few dozen colleagues down in Palo Alto have been doing. I thought Topix was just another news aggregator like Google News or Yahoo News, and I figured that since it was backed by Tribune, Gannett and McClatchy, I wasn't going to be impressed. Wrong.

It's become common among readers to moan about how all news is becoming commoditized. There's some truth to this when it applies to news out of Washington or Iraq. Not true of local news, however. Every publication writing about a place like Huntington Beach thinks about the news there differently. You'd have to check the Independent, the Daily Pilot, the Orange County Register, the LA Times and the Long Beach Press Telegram to really find out what was going on.

This is what is cool about Topix.  A geolocating algorithm they've developed allows you to get all the news relevant to any zip code or city from all of its 50,000 news sources. Punch in the coordinates for Surf City and you get all the stories out of all the local papers, without repeats, in one place, along with news about Huntington Beach from other locales like Santa Cruz. You can comment on any of the stories, and people do in droves. Total comments for all stories now approach 100,000. 

You can also use Topix to search 5,500 public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and musicians, 1,500 sports teams and personalities. You used to have to pay big money to do a Lexis-Nexis search to get info like this or pay a clipping service like Burrelles. Now anyone can do it for free. Something tells me this is going to be a very big deal.

TrackStick GPS Data Logger

Portably Track (via GPS) Your Adventures Via Google Earth or Mapquest!

This small GPS gadget can easily be placed in a car, boat, land speeder, or just about any moving object and will record its own time, date, location, speed, direction and altitude. The recorded information can then be downloaded to your computer through the USB port and optionally integrated with Google Earth or Mapquest. This feature allows you to "playback" the location points of the TrackStick and see a visual mapped history of its travels.

Containing 1MB of memory it can store up to 4000 records allowing for months of travel. When the TrackStick is not moving, memory is not used. The record interval is adjustable to anything between 1 and 15 minutes (this is used to save memory and will not extend the battery life). It's so small you can hide it for covert applications. There are no special software applications to buy and the raw data can be exported in RTF, XLS, HTML, or Google Earth KML formats.

                                                         Also has these features

Records time, date, location, speed, direction and altitude Works with Google Earth, Mapquest, maps.google.com, Virtual Earth Location points are downloaded into its software and then mapped Battery duration is 5 to 7 days of typical operation (low power mode) Requires 2 AAA batteries (not included) Dimensions: 4″ x 1 1/4″ x 3/4″ Comes with TrackStick, lanyard, software CD View the quick start manual