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| TC50: GoPlanit Generates Your Travel Itinerary With One Click Posted: 10 Sep 2008 06:47 PM PDT There are countless travel sites available on the web that detail the best things to do in every major city on the planet. But with so many options, actually booking a trip is a major hassle: attractions may close on seemingly random days, or may require reservations weeks in advance. GoPlanit is a travel site that aims to simplify this process by generating your schedule for you. The site features a database of attractions that includes their operating hours as well as an estimate for how much time each will consume. After specifying a city, users simply click "Plan It!", and the site will present an iCal-esque calendar filled to the brim with activities, taking operating hours and durations into account. Users are free to customize these schedules by deleting or resizing them, and can click "Plan It" again to have the gaps filled with new activities. The calendar also includes links to reservation and ticketing systems when possible, further streamlining the process (part of the company's monetization model relies on fees generated from these affiliates). After planning the trip, the site produces a basic travel guide with information on each activity, which can also be accessed through a mobile iPhone app. It can also generate a photo blog on the fly, tagging each photo with your location (since it knows where you'll be during your trip). Other sites in the travel space that offer some similar functionality include Dave Sifry's OffBeat Guides, which generates travel guides on the fly, and Zicasso. Panel Loic - I like the idea. What's the business model? GoPlanIt - We've got 3 revenue streams. Hyper-targeted advertising since we know interests, where you will be at time and date. Also affiliate programs, any time someone books, we get a portion of the revenue. Third, we're working on whitelabel solutions for some small and medium businesses. Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Smart stuff
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
TravelMuse unveils social trip planner
According to the company, the planner makes organizing trips a breeze by giving individuals and groups of travelers the ability to research, store and share travel information in one centralized location on the Web.
TravelMuse, Inc., a online destination for finding inspiration, planning trips and booking travel, announced the launch of the TravelMuse Planner with social trip planning tools. The Planner is the first travel solution to harness social networking and enable co-travelers to connect and collaborate on trips. The Planner makes organizing trips a breeze by giving individuals and groups of travelers the ability to research, store and share travel information in one centralized location on the Web.
"At TravelMuse, we believe that social trip planning—collaboration between family and friends to plan a trip and share experiences—is an essential aspect of the travel planning process," said Kevin Fliess, CEO of TravelMuse. "By easily enabling people to network together online through a centralized, shared environment, the TravelMuse Planner further streamlines and revolutionizes how travelers plan trips."
Start Planning Today!
Using the TravelMuse Planner, travelers can now manage all their travel information in one place and share their travel research with the rest of their social network—eliminating the need to email links and itineraries back and forth. With the Planner, people can:
-- Create Trips. The Planner acts as a personalized NetFlix queue for travel. People can build a running list of all the trips they are actively planning as well as those dream trips they hope to take some day.
-- Manage and Save Research. Planning a trip often means conducting a volume of online research and getting advice from friends and family. Using the TravelMuse Planner, travelers can combine information found on TravelMuse with additional research found anywhere on the Web and store it all directly into designated trips within the Planner.
-- Connect and Collaborate. Friends and family can plan trips together and reuse travel research already collected by trusted individuals in their social networks—making it easier and more convenient to create the perfect vacation plan.
-- Organize schedules and update itineraries. Building day-by-day plans for each trip is as simple as dragging and dropping research into the appropriate days. If activities change, move items around within the schedule.
-- Share planning activities. The Planner streamlines the process of exchanging travel research and ideas—allowing everyone to have input into a trip and immediate access to itineraries and trip suggestions.
"TravelMuse has created a very innovative solution to help travelers navigate the entire process from deciding where to go to planning and booking a trip," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMOfall 08. "The new TravelMuse Planner takes collaboration to a new level, delivering a more personalized travel planning experience."
Travel Planning Starts with: "Where?"
TravelMuse is the first online travel destination to combine comprehensive travel content with powerful planning tools to provide travelers with a single, complete solution for all of their trip-planning needs.
-- Not sure where to go? The TravelMuse Inspiration FinderTM is the first solution that helps individuals discover destinations that match their personal travel preferences and needs. In addition, TravelMuse provides comprehensive destination guides covering more than 100,000 points of interest, 90,000 hotels and hundreds of city guides worldwide along with original editorial written by experienced travel writers.
-- Traveling with friends or family? The TravelMuse Planner makes collaborating with others easier than ever. Everyone on the trip can research potential activities and trip ideas and save them in one centralized location. Itineraries can be easily modified, and ideas and suggestions can even be pulled from other people's trip plans within an individual's social network.
-- Ready to book your trip? TravelMuse has a comprehensive booking engine to help complete the vacation planning process. Once an itinerary is finalized, travelers can make air, hotel, cruise, and package vacation reservations directly on TravelMuse (through WorldChoice Travel, a division of Travelocity).
Related Link: Travelmuse
Thursday, September 04, 2008
The other side of Internet Travel
YTB NETWORK MARKETING (MLM) - CAN REGULAR FOLKS MAKE MONEY?
I still have a travel plan in the works but for now, an article on YTB. One statistic that stood out was that YTB has gotten "130,000 people to pay money to YTB for the ability to sell airline tickets and cruises."
Most of those people don't make any money. They pay $450 = $50/month. This allows a few people to make fortunes but for most people there is no money:
YTB's 45,000 entry-level sales reps — the people who sell new travel agencies — on average earned $90.32 last year. And of the more than 200,000 people who paid the company as much as $1,000 to run a travel website in 2007, nearly 125,000 didn't earn a penny in commissions, according to Brown's lawsuit. Half of the rest earned less than $39. And while YTB took in $103 million last year from selling and maintaining websites, it paid out just $13.4 million in commissions for selling travel.Clearly the company is making money - 100 million in income and 13 million in commission? Someone is getting screwed.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown says YTB is a scam. The fact that so few people make money means it must be a pyramid scheme. I don't think it proves this at all. It proves that some people don't understand network marketing. The whole point is that it allows you to start a business with a minimum investment. $450 + $50/month is more than other network marketing companies (at least the few I've heard of).
It also shows that joining YTB doesn't make someone a travel agent so it's still very difficult for YTB people to sell travel. Most of them don't make money because they don't sell travel and they don't recruit more 'agents'.
I'm not here to tell you what to do, but I will offer some advice. Unless you're confident that you can sell travel and recruit more people into YTB then it is not the business for you. You would need to be convinced that the YTB website is the best place to buy or sell travel. And that makes no sense because there are thousands of identical YTB 'travel agency' websites online... I have thousands of people who want to travel reading this blog, but I am not joining YTB. I don't want to try to sell you all travel.
It's been a while, but some of you will remember that we've talked about YTB and other 'card mills' before. Here, if you read the comments some YTB tool repeated calls me a liar - you still in business Earl? Here I mention another problem with GTI and YTB - since anyone can join you'll end up being in business with some real losers. In the comments Earl claimed that bad travel agents wouldn't last a day in YTB. I think he's full of crap. Here's the October, 2007 post when I first became aware of the issue.
A related post is that untrained travel agents are less likely to provide the kind of consulting many of us expect.
Triping out
A Web company's singular journey
Unlike others scooped up by big firms, TripAdvisor has thrived here at home
TripAdvisor employees - (from left) Eddie Taub, Aaron Kovalcsik, Claire Dienhart, and Hubert Hwang - play a video game during lunch at the Web company's new home office in Newton. (Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe)NEWTON - When it was snapped up for $210 million in 2004, some feared out-of-state ownership would diminish TripAdvisor LLC, a Needham start-up that created a compelling travel website featuring user-generated reviews of hotels and tourist attractions.
Instead, TripAdvisor has become one of New England's largest Internet companies, buying nine other travel properties in niche markets such as cruises and airplane seating. It drew 25.5 million visitors to its network of a dozen websites in July, ranking TripAdvisor tops in online travel information, according to research firm comScore Media Metrix.
With its parent company, Expedia Inc., investing about $400 million over the past four years, TripAdvisor has boosted its payroll from fewer than 50 employees when it was acquired to 434, including more than 200 in the Boston area. The company recently moved its home office into a former Polaroid Corp. complex in Newton Highlands, rolled out applications for Facebook and other social networking sites, and is in the process of hiring another 50 engineers and sales people to expand the brand into Europe, India, and China.
"There's no limit to demand for information by people planning a trip," said Stephen Kaufer, TripAdvisor's co founder and chief executive, who estimated half the company's traffic now comes from abroad. "We expect to grow year by year in every dimension."
TripAdvisor's journey contrasts with the bumpier paths of other high-tech standouts in recent state history - from Polaroid to Digital Equipment Corp. to Lycos Inc. - that reduced workforces and lost their local identity after being gobbled up by outsiders. Among many Massachusetts business leaders, the loss of corporate headquarters has become a sensitive issue.
Where other buyers have snatched the brands and shifted management control out of state, starving the local office of resources, Expedia, based in Bellevue, Wash., has provided financial support but allowed TripAdvisor to operate autonomously from Massachusetts - a practice that TripAdvisor, in turn, has extended to its own acquisitions, such as VirtualTourist, Cruise Critic, SmarterTravel, and SeatGuru.
TripAdvisor makes the bulk of its money through advertising from travel destinations and booking sites such as Expedia, as well as its rivals Orbitz and Travelocity, to which visitors can link from TripAdvisor's site. The company posted profits of $129 million on $260 million in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, parent Expedia reported.
"We're absolutely committed to growing TripAdvisor as fast as we can and, frankly, to throwing as much capital at TripAdvisor as we can," said Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Expedia. "Very early on, when we invested in the company, they beat everything they told us they were going to do, in terms of finance and operating goals."
Through its acquisitions and organic growth, TripAdvisor has built a lead as a destination over its closest competitor, Yahoo Travel. That site attracted 20.3 million unique visitors in July, according to comScore Media Metrix. But by tapping into the resources of its parent company, and tightly integrating reviews and booking, Yahoo Travel is betting TripAdvisor's lead is not insurmountable.
"TripAdvisor doesn't have a very easy way for you to book a flight or a hotel," said Pablo O'Brien, director of product management for Yahoo Travel in Sunnyvale, Calif. "You have to go to another site."
In 2004, when TripAdvisor was purchased by Interactive Corp., the New York conglomerate run by media mogul Barry Diller, it was placed under the umbrella of Expedia, which Diller bought from Microsoft Corp. three years earlier. In 2005, Expedia was spun out as a stand-alone company with Khosrowshahi at the helm, a move that set the stage for TripAdvisor's expansion.
But the growth hasn't been without friction. In July, Deirdre Kiely, a former Web content editor for TripAdvisor, filed a complaint on behalf of herself and other content providers alleging the company violates Massachusetts law by classifying them as independent contractors rather than employees. The plaintiffs write articles and edit reviews of hotels and restaurants for the website, according to the complaint.
TripAdvisor executives declined to discuss the case, which is pending in US District Court in Boston. If it is certified as a class-action lawsuit, as the plaintiffs are seeking, it would be a setback not only for TripAdvisor but for other Internet companies that hire contractors to generate the editorial content displayed on their websites.
Regardless of the outcome, TripAdvisor's blueprint of giving travelers a way to share their experiences is continuing to gain traction as online spending on leisure travel increases. The market is projected to grow from $86 billion in 2007 to $98.1 billion this year and $110 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research of Cambridge.
At the same time, TripAdvisor is building its brand and harvesting traveler reviews through software applications it has developed for social networking sites, like Facebook, that let members swap travel tips and stories, and map places they have visited.
"TripAdvisor is to travel reviews what Kleenex is to facial tissues," said Henry Harteveldt, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst. "They define the category. This is a company that was ahead of its time but now they're in the sweet spot. And as social computing becomes big, they're posed to capitalize on that."
But rivals, ranging from Yahoo Travel to IgoUgo in New York, are building up their own sites and see plenty of running room in the burgeoning market.
"There's definitely opportunity," said Robert Albert, vice president of media for Travelocity, whose IgoUgo site specializes in online trip planning tools. "TripAdvisor is big, for sure. But there are so many ideas in online travel, and so much hasn't been done yet. When you consider all the online organizing, sharing, and planning that needs to be done, TripAdvisor hasn't cornered the market."
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.
Yup
TripAdvisor thriving at home
September 04, 2008 | Online Travel
When it was snapped up for $210 million in 2004, some feared out-of-state ownership would diminish TripAdvisor. Instead, TripAdvisor has become one of New England's largest Internet companies, buying nine other travel properties, writes The Boston Globe.
With its parent company, Expedia Inc., investing about $400 million over the past four years, TripAdvisor has boosted its payroll from fewer than 50 employees when it was acquired to 434, including more than 200 in the Boston area. The company recently moved its home office into a former Polaroid Corp. complex in Newton Highlands, rolled out applications for Facebook and other social networking sites, and is in the process of hiring another 50 engineers and sales people to expand the brand into Europe, India, and China.
"There's no limit to demand for information by people planning a trip," said Stephen Kaufer, TripAdvisor's co founder and chief executive, who estimated half the company's traffic now comes from abroad. "We expect to grow year by year in every dimension."
Get the full story at The Boston Globe
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Chain-less Bicycle
The Tempo is designed with more sporty riding in mind. This bike offers the perfect blend of performance and versatility for commuting and recreational riding and touring. The Tempo combines Shimano's Nexus 8-speed Premium gearing (identifiable by its red stripe) with an RST CT-Free front suspension fork with 75mm of travel to provide an incredibly smooth, quiet and thoroughly enjoyable ride.
This hybrid bike is a combination road bike and off-road bike. Built on a 700C road bike frame, this bike offers 3 inches of travel on the RST front suspension fork, 1" rise handlebars for control and safety, 1 1/4" tires for smoother, quicker rides, and Shimano's Inter-8 gearing to deliver a smooth, enjoyable, worry-free ride. The Tempo's 8-speeds are controlled using Shimano's Rapid Fire Shifter, offering fast and precise transitions thorugh a versatile range of gearing (30-92 gear inches) for tackling hills as well as cruising at fast speeds. The RST front fork also offers a lock-out feature for times when you want a stiffer feel from the front fork. Most of all, with its fully enclosed shaft drive and internal gearing, there is no grease to get on your hands or clothes and no derailleurs or sprockets to clean and maintain. This is why the Tempo is a perfect bike for all-weather commuting or just getting away from it all for a while. In short, this bike is designed for years of fun-filled worry-free riding, without the maintenance and greasy mess of chains and derailleurs.
Tempo is the perfect choice for someone who wants the comfort and convenience of a h
Google Expands Its Wiki Approach to Map Making (India Edition)
When it comes to the availability of good mapping data, not all parts of the world are created equal. That's why Google is taking a wiki approach to filling out the white spaces on its maps, particularly in developing nations. Back in June
Map Maker lets anyone add or edit roads, points of interests, and other features on Google Maps. You can mark tourist destinations (like the Taj Mahal), restaurants, factories, helipads, even shrubbery. There is a drop-down list of dozens of feature types to choose from for consistent tagging and easy searchability. Map Maker also lets you define particular regions and neighborhoods by drawing or tracing them using the satellite imagery as your guide. UnlikeGoogle My Maps
Here is a video from Google India explaining the service and a list
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