Google + Travel = Troogle?

Tim Armstrong just finished his talk on Google and Travel at the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando. His talk was an overview of the industry and gave some great insights on how Google was working towards optimizing the user experience.

He gave a background into Google's “The wisdom of crowds” philosophy; letting the brainpower of the world make your product better. He stated "If you don't have the wisdom of the crowds in your business, then you are missing a major piece of business."

Google strives to use the wisdom of the crowds to connect the right consumer, at the right place at the right time with the right process and right product. The product he was focusing on is Travel.

Google values the travel market and handles 22% of all Travel all inquiries. That is quite huge, of the billions of the travel postings out there, 22% of them originate with Google.

Tim broke peoples searches down to the their life patterns, in that people get different types of information at differing times in the day. For example:

6am Morning Info - browse blogs and news items

7am Drive time commute - Radio and Blackberry

Google is trying to connect with the consumers with their mechanical day and several of their products (reader, gmail, blogsearch, news) help facilitate that.

Tim was then faced by an industry panel consisting of:

1. Rob Torres, Managing Director, Travel, Google Inc.
2. Jim Kovarik, GM of AOL Travel
3. Jasper Malcolmson, Vice President and General Manager, Yahoo! Travel and Shopping

Jasper Malcolmson asked the question that was on my mind, "Troogle? When are you getting into the travel business?"

Tim -

"I don't think there will be a Troogle. There are some spaces that are clear, and they anticipate that. Google would have a hard time doing super specific business. We would love to get travel info to the customer faster, but they are not planning on tackling the market specifically."

Do you buy it, will we see Google selling travel anytime soon?

The 5 Essentials for Online Video Tutorials

I have been creating tutorial videos for Rezgo recently and have viewed several others on the internet, here are some essentials for making effective and interesting tutorial videos:

1. Smile when you talk - You can really tell the difference in your voice if you are smiling or if you have a straight face. No one wants to listen to 10 minutes of droning.
2. Zoom in - Don't have a full screen perspective for your entire video, show some movement and move the video frame to where the action is.
3. Highlight your pointer - It is difficult to follow a small pointer in a small video screen, add some highlight to help the viewer follow your mouse.
4. Add music - A little background music helps to fill in those pauses in the voice, it shouldn't be too distracting, but should still be upbeat.
5. Keep it short - Break up you tutorials into small digestible chunks. Don't assume that people have an hour to setup a system or account, break it up. There is a sense of accomplishment in completing small steps along the way, your viewers will appreciate it.

Here is what I have done thus far, you can see the progression of my own work as the first tutorials don't use all of my suggestions, but they get better with experience. What do you think?

wCities and the Mobile Guide

Recently at PhoCusWright 2007, I was introduced to a company that is leveraging the power of mobile devices with travel guides, this company is wCities. This San Fransisco based company is making inroads in the convergence of traditional media with technology.

Gone are the days of the cumbersome destination guide, now all the information you need on attractions, events, hotels, movies and nightlife for a growing number of cities all around the world can be loaded into your iPod, mobile phone, or Blackberry.

In addition to their text based city guides, wCities also offers a variety of map based programs that can be loaded to a mobile phone. Their Wayfinder Navigator™ combines the power of a GPS receiver with local attractions and activities. This is were I can see a great value for traveling consumers. Get notified of attractions, restaurants and other highlights of the area that you are currently in. What is also great is that the Wayfinder software will voice guide you to the location of your choice.

Here is a review of the iPod travel guide for San Francisco:

Trust the Masses?

Joe Buhler found a study from Marketing Vox that analyzed over 1300 online product reviewer's motivations. The results look good for those that are embracing this new wave of consumer involvement. They found that:

Fully 90 percent of respondents say they write reviews to help others make better buying decisions, and more than 70 percent want to help companies improve the products they build and carry.

The study also found that 79 percent write reviews in order to reward a company, and 87 percent of the reviews are generally positive in tone.

These findings should quiet the critics for user generated reviews. Do you embrace UGC in your reviews? What have you found?

Stephen Kaufer - Tripadvisor

Get the truth and go. Sounds simple enough. Stephen Kaufer, President and CEO of www.TripAdvisor.com seems to think so. But in order to have truth, you need to also have trust.

At the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando, Stephen said "Trust online is gold dust."

You need:
1. Honest brokers - People that can give you truth
2. Social networks - A group that you can trust

When travelers ideas are varying then the knowledge of the mass prevails and averages the results.


TripAdvisor has made headway in the social aspect of their online reviews. They allow you to get your friends on your own traveler's network by connecting with friends with an interactive map. When you are browsing the site, your traveler's network automatically populates their recommendations. This will give great trust based reviews with depth unmatchable by traditional travel agents.

Have you used Tripadvisor, or has your property been effected by a review? Do you trust the reviews?