Dot Travel - The rise and fall of a brilliant concept

January 17, 2008

I wrote about “dot travel” on my blog in the past, and just for the record, personally I still believe in the original dot travel concept, as well as the purity of the dot travel domain extension for travel and tourism related web addresses. However, I was saddened when I read the press release below, and I realized that the dot travel concept may have been killed by greed and short-term vision.

.travel to release nearly 300,000 destination names.
.travel domain registrar, EnCirca issued a .travel advisory regarding the release of nearly 300,000 reserved destination names. Effective with the new relaxed eligibility policy, the .travel registry is planning to release thousands of reserved place names, such as cities, iconic cultural sites and world heritage landmarks. These .travel domain names are ideal for search engine marketing since keywords in domain names are given extra weight in search engine rankings. Destination management organizations and tourism boards had until December 21, 2007 to secure their destination names from EnCirca before they are released for public registration.
(For Immediate Release - Travel News Distribution, December 2007)

Popularity: 83% [?]

Written by Jens · Filed Under Featured, Jens, e-Marketing | 13 Comments

Interview with the Founder of TripIt, Gregg Brockway

January 11, 2008

I wrote about TripIt before on my blog, but at the recent PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando, I had an opportunity to talk to Gregg Brockway, co-founder and president of the Travel Planning website, and he was nice enough to answer some of my questions. Greg was also the co-founder of Hotwire, so has some extensive experience in building successful online travel ventures.

Popularity: 55% [?]

Written by Jens · Filed Under Featured, Interviews, Jens | 1 Comment

Travel blogging bridge(S)

January 8, 2008

For my first post inside Tourism Internet Marketing Blog 2.0, TIMB 2.0 for the purist I would like to talk about a travel blogging bridge between Canada & France, possible new way for Internet marketing in the blogging area and compare pratices from this countries. Read more

Popularity: 74% [?]

Written by Claude · Filed Under Blogosphere, Claude, Featured | 3 Comments

Websites with a Cause

January 6, 2008

Back in June of 2007, I wrote about the extraordinary concept of Kiva.org. Now I came across an interview with Bill Clinton that explains the mission very accurately…as well as this film by PBS.

Another great site is GiveMeaning.com by Vancouver-based Tom Williams.
Tom started his career in Product Marketing at Apple Computer when he was just 14 years old. In his own words:

My dream for GiveMeaning is that we inspire people to take action. I believe that most every
person cares deeply about something, but I’m equally sure that many of us find ourselves doing
little for the causes that matter most to us — not because of a lack of desire, but a lack
of confidence. My plan is for GiveMeaning to change all this by being able to take any cause or issue and
identify a small, but tangible, piece of the problem to fix. I once heard a story where the moral
was: “if you want to move mountains, buy a shovel.” Giving Groups are like online shovels that
make small steps towards addressing big issues. This is my hope for GiveMeaning; people connecting with friends, and strangers, united by a desire to achieve a common
goal.

Popularity: 56% [?]

Written by Jens · Filed Under Jens, Websites | 1 Comment

Tourism Internet Marketing Blog 2.0

January 5, 2008

Welcome to the new blog layout!

Jens Thraenhart recently asked me to participate as a contributor on this blog, the second edition of his Tourism Internet Marketing site. That sounded like fun to me, so I was happy to agree.

Jens knows lots about e-marketing for the travel trade. And he has many savvy friends and colleagues in the industry, some of whom will be posting right here on the blog. I’m excited to be a part of that momentum.
Read more

Popularity: 93% [?]

Written by Chris · Filed Under Blogosphere, Chris, Featured | 14 Comments