Everyone's personal web page a must?

might be a future reality according to this Real Time column in WSJ.com by Jason Fry. He raises a number of interesting points that will indeed make this a general reality as it is already for a fast increasing number of people who can easily be found on the web today. In the networked world we live in today, where radical transparency is another fact of life I can imagine this scenario.

I found this quote by Curt Monash particularly poignant: "The Internet WILL tell stories about you, true or otherwise. Make sure your own version is out there too." It's a necessity for companies today and might become one for everybody in future, who knows.

One thing seems obvious to me, this new reality will have a profound impact on how to market products and services effectively.

Are you ready?

The Hyperconnected: Here They Come! is the name of a new IDC study of global communications habits commissioned by Nortel. They interviewed 2400 working adults in 17 countries. This will have implications on how business is being conducted as this group expands at a rapid pace and travel will certainly be affected. Their demands on the user experience will be higher than those of the less connected. They will also very likely be more willing to post their comments and reviews, good or bad, to their social network and beyond.

The study can be downloaded from the article page. Better get ready!

Technorati Tags: IDC, Nortel, communications, hyperconnected

“Making Sense of the Semantic Web”

This is a great video by Nova Spivack of Radar Networks on this topic still often misunderstood. I agree with his definition of the terms web 1.0 / 2.0 / 3.0 being about time periods in the development of the web. We're now just about at the end of the second decade (2.0) and will enter the next (3.0) around 2010.

There will be definite implications on travel and the customer experience of researching, planning and purchasing travel. Before there will be dramatic changes, however, the pendulum will have to swing back to the front end or user experience focus, which he predicts will be the case in web 4.0 or more than ten years out, as web 3.0 deals more with the back end or the data.

In the meantime there will be new initiatives that will introduce semantic web tools into travel as we have seen with Uptake and TripIt. The latter is actually shown in one of his slides.

One of his comments I liked a lot is that we should talk about "artificial stupidity" rather than "artificial intelligence" that is required to eliminate humans from having to deal with the mundane, or stupid tasks, and let us focus on the intelligent ones. Couldn't agree more.

Nova Spivack at The Next Web Conference 2008 from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.

Predicting flight delays

is what Delaycast does as explained in the latest issue of Springwise the trend newsletter. Should become a welcome and useful tool for travelers as we head into the summer season.

The future web is the grid

Coming soon: superfast internet reports the Times Online in this eye opening article. It's further proof that "we ain't seen nothing yet" when it comes to the web and once the grid is accessible to all users the web experience will move to a whole other level from what we're used to today. It's too early to tell how this will specifically manifest itself in eCommerce but it doesn't take too much imagination to see that it will be significant. Enjoy the ride!


Technorati Tags: grid, intelligent web

Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond

This is a great presentation of some of the key developments that have already arrived or are on the horizon. It's clear that they will have an impact on the online travel industry, with search being one area in particular where innovation will happen based on what's called the semantic, or intelligent web. Another area will be recommendation systems where things are moving ahead with improved results noticeable to users.

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Yahoo Search Casts Lots with Semantic Web Technology

reports MarketingVOX. This is further proof of improved search becoming a reality in the not too distant future and here's a quote relevant to travel

For example, instead of searching for hotels in Miami and having to sift through results that include hotels, travel vendors and hotel deals, one could query for Miami hotels that allow pets, are five minutes from the beach and cost no more than $150 per night.

It will be interesting to observe how the travel meta-search companies will react to the major searchers offering more relevant results.

Cluetrain at 10

Unfortunately I missed this event but Josh Benoff of Forrester summarized some of key comments of Doc Searls which I quote below:

1. Advertising as we know it will die.

2. Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them "social" will seem as absurd as it actually is. (Facebook is his example.)

3. We will realize that the most important producers are what we used to call consumers. (Yup.)

4. The value chain will be replaced by the value constellation. (Many connections.)

5. "What's your business model?" will no longer be asked of everything. (What's the business model for your kids?)

6. We will make money by maximizing "because effects". ("Because effects" are what happen when you make more money because of something than with it.) E.g. search and blogging.

8. We will be able to manage vendors at least as well as they manage us. (Agreements between companies and customers shouldn't be skewed in favor of the companies.) At Harvard Law they call this VRM -- vendor relationship management -- which is what Searls is working on (projectvrm.org).

10. We'll marry the live web to the value constellation. (The Live Web isn't just about stars. Relationships of anybody to anybody.)

All this might not be readily accepted by marketers today, but let's remember that most of what the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto loudly proclaimed ten years ago about how the web will change consumer behavior and marketing has come to pass. My take is that he's right again.

There will be a web 4.0

and I think you'll read about it here first. This is a great video giving an exciting glimpse at what's coming down the line on the web by Nova Spivak of Radar Networks who are about to introduce Twine It explains in clear terms about the semantic web and ultimately artificial intelligence (AI) with a reference to travel somewhere in the second half. I tend to agree that it will take much more than some incremental technology to offer the ultimate online travel buying experience.


Nova Spivack - Semantic Web Talk from Nicolas Cynober on Vimeo.

It's about more than just about ads

despite the title of this great article The Coming Ad Revolution by Esther Dyson on WSJ.com. This web visionary since day one still has a great grasp of what lies ahead and very likely will be correct in her prediction.

Her article contains important travel related comments that caught my attention. This one is especially revealing, as it deals with ad effectiveness and personalization and how things need to change to make the web a more effective tool than it is today:

I'm far more likely to respond to BA or NetJets within a trusted site, and for a specific offer, than I am to heed their ad while reading a newspaper article on the troubles in Russia. (As for Orbitz, my old standby: After five years, it still doesn't acknowledge my preferred airlines.)

As with past developments, this again shows how travel will be impacted by what is introduced on the web.

 

 

Why did anyone expect otherwise

This post Will Social Networking Ever = Money? asks a question that to me is surprising. To compare the potential of social networking sites to generate ad revenue to that of Google just doesn't work. The reasons are obvious, the mindset of people using at different times using the web for a different purpose. This is especially true in today's age of permission marketing and the conversations going on.

Ads on social networking sites are interruption marketing which has been called dead since at least 1999 by the likes of Seth Godin who was one of the first to point out this important fact. So, will there be money in social networking? Probably yes, but not on the scale of the money to be made on search.

The Google Blog on Yahoo

BoomTown Decodes It, So You Don’t Have To! a follow up to my last post. Parsing Google's response trying hard to play David to the perceived new Goliath! Believable? Hardly. Stay tuned as this unfolds, or should I say, drags on and on and on.....

Microsoft writes Yahoo!

BoomTown Decodes the Letter, So You Don’t Have To! A great "reading between the lines" by Kara Swisher on the story that dominates the web and all business media right now. Enjoy!

 

DEC - Glimpse of the Future, 1994

Not that long ago, and look how far we've come since. No doubt there is much more to come in future as the web gets smarter.

Are you a Meatball Sundae?

For any business planning to start using web 2.0 tools, including blogging, I recommend a visit to Seth Godin or read his latest book "Meatball Sundae". Seth is one of the most experienced marketers who has worked with the web since the earliest days and a guy who knows what he's talking about.

Here's a short excerpt from the introduction:

What's a meatball sundae?

Maybe this is familiar. It is to me, anyway:

You go to a marketing meeting. There's a presentation from the new Internet marketing guy. He's brought a fancy (and expensive) blogging consultant with him. She starts talking about how blogs and the 'Web 2.0 social media infrastructure' are just waiting for your company to dive in. 'Try this stuff,' she seems to be saying, 'and the rest of your competitive/structural/profit issues will disappear.'"

Just grafting these new tools onto your organization is a recipe for disaster. The risk of cognitive dissonance by your customers is great. .

This is not really new, the same was true when websites first appeared on the scene about over a decade ago and most executives - after first ignoring the web - thought that having a site would be a panacea for all their marketing problems. After huge amounts wasted, we now know how wrong that assumption was.

The corporate culture and the brand have to be consistent to be believable and communications need to be consistent across all channels and touchpoints to be credible. There are no shortcuts to success.

THE EXPECTATION ECONOMY

reports Trendwatching in their latest newsletter is an umbrella trend that neatly captures the zeitgeist for mature (and rapidly maturing) consumer societies, while also incorporating and explaining many other subtrends. Yes, it will keep you busy. It's a rather long read, but as always contains a lot of food for thought for any marketer in any industry.

"The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is an economy inhabited by experienced, well-informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer.

Their expectations are based on years of self-training in hyperconsumption, and on the biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources, curators and BS filters. Which all help them track down and expect not just basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best'."

And here are just some of the those many sources that people have at their disposal in their permanent search for information to support their decision making.

Web 2.0 & Beyond

is the title of my latest presentation on this topic which pretty much affects anyone in travel and tourism today.





There is no voice over, so if anyone is interested in learning more about my take on this or to present to your group or meeting, please get in touch with me. I'll be glad to assist.

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Joe Buhler

11 Internet Marketing Trends to Ignore for 2008

Following a long tradition we established while living in Japan, I took a break between Christmas and New Year. This was welcome down time, although I've read more RSS feeds than I intended dealing with all things web and marketing.

Came across this interesting post in

Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategy Blog: ""

With the exception of the authors opinion on vertical search, which in my opinion will grow quite rapidly in travel with new innovations coming on stream, I quite agree with some of his trend predictions.

We shall see! Best wishes to all for a successful 2008.