great takes on family travel in the U.S.

Note: Time sensitive if you want to earn a free trip to Iceland!

Via Hjortur Smarason at Marketing Safari I learned of an opportunity for one lucky travel blogger to go on an all-expenses paid cruise of West-Iceland. UPDATE: including airfare to get there! Hjortur explains the opportunity:

They are inviting journalists on their first tour on the 26th of May 2008. I have suggested they invite at least one blogger as well and now I am searching for that one blogger. If you are interested in a four day adventure cruise in Iceland on the 26th of May and are available from May 25th until June 1st, send me an email and convince me you’re the blogger we are looking for. I will need information about you, your network and the readers to your blog (who, how many, where from, age, status etc). My email address is hjortur.smarason (at) gmail (dot) com. Please send me your info no later than midnight Thursday night (May 8th).

Here’s more information about the Breidafjordur Nature Cruise itself:

Duration: 4 days

Schedule 2008:
26th May
2nd June
15th & 22nd September.
More departures are planned for 2009.

Price: 168.000 ISK per person.
Single supplement: 3.000 ISK per night.

Included:
4 days of sailing, 3 nights accommodation at Hotel Flatey, full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner, nonalcoholic drinks & afternoon snack), professional guiding throughout the tour, entrance to Bjarnarhöfn Shark Musuem, and bus transfer to/from Reykjavik.

Language: English
Group Size: 15 - 25 persons

What is Iceland like? I have no idea. But here are some photos from the cruise provider’s site.

VentureBeat calls us “opinions super-site.” I like it, even though I didn’t come up with it.

VentureBeat just posted a great overview of the information out there on UpTake (formerly Kango) to date while we’ve been in private beta, and shared (with our permission) the launch date, May 14. We’re getting close! The team is really excited!

The post called us an “opinions super-site” for travel. I like it! I love this description and wonder why none of us ever thought of this term! But, in fact, that is exactly what we are doing: aggregating opinions and word of mouth. This is open-source marketing at its best…

This post is a great close to our private beta period, and I’m getting nostalgic about this period already!

…and some thoughts on press and blogger outreach since that’s what I’m doing right now before our May 14 announcement

As we’ve been moving into high gear in preparation for our launch, we’ve been touching base with a diverse group of mainstream media, tech and travel industry press and bloggers. For other startups, I would like to propose this:

Elliott’s proposed Golden Rule of PR and Blogger Outreach:

If you don’t think you can learn something from a reporter or blogger, then you probably shouldn’t be pitching them.

In figuring out who to contact, I’ve been asking myself these Golden Questions:

1. Can I learn anything interesting by reading their blog?
2. Are there posts that relate to our story? If they wrote about us, what other previous posts on their blog could they link to?
3. If I were them, what would my post be about? How would I make it unique and fit the focus of their blog?

This is much harder work than a massive email blast. But back to the Golden Rule. Talk to people that you can learn from. Don’t talk to people that have nothing to teach.

Pitchmeme: Teh tricky new world of pitching bloggers and media

I’ve been on Twitter following the growing “pitchmeme” of bloggers complaining about PR people. Follow enough people on Twitter and you’ll hear the complaints. So for all the other startups, let me save you some pain and suffering and provide you with some pointers on how to pitch and how not to pitch from bloggers and the experts themselves:

Brian Solis

If you only read 1 post, read this one from Brian Solis. He sums up the opinions of Marshall Kirkpatrick, Adam Ostrow, Tom Forenski, Robert Scoble, Merlin Mann, and Allen Stern. Guess what? They all want you to do something different! Read this post!

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb

In Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way, Marshall outlines these 5 no-no’s:

1. Email the wrong email address
2. Phone calls
3. Twitter, Especially DM
4. Facebook
5. IM

A Great Way to Do It: By RSS. Wow. A great idea. Bloggers live inside of Google Reader. Why not send them info via RSS feedreader? Of course this doesn’t handle embargo’ed news like what we will be announcing May 14!

By the way, if you really want to irk ReadWriteWeb, call them “RRW” instead of “RWW”!

Louis Gray

If you’re pitching Louis Gray, you can only pitch me in reverse polish notation or pig latin. Louis is one of my favorite bloggers but the UpTake story just doesn’t fit into his coverage area of RSS addicts, FriendFeed addicts, Twitterholics, and the earliest of the early adopters. He covers Stowe Boyd, Robert Scoble (2007), and Marshall Kirkpatrick’s directions.

So what do we have here, just in these three examples? We have three prominent bloggers with three very highly differentiated, inefficient ways of soliciting engagement with public relations and companies…

Do you really think companies are going to remember to pitch Marshall at ReadWriteWeb via RSS and Stowe Boyd by TwitPitch and Scoble by Facebook? Knowing PR companies, I know they won’t. Most of them still believe in the spray and pray method of e-mailing all contacts under the sun. There needs to be change, but making everybody jump through hoops while losing the personal engagement, exclusivity and timing won’t work.

Anyway, Scoble (2008) moved on from Facebook and now wants to get the pitches by Twitter. But not DM in twitter, @ message him. And if you don’t know what I just said, you’re hosed cause you aren’t on Twitter!

Chris Brogan

On What Tom Could Learn from Facebook, Chris gently chides Tom of Cxxxx who blasted him an embargo’ed press release without permission: “Opt in. SOCIAL network. It’s about getting to know me before you fart in my face.”

Chris then offers some insight (with my paraphrase) into Some Differences Between Pitching Mainstream Press and Bloggers:

• Bloggers often write from passion. This is a huge insight. Many bloggers do it as a labor of love for the topic. This can be different from some journalists covering a beat in a professional capacity.
• Bloggers have a bit more ego feeding required. take an effort to understand “what makes a certain blogger tick,” accordin to Chris.
• Bloggers like free prize inside experiences. What can you do to give me something special?
• Bloggers don’t have to be polite. (Then again I don’t have to pitch impolite people!)

TIP FOR MARKETERS AND PR PEOPLE: Best way to really grok this is to just start blogging. That’s what I did at CNReviews on China-related topics that have nothing to do with UpTake.

Rafe Needleman

Simple. Use email. Don’t use Facebook. And no matter what don’t use Plaxo!

Adam Ostrow

Adam Ostrow of Mashable and ReadBurner fame offers 12 tips for getting your Statup Featured on Mashable:

1. Be a cool product
2. Fit into Mashable’s “coverage universe”
3. Have not already been covered to death elsewhere
4. Submit to our Startup Review series
5. Personalize your pitch
6. Be concise
7. Come to our events…and pitch us your story in-person

He also offers 12 things not to do when pitching a story to Mashable:

1. Sending an invite from your app
2. referencing your media coverage on Mashable Competitors X, Y, Z
3. Private Message on Social Network
4. Trying a Backdoor…in other words, use their intake email at news@mashanble .com
5. Contacting Pete.
6. Unsolicited Phone CAalls
7. USING ALL CAPS
8. Misspelling our Names. Kristen Nicole i s Kristen, not Nicole. and Not Kristin either.
9. Trying to Setup a Lunch.
10. Not Including a URL
11. Not Offering a Preview of Your Private Beta
12. Pitching Old News.

Great advice, Adam.

CityMama

Here’s a Johnson and Johnson Blogger Relations disaster. Don’t throw an all-expenses paid blogger junket for Moms called Baby Camp and then disinvite bloggers for needing to attend BlogHer, having a breastfeeding baby, or a slung baby.

Stowe Boyd and the Twitpitches.

Don’t pitch Stowe Boyd except via Twitter. And here’s how:

Basically, I want companies to get their story down to a one-liner ‘escalator’ pitch — like 10 seconds long — which is going to force them to drop the superlatives and buzzwords and get to the heart of the matter.

A twitpitch takes the following form:

1. A twitter message of the form “@stoweboyd [pitch goes here without the brackets] #twitpitch”. (Note the #hashtag means that these will be accessible at www.hashtags.org/tag/twitpitch.)
2. A second, optional twitter of the form “@stoweboyd [single URL goes here without the brackets] #twitpitch”. Just one URL, please.
3. A third, optional twitter of the form “@stoweboyd [proposed time(s) to meet or call go here without the brackets] #twitpitch”.

That’s it.

Twitpitches that work — that interest me enough to warrant spending some time to find out more — will be retwittered on my @stoweboyd account, and here on my blog.

OK, not sure how this works for embargo’ed news. I’m confused. So I guess we won’t be talking to Stowe until the press release is out! Or maybe I’ll try twitpitching and just see what happens.

Fellow startup entrepreneurs, welcome to the new world of the pitchmeme! And watch out for our news on May 14!

From guest blogger Marsha Takeda-Morrison of Sweatpantsmom

There’s a column in the Los Angeles Times every Thursday called ‘My Favorite Weekend’ where celebrities write about what their perfect weekend would be. Predictably, 99% of them start with breakfast at the vegan Real Food Daily, involve a vigorous hike in Runyan Canyon and end with an organic chai latte at Urth Cafe. I sometimes wonder if this is just the PC version from their publicist, and the celebrity featured is actually having an Egg McMuffin and a pack of Marlboros for breakfast before passing out until Sunday night.

Since Mother’s Day is coming up, I decided to write about what My Favorite Weekend would be. As you’ll see, without a publicist to speak of, pork products and sedentary activity prevail…

My ideal weekend would start with brunch in Santa Barbara at the Four Seasons Biltmore. They have the most amazing spread, and it’s easy to linger there forever enjoying the view. However, if the idea of spending a mortgage payment on a waffle is daunting that day, I would stay local and head over to Mo’s in Toluca Lake. They have great breakfasts, and I’d have the Eggs Florentine with a side of their bacon, which is the thickest and juiciest I’ve ever had. Also, the place is close to the studios and great for stargazing; on our last visit my kids spotted someone from The Hannah Montana show.

After digesting that huge meal and twelve cups of coffee I would have to get a massage. My husband and I are shiatsu aficionados, and the best one we’ve found is at the Miyako Spa in Little Tokyo. But it’s not for the faint of heart – don’t expect a lilac-fragranced room and a woman named Britta anointing you with oils. These are women from the old country, who will pummel you within an inch of your life while exchanging no pleasantries whatsoever. In other words, the most incredible, exhilarating massage you’ll ever have. Afterwards I’d soak in the jacuzzi in their bare-bones spa area and drink some mugi cha out of a paper cup.

Since a massage usually puts me into a coma, I’d sleep for a few hours and then we’d head out for a late dinner. I’d be in a healthy state of mind after the spa, so we’d go to a Japanese restaurant, maybe Sushi Roku on the Westside. Then I’d totally blow it by ordering Dynamite, which is basically just clams swimming in mayonnaise. Heaven.

On Sunday, which is actually Mother’s Day, we would have breakfast at home and relax. We hate having to fight morning crowds, so we would meet up with the rest of my family for an afternoon dim sum meal at NBC Seafood in Monterey Park. My brother’s new wife, who is Chinese, turned us on to this place and it’s made me realize that Panda Express is not really Chinese food.

In actuality, we’ll be celebrating Mother’s Day this weekend on Saturday, as all of our family and friends will be turning out to watch my husband’s band play at the Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas. It’s been there for years, and attracts a wildly diverse crowd - everyone from bikers to young families. We’ll sit out on the patio and drink their strong margaritas and devour baskets of chips, and I’ll spend the day watching my two daughters dance in the aisles. Sounds like a perfect weekend to me.

How will you be spending Mother’s Day? What would your Favorite Weekend be like?

Introduction
TangoDiva.com founder, Teresa Williamson, is frequently asked to speak at conferences around the world. She let me know of her next speaking engagement at ClubMed in Cancun from June 21 to 28, 2008 and it sounds like a great Oprah-like girls getaway. It is about transforming your life, having fun and meeting some great people. Once the event starts, she will posting about it on our blog. Here is her description of the event:

“It can take some time creating the life you want. And usually, it takes years to get on the right path, but I am involved in a conference at Club Med where the whole point is to start aligning your life with your goals and start living abundantly. They have invited a group of world-class speakers to help you transform your life. During this weeklong escapade, you will spend quality time with these speakers and participate in casual activities with this cadre of life-changing mavens. This format gives you an opportunity to interact with the speakers and guests throughout the week on a personal level. Swim, stroll, and relax with leaders in business and personal growth. see more »

Curious how travel bloggers and travel-interested Twitterers are using Twitter? I was, so I looked at the usage patterns of the 112 Twitter members of the T-List.

About the T-List Twitterati

First, some background. On 4/8, with the help of Guido van den Elshout of HappyHotelier, we created the T-list account (http://www.twitter.com/tlist) on Twitter that would represent a list of travel-interested bloggers and Twitterers. We created a list of the T-List Twitterati based on the original T-List concept pioneered by Kevin May, Mathieu Ouellet, Jens Threanhart, and HappyHotelier.

If you don’t know what the T-List is, what Twitter is, or what the T-List Twitterati is, start by reading our post on T-List does Twitter. Then check out TravelTwit, a cool Facebook like aggregator created by Chris Clarke (@Chrispitality) to see all the feeds of the T-List bloggers. BTW, if you want to join the T-List on Twitter, just Follow T-List and we’ll add you.

So how does the T-List Twitterati use Twitter?

During the past 10 days, triggered by a post by Louis Gray, the blogosphere had been vibrating with various methods of characterizing the use of Twitter by its many users. But first, a few disclaimers:

• Disclaimer 1: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. There is just not a lot of data available: just followers, uptakes, and followed for a given point in time. We collected this data around 4/29 or so.
• Disclaimer 2: Do not take this stuff too seriously or risk the charge of self-reflective narcissism. On the other hand, if you find this stuff interesting, then you are truly in the social media echo chamber!

Chart 1: Number of Followers by Twitterer

A small number of active Twitterers that have most of these followers. Here are a few statistics to illustrate this:

• The total count of followers in the entire list is 71,802. (Note: if 1 person follows 70 accounts, he would be counted 70 times in this number)
• JasonCalacanis, founder of Mahalo, has 22843 followers, or 32% of the total on the Twitterati T-List!
• The top 10 accounts have 79% of the followers.
• The top 20 accounts have 86% of the followers.

Leaderboard 1: Top 20 Twitterers by Followers

Excluding JasonCalacanis, here are the top 20 Twitterers as ranked by followers:

Twitter Name - Followers - URL

1. jakemarsh 13132 http://thejakemarsh.com/
2. bloggersblog 7741 http://www.bloggersblog.com/
3. musaaykac 4664 http://www.seotops.com/
4. tradingnothing 3173 http://www.tradingnothing.com/
5. jetblue 1844 http://www.jetblue.com/
6. jrosell 1315 http://www.sistemakiwi.com/
7. southwestair 880 http://www.southwest.com/
8. hostelcolonial 714 http://hostelbuenosaires.blogspot.com/
9. sheilas 673 http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Seafarer/
10. morrisey 663 http://www.blogdeviajes.com.ar/
11. travelrants 591 http://www.travel-rants.com/
12. shirleyjohn 582 http://livingthelifeofmydreams.blogspot.com/
13. elliottng 520 http://www.uptake.com/blog
14. Glennia 478 http://glenniacampbell.typepad.com/
15. chris2x 468 http://amateurtraveler.com/
16. parkylondon 396 http://www.thisweekinlondon.co.uk/
17. tarabrown 396 http://tarabrown.pbwiki.com/
18. leannecook 385 http://tripsforless.gop1d.com/
19. reckon 363 http://reckonwordwide.com/
20. everywheretrip 321 http://everything-everywhere.com/

Chart 2: Number of Updates by Twitterer

Updates are less skewed toward the top 10, and for the T-List Twitterati might be a better indication of who is active on Twitter and for how long.

Leaderboard 2: Top 20 Twitterers by Updates

1. sheilas 3715 http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Seafarer/
2. agcblog 2630 http://agcblog.wordpress.com/
3. mvdkooi 2588
4. morrisey 2430 http://www.blogdeviajes.com.ar/
5. hostelcolonial 2049 http://hostelbuenosaires.blogspot.com/
6. nerdseyeview 1877 http://www.nerdseyeview.com/
7. bloggersblog 1557 http://www.bloggersblog.com/
8. whiteraven13 1425
9. albertbarra 1378 http://www.albertbarra.com/
10. chris2x 1258 http://amateurtraveler.com/
11. parkylondon 1221 http://www.thisweekinlondon.co.uk/
12. Glennia 1220 http://glenniacampbell.typepad.com/
13. darrindickey 1195 http://blog.brandingfire.com/
14. reckon 1119 http://reckonwordwide.com/
15. everywheretrip 1087 http://everything-everywhere.com/
16. nyt_travel 1087 http://www.nytimes.com/travel
17. latimestravel 892 http://travel.latimes.com/
18. tarabrown 871 http://tarabrown.pbwiki.com/
19. akasylvia 869 http://backspace.blog.me.uk/
20. elliottng 809 http://www.uptake.com/blog

Twitter Noise Factor: Who is Tweeting the Most?

Last week, Louis Gray suggested a metric of Twitter Noise, as defined as a ratio of Updates/Followers. Cleverly named to generate buzz and interest, the Louis Gray metric was not actually designed to criticize those most “noisy” but to highlight that people use Twitter. No different for the T-List.

• Median Twitter Noise Factor is 1.63, or 1.6 updates per follower.
• Top 20 people are updating at a 12.5 Twitter Noise Factor, or about 7.6X times the median

Twitter Quotient

Sarah Perez of sarahintampa suggested another way to classify Twitter users and applied it to Louis’ original post. I did the Twitter Noise analysis for the China Twitterati, Louis also shared with me another tool called Twitter Quotient that also allows you to check your Twitter Noise quotient. Here’s mine:

Here’s the complete T-List Twitterati ranked by Followers:

UPDATE: note: if your URL is missing, add it to your Twitter account and leave a comment on this blog and I’ll add it!

In honor of the recent Earth Day publicity, I thought I’d look into what Ohio has to offer in the way of eco-friendliness. There was so much press about events planned in other cities across the country, but I heard nothing about Cleveland. So to the Internet I went!

The biggest change taking place right now is that of Cleveland’s landscape, beginning with the design and construction of EcoVillage, an initiative set forth by Cleveland that will focus in urban regeneration with eco- and social-sustainability as the focus. From the EcoCity website, here are the specific goals:

EcoVillage is:

• An innovative partnership involving nonprofit organizations, the city, the regional transit authority, private developers, and neighborhood residents.

• A national demonstration project that will showcase green building and transit-oriented development.

• An opportunity to realize the promise of urban life in the most ecological way possible.

Currently, Green Cottages are available for purchase, with other housing initiatives in the works as the project progresses. These are 2 and 3-bedroom homes designed for families in the moderate income level. I’m not sure about the other home designs as far as size, but they will follow the same eco-friendly basics as the Green Cottages.

Another interesting city-wide undertaking is the Cleveland Design Competition. The 2008 competition is not yet underway, but the award winners for 2007 are listed on the Design Competition site. The competition is an open, anonymous, single-stage ideas competition being administered by a local committee that seeks to find new ideas for land that is currently languishing in Cleveland. Last year’s competition involved Irishtown Bend, an area outside of the Flats with a rich history that is sadly now mostly overgrown and uninhabitable. To view the amazing 2007 winning concepts, click here.

While Cleveland may not have garnered the same amount of attention on Earth Day as San Francisco and other large cities, I’m proud to know that in our small corner of the planet, we are taking steps to ensure the longevity of the Earth and our community.