Vacations Blog

I am a Twitter addict. And I’d love to see the broader Travel community and blogosphere adopt this tool as a great way to connect and communicate.

What is Twitter?

At first glance, Twitter looks like a microblogging tool that seems pretty ridiculous because you post to your “Followers” (people who look at your updates) and have to keep the posts under 140 characters! As a result, I didn’t get it initially. But in fact, Twitter is actually more like a cross between a chat room and a social network, and some people have characterized it as a global water cooler conversation.

Want to learn more about Twitter? See this great video from Common Craft to understand what Twitter is all about!

What is the T-List?

We’ve been big fans of the T-List, a list of great travel blogs. The T-List has many founders and contributors, including Kevin May of Travolution, Mathieu Ouellet of Radaron, Jens Threanhart, and Guido van den Elshout at HappyHotelier. (Sorry if I left out the many other T-list contributors).

Introducing the T-List for Twitter – the Travel Twitterati

Over a Twitter chat with @HappyHotelier, we birthed the idea of a list of Travel Twitter people, sometimes called Tweeple, Twitterers, or even Twits! So HappyHotelier created a great NetVibes page with his list of Twitterati.

Using my list and HappyHotelier’s list as a starting point, I then spent way too much time to manually look for other travel bloggers by seeing who is Following whom. I then added them to the list below! (If you want to be added to the list, just contact me by adding a comment, messaging me in Twitter, or emailing me at elliott (aat) uptake (dott) com.)

Without further ado, the Travel Twitterati! (Last updated 4/15/2008. Total people and companies = 112)

Note: this is work in process! It was a time suck too because to my knowledge there are no good automated tools to find people with similar interests.

Who qualified? As long as people seemed interested in travel or related to the travel industry, and had some activity on Twitter, I added them to this list. And anyone who contacted me. I felt a more complete list would be more valuable to the community than a more “selective” list. So decide who fits your interests the best and Follow away!

List I – People
alew Alan A. Lew http://alanalew.com Flagstaff, AZ
albertbarra Albert Barra http://www.albertbarra.com/ Barcelona, Spain
Blogontravel ehotelier http://www.blogontravel.com/ France
Chrispitality Chris Clarke http://www.vacantready.com/ Cairo, Egypt
ClaudeBenard ClaudeBenard http://hotelitour.com/ Marseille
Cortomaltese Carlo Alvarez Spagno http://www.carloalvarezspagnolo.com/ Barcelona
eduwilliam eduwilliam
elliottdotorg elliottdotorg http://www.elliott.org/ Orlando, FL
EverywhereTrip Gary Arndt http://everything-everywhere.com/ Australia
explore Explore Blogs http://www.exploreblogs.co.uk/ Farnborough, UK
Glennia Glennia http://glenniacampbell.typepad.com/ Bay Area
GlobalNomads Silk Road Nomads http://www.silkroadnomads.com/ Global
grah Graham Garland http://q.artho.us/ Gold Coast, AU
HappyHotelier http://www.happyhotelier.com/ The Hague
Horizonte24 horizonte24 http://hotel-horizonte.blogspot.com/ Palma de Mallorca
HotelBlogs Guillaume Thevenot http://www.hotel-blogs.com/ London
indiehotelier Michael Chaffin http://www.michaelchaffin.com/ Colorado
jensthraenhart Jens Thraenhart http://www.tourisminternetmarketing.com/ Vancouver, Canada
karenbryan Karen Bryan http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog UK
Larroyo larroyo http://www.sinctrl.com/ Madrid
mathieuouellet Mathieu Ouellet http://www.radaron.com/ Quebec City
Parkylondon Paul Parkinson http://www.thisweekinlondon.co.uk/ Sidcup, Kent, UK
passengersonly http://www.passengersonly.com/ Los Angeles
PhilCaines Phil Caines http://tourismtide.blogspot.com/ Vancouver
samiwasnt http://www.travellerspoint.com/ Oslo
selectworld Lee Harrison http://www.selectworld.travel/ Great Malvern
SheilaS Sheila Scarborough http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Seafarer/ near Austin, TX
soultravelers3 soultravelers3 http://www.soultravelers3.com/ Spain at the moment
stephenjoyce Stephen Joyce http://www.stephen-joyce.com/ North Vancouver, BC, Canada
tarabrown Tara (Tiger) Brown http://getbusy.wordpress.com/ Seattle, WA
TerminalAcom TerminalA.com http://www.terminala.com/ Barcelona, Spain
timothychughes Tim Hughes http://tims-boot.blogspot.com/ Sydney
traveladdict traveladdict http://www.collidingcontinents.com/ Washington, DC
ToddHuffman Todd Huffman
TravelerWIRE Tanya Schliff http://blog.directoryofhotels.com/ California
travelhappy Chris Mitchell http://travelhappy.info/ Bangkok, Thailand
travelrants Darren Cronian http://www.travel-rants.com/ Leeds
travolution Kevin May http://www.travolution.co.uk/ London
trivop thomas Owadenko
wilhelmus William Bakker http://www.passengersonly.com/ Vancouver
whiteraven13 Linda R. Moore http://www.ravensroads.com/ Lodi, CA

List II – Companies and Organizations

atrapalo atrapalo.com http://www.atrapalo.com/ Spain
CarnivalCruise CarnivalCruise http://www.carnival.com/ Miami, FL
Deltaairlines Delta Air Lines http://www.delta.com/ Atlanta, GA
Despegar Despegar.com http://www.blog.despegar.com/ Latam
HalogenGuides HalogenGuides http://www.halogenguides.com/ san Francisco
HostelColonial Hostel Colonial http://hostelbuenosaires.blogspot.com/ Buenos Aires, Argentina
hostelmana HostelManagement.com http://www.hostelmanagement.com/ Taipei
Jaunted Jaunted http://www.jaunted.com/
JetBlue JetBlue Airways http://www.jetblue.com/ New York
latimestravel latimestravel http://travel.latimes.com/ Los Angeles
nyt_travel NY Times: Travel http://www.nytimes.com/travel New York
Reservia Reservia.es http://www.reservia.es/ Santiago, Espana
SouthwestAir Southwest Airlines http://www.southwest.com/ Texas
traveladvice Travel Advice http://www.shoppingblog.com/
twblog Travel Weekly Blog http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/blogs Sutton, UK
uptake UpTake http://www.uptake.com/blog Palo Alto, CA

List III – Recent Additions to the Travel Twitterati!

agcblog Antonio Guerrero http://agcblog.wordpress.com/ Barcelona, Spain
aghman Austin Hill http://www.travellious.com/ Seattle, WA
ajanhelendam Warren http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajanhelendam/
akaSylvia Sylvia http://backspace.blog.me.uk/ Costa del Sol, Spain
Austin, TX
BartLePoole Bart LePoole
Beatricetarka Beatrice Tarka http://www.mobissimo.com/ San Francisco, California
bloggersblog Bloggers Blog http://www.bloggersblog.com/ Dallas
Brockvicky brockvicky http://blog.highlandbusinessresearch.com/ Inverness, Scotland
chris2x Chris Christensen http://amateurtraveler.com/ San Jose, CA
Coldinpdx Martin Stoll
Darrindickey Darrin Dickey http://blog.brandingfire.com/ Murfreesboro, TN
Debutaunt debutaunt http://www.debutaunt.com/ San Antonia, TX
Eastservices eastservices
eddmc Edd http://www.insideblog.net/ Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK
Elcano elcano http://www.tripwolf.com/ New York
Esmevos Esme Vos http://www.mapplr.com/ Amsterdam
Eurostars Eurostars Hotels http://blog.eurostarshotels.com/ Barcelona
filifab Philippe Fabry http://www.odit.fr/blog Paris
Gagneeric Eric Gagne http://blogoramification.blogspot.com/ Buenos Aires
GAP089 GAP http://www.legourmand.de/ Munich, Germany
HawaiiSEO HawaiiSEO Honolulu, Hawaii
hjortur Hjortur Smarason http://blog.scope.is/ Just below the North pole
Itravelnet itravelnet
jakemarsh Jake Marsh http://thejakemarsh.com/ Dallas, TX
JasonCalacanis Jason Calacanis http://www.calacanis.com/ LA
jenleo Jennifer Leo http://www.jenleolive.com/ Always changing, Las Vegas
Jens_Oellrich Jens_Oellrich http://www.tourismus-zukunft.de/ münchen
jordi_ruizr jordi_ruizr http://blog.entornao.com/ Barcelona, Spain
jrosell jrosell http://www.sistemakiwi.com/ La Garriga
Judycurtis judycurtis SF Bay Area
kag2u Kelly Goodman http://www.travellious.com/ Seattle, WA
KeenerGuy Shane Keener http://hotelecomminsights.blogspot.com/ California
lasseweb20 lasseweb20 http://www.promocionweb20.com/ Alicante, España
Leeannecook leeannecook http://tripsforless.gop1d.com/ Page AZ.
Luciamalla Lucia Malla http://interney.net/blogs/malla Pelo mundo…
merrillg Merrill http://www.voyageek.com/ Dublin
Michelle_Greer Michelle Greer http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com/ Austin
Mlepisto Mika
Morrissey Jorge Gobbi http://www.blogdeviajes.com.ar/ Parque Chacabuco, Buenos Aires
nandollorella nandollorella http://megustaelturismo.es/ Barcelona
Nerdseyeview nerdseyeview http://www.nerdseyeview.com/ Seattle
Outlawpreneur Outlawpreneur
Paulkies paulkies http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkies Seattle
Planeteye planeteye
Poolegrl krystal Goodman http://www.myspace.com/poolegrl Annapolis
preparatuviaje preparatuviaje http://www.preparatuviaje.com/ Spain
Reckon Chris Weige http://reckonwordwide.com/ Austin, Texas
Seandodson seandodson
Shirleyjohn ShirleyCook http://livingthelifeofmydreams.blogspot.com/ Ash Grove, MO
tradingnothing tradingnothing http://www.tradingnothing.com/ England
Travellingcari travellingcari http://www.travellingcari.com/ New York, USA
Xotels Patrick Landman http://www.xotels.com/ Barcelona

How do I Follow the Travel Twitterati? Easy!

1. Once you are signed up, your browser will remember who you are.
2. Click on the Twitter link of the Twitterati below.
3. Decide if you want to follow the person.
4. Press the Follow button.

This is just the beginning!

I’m excited about the prospects of Twitter helping to connect up the global Travel blogosphere much as the T-List has already. Lets start having some very interesting global conversations. And I’ll keep updating and improving this and make this list a growing and living resource to the Travel-interested blogosphere. Look forward to seeing you on Twitter. If you follow me, I’ll follow you back!
(CC) Please feel free to share or redistribute this list under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial Share Alike license 3.0 (CC by-nc-sa 3.0) with a link back to this original post.

Updates:

• 4/11: added Samiwasnt
• 4/15: added Cortomaltese, Whiteraven13, latimestravel

We have been pleasantly surprised by the time and attention we received from analysts and bloggers given we started our private beta just before the holidays. There is consensus a clear strategic opportunity exists to address unmet consumer needs and initial testing is showing Kango can deliver against those needs. Here are a few comments from analysts and bloggers:

• Diane from Jupiter Research, “I’ve been talking for a long time about the need for online travel to better mimic the traditional travel agency experience of providing recommendations based on preferences. Kango is an exciting example of how this is possible, making travel planning easier and delivering qualified leads to travel providers”.

• Tim from Business of Online Travel talks about how Kango is the natural evolution of meta-search to solve the problem of too much information – Kayak aggregates price, Travelzoo aggregates deal and Kango aggregates content, reviews and travel information,”(Kango) takes all of the unstructured data out there from web based sources (TripAdvisor, Travelpost, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc) and combines it into a structured data result…into a contextual summary”.

• Claude from Les Explorers remarked “Kango business is to simplify the research process by collecting everything you need to decide in one place”, Blog Search Engine, “Kango is targeted to your search results for a specific vacation place”, HotelMarketing.com believes “Travelers can now create a more satisfying vacation experience thanks to Kango”. Jens from Tourism Internet Marketing reports that Kango will “save me time, make it easier to travel, and lead to better trips….In my opinion…a site worth watching”.

If you haven’t received an invitation yet, or have lost your invitation, please sign up and let us know how to improve Kango!

It seems like just yesterday that the travel sector crowned Kayak the undisputed heavyweight champion of price comparison search following their acquisition of SideStep. But wait! It looks like Yahoo has (finally!) unveiled FareChase, the price search engine they acquired back in 2004. On the Yahoo Travel homepage, the Travelocity booking engine is no longer the default search option, it has been re-labeled ‘classic search’ and FareChase is the default search.

Yahoo is a formidable, albeit very delayed, entrant to the price search. It searches more supplier sites then Kayak directly, which presumably leads to better prices for consumers. And Yahoo is the fourth largest travel aggregator, behind only the ‘big three’ of Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz. Greg at Compete.com estimates that the combined entity (Kayak-SideStep) will attract over 5 million monthly U.S. website (unique) visitors – about 60% of Yahoo’s footprint.

Presumably this brings a new competitive element that Kayak might not have expected (let’s be serious, four years after the acquisition, did ANYONE expect Yahoo to finally launch FareChase?). With their market share, Kayak is in a strong position as the suppliers perceive Kayak to be an important channel in the continued battle with aggregators for market share. But they aren’t the only player anymore, which as Tim at BOOT suggests, would have made it easier to move from a position of strength to an IPO. Perhaps, as Sramana at Seeking Alpha suggests, they might do additional roll-ups on their way to the IPO. On the other hand, Yahoo plunging into this price search is good validation to Wall Street that price search is still important.

Another implication is that a potential operating benefit from the acquisition might not fully accrue for Kayak. Both Kayak and SideStep depended heavily on acquiring consumers through online marketing. Buying SideStep should have allowed Kayak to acquire those consumers more cost efficiently, but having Yahoo-FareChase also competing might make the acquisition costs higher then anticipated.

Stay tuned, it should be an interesting year.

Travel insiders have known that major changes are inevitable for the online travel industry. While most assume that online travel is already “done” by Expedia and the likes, people who have been in travel like Henry Harteveldt, Gregg Brockway and I are more excited than ever before about future opportunities to improve the consumer travel planning experience online. The consumer travel planning process is usually broken down into four or five steps: 1. Research – learning more about their options for where to go, what to, and where to stay 2. Compare – checking prices and availability 3. Book – booking your flights, hotels and activities 4. Share – adding reviews, blogs etc. to share your experiences with others. and

It’s clear that the online booking sector, dominated by the suppliers and the “big 4” OTAs (2) is maturing. With the announcement of the Sidestep and Kayak merger, the comparison sector demonstrates it is starting to mature – with a couple of interesting caveats. First, the surprisingly low overlap in traffic between Kayak and Sidestep suggests that there is more growth possible; especially if the merger means they can increase investment in product and marketing to accelerate relatively slow growth. Second, there are new companies, e.g. Farecast, trying to drive further innovation in the comparison sector. Finally, rumor has it that in early 2008 Yahoo is planning to make some big, exciting and long overdue moves with its dormant FareChase price comparison product, a product that is actually more comprehensive then Kayak. With Yahoo Travel’s position as the fourth largest aggregator and their strong market share and growth in the critical hotel segment, this move could throw the comparison sector back into flux. [update: see the bottom of this post for additional notes]

The Web 2.0 trend has been very prevalent in travel with the explosion of consumer-generated reviews, blogs, photos, video etc. making it easier and more fun to share but also making it difficult for you to assess which sites and reviews are most useful and trustworthy. TripAdvisor is the most successful example of a hotel review site, but its very success leads to an overwhelming number of reviews to sort through.

Market surveys by industry analysts tell us that the first step of travel planning – research – is the hardest. According to a 2006 survey commissioned by MSN and conducted by Harris Interactive, approximately three-quarters of U.S. adult respondents who have ever taken a vacation say they visit three or more Web sites when researching and/or booking their vacation plans. “The fact that three out of four vacationers spread their online research across multiple Web sites—with some visiting 10 or more—points to the huge timesaving benefits that a truly full-featured online travel planning site can deliver,” said Jim Quilty, vice president of travel and tourism at Harris Interactive. The SideStep/Kayak merger will not solve the most frustrating and time consuming aspect of the online travel experience—researching a trip.

Before a customer can compare prices or book a flight they must decide where to go, what to do and where to stay. This is not a problem if someone needs a flight for a short business trip to Atlanta with a meeting in a hotel near the airport. But, if a customer is seeking a specific kind of experience – romantic things to do in San Francisco or family friendly hotel in San Francisco they still have had to find, collect and organize data from many sites to decide and plan a trip. As Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research discusses in the Bob Tedeschi-written New York Times article and Diane Clarkson of Jupiter Research discusses in her blog, the online travel industry needs to improve the consumer shopping experience and enable you to get recommendations based on your preferences.

That’s what Kango is doing – simplifying that research process by collecting everything you need to decide in one place, enabling you to filter down to your most relevant options based on your preferences, and helping you decide what to price compare/book based on our natural language analysis of reviews from all over the web. Kayak and SideStep do meta-search for prices, we do smart meta-search for reviews and (non-price) travel information. There is over $700B spent annually on travel in the U.S. (3), and “only” $80 billion booked online…there is plenty of opportunity to do remarkable things to enable people to have better trips. And Kango’s mission is to be the first step to planning better trips.

Notes:

1. Gregg Brockway’s Tripit helps you organize your itineraries after you have booked.
2. Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline (and their respective sub-brands)
3. Travel Industry Association of America

Looking for more on this story? We have rounded up the news & blog coverage thus far:

Blog Highlights

• TechCrunch broke the story and did an excellent job of digging into the details of the deal, key operating metrics and the fate of the SideStep team
• Webpronews highlights the less than 10% overlap in visitors between the two company
• Searchengineland mentions the overall size of the online market at $80 billion according to Comscore
• Downloadsquad reevaluates their position that the online travel space will consolidate to only a few sites in travel
• JoeDuck is a fan of Kayak
• Les Explorers highlights non-American players and quotes Adam Healey’s blog
• GigaOM highlights pessimistic forecasts about the online travel market in 2008
• HotelMarketing highlights the turnaround aspect of the SideStep story
• VentureBeat brings together all the funding details in detail
• PaidContent highlights new players like Kango and Kosmix
• RedHerring covers the long period of courtship between the two companies
• Adam Healey of VibeAgent reviews the financial metrics and potential multiples at exit.

Other blog coverage

• VijayDandapani quotes henry harteveldt that 12-15% of online leisure travelers use metasites
• Xconomy suggests “Kayak and Sidestep will travel together in rare east buys west acquisition.”
• Gadling is “concerned that their new powerhouse corporate entity will overshadow their original grassroots mentality.”

Additional coverage

• SearchEngineWatch
• TheAlarmClock
• 23Musings
• SiliconTap
• UndertheradarBlog
• Gigaom

News Reports

• Tjacobi
• InfectiousGreed
• TravelStuff
• Travolution
• Tim’s BOOT
• KelseyGroup

[update] What’s a few hundred million dollars between friends? Speculating about the Kayak & SideStep deal

Wow, did I ever get a torrent of calls from travel industry friends and colleagues and analysts wanting to discuss the Kayak acquisition on Thursday night and Friday. Life was a lot quieter when we were in stealth mode and folks didn’t know we were doing meta-search or we were in travel! We had conversations with two groups of folks about the deal.

The first were travel and search insiders and Yahoo alum I knew who wanted to get our take on the deal and its implications. I certainly have some opinions – see below for my unfounded speculations.

The second group were folks who made a connection between Kayak and Kango because we both do meta-search in our own fashion. Kayak searches many booking sources to help you find the lowest prices. Kango searches many review and information (e.g. descriptions, photos) sources directly to help you find the right hotel or activity (and soon, the right destination). Then you go to Kayak to price compare or Expedia, Hilton, Southwest etc. to book. At Kango, we don’t do the real-time meta-searches for price and availability that Kayak does. And Kayak doesn’t structure unstructured content (e.g. reviews, blogs) and extract meta-tags like we do. Oh, and they are a $500M company…and we’re not!

Those conversations above were based on facts. The rest of this post isn’t I have several opinions on the Kayak-SideStep deal below. I haven’t spoken w/Rob or Steve Hafner about the deal yet, so these are just conjecture.

First, assuming the comScore’s unique visitor tracking for Kayak and SideStep that TechCrunch showed is accurate, these are not two companies growing their user bases quickly. Eyeballing Nov YOY figures, it looks like YOY growth of 15, maybe 20%. hmmm…

This means revenue growth is being driven by generating more revenue per user…our second takeaway. Rob and SideStep have executed very well. It looks like he is monetizing as much as 75% better then Kayak. i.e. according to TechCrunch, SideStep is generating $35M in revenue from $1B in ticket sales and Kayak is generating $50M from $2.5B in ticket sales. Let’s assume there is some exaggerations in the Kayak ticket sale numbers. It still looks a significant positive delta. But the delta looks like it goes away on a revenue per unique visitor basis. hmmmm… But Kayak is keeping SideStep’s ad sales/monetization team, so there must be something worth going on?

Third, contrary to popular opinion, SideStep was doing price meta-search before Kayak was conceived. Rumor has it that SideStep has a patent or two that are potentially troublesome for other price meta-search players.

Finally, what range might Kayak’s IPO be at given the operating metrics reported? I have talked to a VC involved who says Kayak will do a “billion” dollar IPO in 2008. Well, that might be necessary for the VCs who invested in the last round assuming Kayak raised ~$150M in equity (and the remaining ~$45M in debt) for 25% of Kayak. Let’s do some back of the envelope analysis. The dominant online travel agency, Expedia (owner of Hotels.com, TripAdvisor, HotWire…) trades at 3X revenue. Assuming 40% growth on their current revenue of $85M and a multiple of 6 instead of 3 because of a faster growth/higher margin story, perhaps an IPO range of $700-800M?

What’s a couple of hundred million dollars between friends?

It was my second time to join the bloggers at the Chinese Blogger Conference 2007 in Beijing on Nov. 3 and 4. Last year, I went to Hangzhou and met a lot of great bloggers, including one of the conference founder/organizers, Issac Mao, who has begun to be referred as “Chairman Mao” by bloggers; Rebecca MacKinnon from Global Voices Online；and Professor Chunyan Wang from Renmin University, who was the first person who introduced Creative Commons (CC) licence to China web-sphere. And this year, I had the chance to reunite with my blogger friends, and make new friends. How wonderful!

Weather in Beijing was welcoming, with a warm and clear sky. Early November is the right time for the changing leaves in XiangShan Park (Fragrant Hills Park), where the Fragrant Hill Hotel, a prize-winning hotel designed by I.M. Pei, is located. The conference was held in a 5-star conference hall in Tsinghua Science Park. Google China is one of the tenants of the science park.

So, it is easy to imagine that the once grassroots blogger party is now transforming into a glitzy Web 2.0 event, little by little. Like most Chinese conferences, this one has a theme: “Let hundreds of flowers bloom together, let hundreds of school of thought contend.” This is an idiom from more than 2000 years ago when a famous Chinese philosopher advocated “free thinking”. From my personal opinion, the theme is also one of the major reason that I saw a camera with “NBC’ logo, and Financial Times reporters. Rebecca moderated the most controversial panel and has very detailed coverage here.

But what attracts Chinese bloggers (like me) are diverse topics and the opportunity to have closer communications with bloggers who are passionate in building communities.

Exciting stuff from the conference:

1. jiwai, a micro blogging service provider “sponsored” the conference with a mobile messenger broadcasting service. Everyone can send a text message to a specific number and “twitter” on what she/he is thinking/doing about the conference. A message (shown on a big screen) rolls every 10 second and each message stays for 30 seconds, so people can comment and ask questions in real time mode without disturbing the speakers and audience. Most important, they can share their opinions with everyone. Bloggers outside the conference room can post online by following the ID.

Translation of the messages on the screen:

• QQ71527683: I am from QQ. (he/she is using the QQ instant messenger to send this message.)
• marcao: Mr. Wang Jianshuo said: “Chinese Blogger Conference is the only party for idealists in nowadays China.” ( Wang Jianshuo is one of the most well-known Chinese bloggers)
• Beijing：This speaker is performing very professionally, not like an amateur.

This picture was taken when the controversial panel discussion about “grassroots media v.s. professional media”was going on.

2. 1kg.org, a travel related volunteer coordinator/NGO. Its Chinese name is “pack ONE extra kilogram (stuff) on your trip”. The “stuff” is what you think you can give and help the children in remote villages where even a pencil is regarded as precious. This NGO will provide information on villages or schools that are close to natural attractions. The bloggers have raised funds by hosting photography exhibit in cities.

3. YeeYan: I had blogged about YeeYan in October 2006 when it was still a group blog of less than 10 people with a dozen articles/blog posts translated from English to Chinese. Thirteen months later it has grown into a thriving community with more than 10,000 registered users and 3,000+ translated articles. Founder Lei Zhang believes that social collaboration is the way to change the translation industry. A group of bloggers have translated “Inside Facebook” into Chinese. The book is published, and I got one too. Good to see they handle the copyright issue right so far.

Well I wasn’t expecting this. I did a little satirical piece about what its like to do web design in the Google Era:

And it got quite a response at places like Sphinn, Digg, Reddit, Slashdot and so on.

Like all new companies trying to attract consumers, the Kango team struggles with myriad challenges that at times seem a bit unrelated to our core mission of helping travelers take great vacations. Getting into the Google index and the indexes of Yahoo, Ask, MSN, etc is absolutely critical. It is how we will survive.

We know we will be offering great content to our users, which is the best long term strategy for success. But as a new site especially it’s hard to get the search engines to notice you quickly. So you have to do lots of things like asking all your friends to link to you and hiring SEO consultants to advise you. For every SEO consultant with advice there is another one with somewhat different advice around the corner. It’s amusing and can be frustrating trying to figure out what the magic formula is.

And it seems like much of the advice revolves on more links. Links, links links. You link to yourself so Google understands how you are structured and which pages you think are relevant and for what purpose. You need other people to link to you so Google thinks you’re important. You often have to link to other people in return. Once you get established and have a lot of people linking to you, it becomes easier because your links are worth more. Links, links, links – and not fancy Javascript links either.

The crazy thing is that it works. Google remains the place to be listed and the other search engines of course use the same model.

The challenging part for our rock-star design team is how to balance all the link requirements and still provide a great user experience. Sign up for our private beta program and we hope you’ll think we’ve only designed for a great user experience. Let us know.

- MeanGene

I love the idea of Blog Day as a way of featuring new and emerging bloggers. Oh yeah, I guess that’s us! Give us a year to discover the hidden gems out there in the blogosphere. But for now, I want to just highlight some blogs that are each an authority in their own space (yes, helping the rich get richer…sigh) but perhaps never often listed together!

1. Wangjianshuo’s Blog – Wang Jianshuo is one of the pioneering bloggers in China. He writes about his own life in Shanghai and provides great resources to travelers to Shanghai and China. He also has very nice photography on the site. I met him over coffee in Palo Alto, a super sharp and engaging guy.

2. Travel-Betty – Tracy’s mission is to enable “fearless independent travel for women.” Its a great mission, but what I really like is her concept of the 30-second vacation, short video clips that aim to take you away from your everyday. I guess vacations are getting ever shorter here in America.

3. Occam’s Razor – I’ve watched from afar as former colleague Avinash Kaushik was the Peter Parker of Intuit’s Web Commerce Group but then became the Spiderman of Web Analytics. Here’s an example of both great blogging and great analytics, two great tastes in one. This post cured me of my desired to get Dugg. Quality over quantity.

4. HobbyPrincess – Fashion, crafting and technology. I’m neither a crafter nor am I fashionable. I do support my wife’s yarn habit though, so that counts for something.

5. TheSilentI – Glennia has some great tips for traveling with kids. And she has been an inspiration to us for what Kango can do to help parents to travel with their kids, as well as a personal kick-in-the-pants to take my 2 kids to exotic places (like where my wife and I used to go before we had the kids).

5 and 1/2. CreativeThink – I think I ran into the Whack Pack and the Ball of Whacks when I was working at Microsoft a long time ago. Roger’s blog is good for a zen-slap anytime you need one. I guess some people have blogging in their DNA because Alex of Kango fame appears to be the most widely read blogger at the company with his exploring cartograms post.

Lets see, what are the instructions again? Add a link to Blog Day’s site. Now it says to add a technorati tag for Blog Day 2007

I guess that’s it. Now isn’t this an eclectic list?

Hey all you travel enthusiasts out in the blogosphere! Alex here, the fourth of the Kango resident bloggers, and today I’m going to give you an overview of the top five most popular Facebook Applications relating to travel.

If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook, here’s a quick FBFYI:
• Originally launched in early 2004 at Harvard with the vision of bringing popular college facebook, a book made up of incoming students’ photos intended to let student body get to know each other better, to the Internet.
• 34 million registered users worldwide as of July 2007.
• Largest photo sharing site in the US with 1.7 billion pics
• On May 14th 2007, the Facebook Platform was launched, allowing external programmers to create their own applications to be used, at the each “Facebooker’s” will.

Drum roll please……..here are the top five Facebook Travel Apps…….as I see them…..

#1

Name: “Where I’ve Been”
By: Craig Ulliott
Users: 2,177,407
Description: “A detailed, interactive world map, show everyone where you’ve been, where you have lived and where you want to go.”
Overall: “Googlesque” in its simplicity and interface. Provides “fast facts” for most countries and states which include: population, GDP, life expectancy, unemployment rate, and a brief national history. As of now, this is the Facebook Travel App. I would like to see a photo album (possible user generated) for each country providing a taste of the landscapes.

K-Rating: *****

#2

Name: “Cities I’ve Visited”
By: TripAdvisor
Users: 786,897
Description: “Where have you traveled? Create an interactive travel map to share with your friends and help them plan their trips.”
Overall: Very simple concept and delivery. Type in city and a thumbtack is stuck on the map. Adding locations is very quick as a list of possible cities is displayed by popularity and then narrowed as more letters are entered. Unfortunately, once you’ve entered in your cities, there’s not much more to do with this app.

K-Rating: *** 1/2

#3

Name: “Countries Visited Map”
By: TravBuddy
Users: 488,309
Description: “Create your own travel map and see what percent of the world you have visited. Lightweight, straight-forward, simple; loads 3x faster than other maps, no bloat on your profile page.”
Overall: Quick and clear-cut check box style of choosing countries and states visited, organized alphabetically within each continent. Unlike most applications, you must become a travbuddy.com member before accessing map, which is a mild initial annoyance.
K-Rating: ***

#4

Name: “Traveler IQ Challenge”
By: TravelPod.com
Users: 233,104
Description: “In this fun (and addictive) challenge, you’ll be asked to pin point where famous places, cities, and travel destinations are located. We’ll then calculate your Traveler IQ based on how close you were and how quickly you found the spot.”
Overall: A fun and quick-hitting quiz for the traveller looking to test their geography intellect. At the end of Facebook’s “geography bee”, you are given a Traveler IQ and shown where you rank amongst your friends (bragging rights!). You may play the original world challenge or focus on a specific continent or theme (i.e. World Capitals). I found it difficult to exactly pinpoint the location in question due to a slow and jittery cursor on the map.

K-Rating: ****

#5

Name: “Trips”
By: SideStep, Inc.
Users: 199,104
Description: “Plan upcoming trips with your friends. Share your past travel adventures on your profile. What trips have you been on, who’d you go with, and when. Then attach a photo album. See your trips on a map. Where have you been? Where are you going next?”
Overall: This ambitious app aims to cover all things surrounding the “Trip”. You can create a future trip and invite your pals to join you on the venture, post travel pics from a past spring break south of the border, or contact strangers with similar trip styles to yourself. “Trips” is function over form at this point and I expect/hope to see more efficient applications, similar in objective, as the Facebook Platform grows out of infancy.
Rating: ***1/2

So there you have it, my first ever blogging effort! I look forward to sharing my passion for exotic and international travel with you in the upcoming months. And of course learning from all of you and hearing your comments, critiques, and recommendations.

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” ~Seneca

UPDATE: Check out TechCrunch’s Interns’ 10 Favorite Facebook Apps for more FB App reviews.