The Great Wall: China's most Coveted Travel Destination Top 10 China travel destinations:

1. Great Wall
2. Guilin
3. The Temple of Heaven
4. Shandong Mount Tai
5. The Forbidden City
6. Anhui Mount Huang
7. Summer Palace
8. Shenzhen Splendid China Folk Culture Village
9. Nanjing Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum
10. Hangzhou Linying Temple

(via TravelDailyNews)

Labels: AsiaPacific, photos, travel

  ¶ 'The Great Wall: China's most Coveted Travel Destination' posted by eA : 12:14 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Developer Day: Going Offline with Google Gears
Just announced on the Google Developer Day in Australia Google Gears (in Beta) can already be experienced via the Google Reader if you use Mozilla Firefox. Just click on the Offline Link in the top right navbar of your Google Reader and follow the installation instructions.

While going offline Gears downloads the latest 2000 posts and synchronizes the Reader while going online again. Fine!

From Google Gears Blog:

'Gears is an incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough to AJAX to make current web applications work offline.

Gears today covers what we think is the minimal set of primitives required for offline apps. It is still a bit rough and in need of polish, but we are releasing it early because we think the best way to make Gears really useful is to evolve it into an open standard.'

The next live stream from the London Developer Day takes place today at 12.00 BST (British Summer Time).

Developer Resources:

• Gears Homepage
• Gears API Homepage
• Gears API Blog
• Gears Groups
• MashUp Editor
• Google Web Toolkit

More Google Apps:

• Centralizing Information with new Google Reader
• Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition
• Into the Air with AJAX

Labels: apis, bizdev, google, productivity

  ¶ 'Google Developer Day: Going Offline with Google Gears' posted by eA : 11:28 AM  0 comments links to this post

  New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform The Web has quickly morphed into a giant global operating system which allows to remix the Web via mash ups resulting in improved social networking technologies fostering creativity and self-expression, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Being the second largest social networking site on the Web Facebook announced at their F8 event a new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals: Facebook as an Open Platform.

From Fortune:

'"We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so you can run full applications," Zuckerberg told me. He said Facebook is becoming a "platform," meaning a software environment where others can create their own services...'

People's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months. Their favorite methods include researching buying related price comparison sites, RSS-feeds, review sites, blogs and travel sites, while consumer generated content and peer-reviews have a huge impact on their decision making.

Currently Facebook is monetized by advertising. Introducing new applications might lead to intensified usage without leaving the site and a richer experience for its users leveraging content and commerce.

'Facebook will impose no limitations on how they make money. Says Zuckerberg: "They can sell sponsorships, they can have ads, they can sell things, they can link off to another site - we are just agnostic."'

It's a step further to better compete against MySpace and since Facebook resisted a $900 mio. acquisition offer from Yahoo! I think they will even resist further mergers and acquisition offers, do it alone and potentially go public one day. While Google is the exclusive provider of text-based advertising and keyword targeted ads for MySpace Facebook's main business partner is Microsoft.

'Last year it contracted to broker banner ads for Facebook, reportedly guaranteeing a minimum of $100 million per year through 2011.'

To take advantage of new business opportunities it's recommended to hook in some of the best community-empowered sites.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, facebook, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'New Strategy: Facebook as an Open Platform' posted by eA : 11:11 AM  2 comments links to this post

  Pirates of the Caribbean Racing to World's End

Seeking fun and adventure, the most popular pirates saga is finally coming to an end, what a pity. Great action around Captain Barbossa, Elizabeth, Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow. Lot's of water and stunning cinematic visual effects. After 'The Curse of the Black Pearl' and 'Dead Man's Chest' now:

• At World's End, Part 3

Labels: entertainment, movies, videos

  ¶ 'Pirates of the Caribbean Racing to World's End' posted by eA : 7:43 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Camel Safari into the Sunset of Dahab
Those who like it are crazy about it. People say that there is simply no better way to explore the vast area of the Sinai Peninsula guided by Bedouins.

The Dromedary eco-behavioural adaptations include the ability to withstand long periods without fresh water, it's an ideal vessel to cruise around and experience the Sinai desert.

More Dahab activities:

• Fun and Freestyle in Dahab: Spocks, Grubbys, Diablos, Flakas
• Far Beyond the Mainstream: Free Diving Dahab's Canyon

Labels: dahab, lifestyle, photos, red sea, travel

  ¶ 'Camel Safari into the Sunset of Dahab' posted by eA : 11:12 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia I've written already about YouTube and Wikipedia among top 5 now in global brand awareness and a brand the most valuable asset of a global company, now I'm looking at Web 2.0 sites on a local level.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings 54% (19.7 mio.) of the German online population have visited a Web 2.0 website in Feb/2007 with a growth rate of 32% compared to the year before. The booming online travel sites hold a reach of 53%.


Market share is dominated by by Internet giants like Wikipedia (33% in Germany),YouTube (13%) and MySpace (5%), but local sites like StudiVZ (Social Networking), Clipfish (Video), wer-weiss-was (Knowledge) and Knuddels (Flirting) are high potentials, too.

Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention, easy to use tools have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Once connected to their friends it's unlikely to start from new and build another network on another platform.

eMarketer reports that 'consumers continue to flock to social network sites' and 'in 2011, marketers will spend an estimated $1.1 billion on social network advertising outside the US', compared to $95 mio. in 2006.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Labels: branding, markets, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia' posted by eA : 10:27 AM  1 comments links to this post

  Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life Europe's Number One Cruise Line Costa recently launched their new flagship, the Costa Serena, which is 114,000 gross tons, 292 meters in length and features accommodations for up to 3,780 Guests in 1,500 cabins. From PRNewswire:

"Costa is the first company in the world to host a virtual inaugural in "Second Life" simultaneously with the ship's actual inaugural ceremony," said Daniele Mancini, Director of E-Business for Costa Crociere. "This project represents the beginning of a series of new projects in which the user is the center of all communication. Web 2.0 will now allow Costa's satisfied cruise customers to reach beyond friends and family to the entire Internet."

Over the next 10 years many people will spend a lot more time in 3D virtual worlds using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct business on a level of interaction we have never experienced before. Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur...

• Teleport yourself into SecondLife (you need SecondLife)
• Virtual Inaugural Event
• Costa Serena Photo (Reality)
  

Labels: 3D, bizdev, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Costa's New Flagship Costa Serena Launches in Second Life' posted by eA : 2:05 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Fun and Freestyle in Dahab: Spocks, Grubbys, Diablos, Flakas
Her comment: 'Warm water, strong wind, great people... Dahab is an awesome place.' See her sponsors:

• Naish TV
  
• Naish Store
• Naish Sails
• Naish Kites
• Chiemsee

Acting like an aircraft wing the peninsula of Dahab spots 5 km into the Gulf of Aqaba and produces 300 days of wind from 4 Beaufort upwards, water 22°-28°C, air 20°-40°C.

When I was there I spent my time at the Coralia and I remember two excellent flat water spots and a wave spot outside in the Gulf of Aqaba with extremely strong winds, I used the 4.5 qm all the time.

Assalah (Dahab) with its sprawling conglomeration of palm trees, shops, campgrounds, hotels, bars, restaurants and dive spots isn't far away. It's a great experience for surfing (kite and wind) and diving as well as for excursions into the desert.

Labels: dahab, lifestyle, red sea, travel, videos

  ¶ 'Fun and Freestyle in Dahab: Spocks, Grubbys, Diablos, Flakas' posted by eA : 9:17 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail After a quick look into the online travel industry and a quick summary of the German online travel market I'm looking at the European travel market. Europe has a total of 219 mio. European people online >= 15 years, a global broadband market share of ~31% (Eastern and Western Europe, PointTopic 2006) and a broadband penetration rate of ~14% (ECTA, broadband connections/population in Q10/06).

According to ComScore European travel sites experienced 108 mio. visitors in March 2007, a traffic plus of 6% compared to March 2006 spending 37 minutes browsing travel-related content online, where online travel agencies got 19 minutes on average, followed by airline sites (17 minutes) and hotel sites (15 minutes).

'Expedia Inc. led the European travel category with 18.5 million European unique visitors aged 15 and older during March. The second most-visited European travel site was ViaMichelin, with 13.5 million European unique visitors, followed by the TUI Group’s 12.5 million European unique visitors, then Lastminute.com sites with 9.8 million European unique visitors and Priceline.com Incorporated with 8.9 million European unique visitors.'

The main revenue still comes from commissions, but advertising generates a significant revenue stream, too. The European online travel market is predicted to experience a further double-digit growth during the coming years.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23%, then Germany with 20%, Scandinavia with 10% and Spain with 5% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer. European online leisure/unmanaged business travel as a percentage of the total travel market will approach 25% in 2007 according to PhoCusWright.

'Planning and purchasing behavior is undergoing significant change, evidenced by travelers who are now taking control and finding/creating the perfect trip, not just the cheapest trip. Customers communicating with customers has triggered an unprecedented social networking phenomenon and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.'

• eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail' posted by eA : 3:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband Actually I discovered this trend already more than two years ago, but it's always a pleasure to publish good news. Current broadband statistics from the OECD show that 'the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD increased 26% from 157 million in December 2005 to 197 million in December 2006', ergo there must also have been substantial growth in online sales.

An actual study from Forrester published by Yahoo! shows that in the US 'E-commerce is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years'.

Unfortunately an other study published by CNET reports that 'sites that sell movies and TV shows such as Apple's iTunes will likely peak this year and then lose popularity as more content becomes available on free outlets supported by ads', eMarketer reports that 'between 2007 and 2011, US ad spending on social networks is expected to increase 180%, to $2.5 billion'.

Participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today. No matter wether sites like MySpace or Facebook, targeted niche sites or video sites, free and easy interaction, staying in touch with friends, finding long lost friends, and meeting new people encourages users as well as visitors to share comments, photos and videos, read and write blogs or just hang out.

In brief: further double digit growth for retail sales, but maturing in the US, content sales go down, ad spending on social networks up!

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry

Labels: ecommerce, markets

  ¶ 'eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband' posted by eA : 9:33 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Far Beyond the Mainstream: Free Diving Dahab's Canyon
Located in the middle between the straits of Tiran in the south and the borders of Israel, Egypt and Jordan in the north of the eastern coastline of the Sinai Peninsula at 28°33.294N , 34°31.257E the reef along the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba has a large gap and a small entry, the Fish Bowl at 14m that leads into the Canyon down to a sandy platform at 30m and an exit at 18m just vertically above.

Amazing, sportive and very individual, this free dive in Dahab's Canyon without any scuba gear, but with a very specialized free diving equipment, spectacular!

The reef starts right on the beach and the Canyon isn't far away. It's an excellent scuba dive site, too, especially early in the morning when the sun comes up, later in the day it's a bit crowded due to its popularity. It's recommended for advanced divers.

Dahab is an entry point to a series of spectacular dive sites. Very experienced technical divers know, that the Canyon has a second exit at 52m and a last one at 75m just before the drop-off into the abyss, well there is also Neptune's Chair a bit further below. And the famous Blue Hole. Check out the Blue Hole Project.

• Finding Rosalie Moller on the Northern Safari Route

Labels: dahab, diving, red sea, travel, videos

  ¶ 'Far Beyond the Mainstream: Free Diving Dahab's Canyon' posted by eA : 4:50 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Finding Rosalie Moller on the Northern Safari Route
The southern scuba diving safari tour through the Red Sea near Elphinstone or Brother Islands usually is very exciting and meets even the highest level of expectations inducing thrilling moments diving with Oceanic White Tip Sharks even for advanced and professional divers while the northern safari route through the Red Sea is famous for its sunken ship wrecks.

The Video features the Jolanda Reef near Sharm el Sheik (one of the most famous of the northern Red Sea dive sites, but very busy) and famous ship wrecks such as the Carnatic (one of the older wrecks in the Red Sea), the SS Thistlegorm (busy as Piccadilly Circus) and the Rosalie Moller (one of the best wreck dives in the Red Sea), which can be found at 27° 39' 03" N, 33° 46' 17"E West of Gobal Sheghir (Northern Red Sea) in a depth starting at 17m (top of Forward Mast) down to 50 m at Bows and best be visited by Safari Boat from Hurghada and occasionally from Sharm El Sheikh and is recommended to advanced scuba divers due to it's depth.

More scuba diving information around the globe on the free and comprehensive dive site directory.

Labels: diving, red sea, travel, videos

  ¶ 'Finding Rosalie Moller on the Northern Safari Route' posted by eA : 4:44 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Booming German Online Travel Market After a Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry on a global level here a quick summary of the German online travel market. With more than 40 mio. people online, a share of 59% of broadband connections and with an average of more than 30 vacation days per year Germany has excellent premises for further growth.

According to the annual trend study Web-Tourismus 2007 presenting the state of the eCommerce in on-line tourism (leisure trips) in Germany, Germans love to travel and it turns out that further growth will mainly come from online-sales and the online-distribution channel has won and will win further market share from offline channels over the next few years.

'The whole branch achieved 40.57 bn. euros (2006) in the same period and shone once more with a growth, which was based almost without exception on the Internet tourism. Compared with 2005 the gained on-line turnovers grew about 36%.'

'The good development once more was driven by the web-sales of flights. Furthermore, tour operators had a tremendous on-line growth in sales - with a growth of almost 54% compared to 2005.'

The forecasts into 2009 are positive as well, 2007 43.38 bn. Euros and 2008 45.47 bn. Euros driven by online sales.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23% and then Germany with 20% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer.

Interesting is that due to longer established supplier brands Germans and French prefer to book directly at online travel suppliers including low-cost airline online bookings while the other citizens prefer online travel agencies.

• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

As of PhoCusWright the top 5 European online travel agencies are lastminute.com, Expedia, ebookers, Opodo and Travelocity representing 60% of the entire online travel agency market in Europe.

Tour operators such as TUI, Thomas Cook, MyTravel and Rewe are challenged by the low-cost carriers and online travel agencies offering dynamic packaging.

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Booming German Online Travel Market' posted by eA : 7:11 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy It's nearly a year ago (May 2006) that I asked myself 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?'. That time far and wide there was no Google Checkout on the horizon, but suddenly GC launched first in the US, then Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany.

Time to look at Google's Integrated Checkout strategy presented at the Pindar retail event:



I personally think that Google Checkout is a healthy thing for the eCommerce market and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms of user friendliness. Besides financial incentives incorporating more popular payment methods respecting local payments preferences beyond the credit card would be a good differentiator especially in smaller countries where it's competitor PayPal does not.

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Heather Hopkins from Hitwise shares some statistics about GC:

'PayPal received a 67x larger share of US Internet visits last week compared with Google Checkout.'

'PayPal attracted a 53x larger share of UK visits last week than Google Checkout.'

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments

  ¶ 'Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy' posted by eA : 1:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Relaxing between Two Dives on Dreamy Maldives

A wonderful place to relax after an exhausting drift dive on the Maldives. I'm wondering which of the 1,192 islets it might be. Meeru, Kani, Kurumba, Bandos, Paradise Island...

Well, in any case i think it's one of the 86 tourist resorts. Dreamy.

• BizDev: Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry

Labels: AsiaPacific, maldives, photos, travel

  ¶ 'Relaxing between Two Dives on Dreamy Maldives' posted by eA : 5:32 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry Sramana Mitra recently has written an excellent overview about the state and future of the Online Travel Industry and provides several insights running the travel category against his formula for the future incorporating Yahoo's turnaround formula, the 4C:

Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS), where 3C = Content, Commerce, Community, the 4th C = Context, P = Personalization and VS = Vertical search

New for me was the context, which means gravity in terms of organization, marketers should be able to systematically reach the community in a specific context (contextual advertising).

Management of Products and Services within Digital Markets (own research)

1. Search and Directory

1. Search
2. Vertical Search

2. Content and Community

1. Groupware and Collaboration
2. Information Management
3. Knowledge Management
4. Content Management
5. Work-flows
6. Multi Channel Facilities
7. Single Sign On
8. Special Applications

3. Transactions (Commerce)

1. Catalog
2. Shopping Cart
3. Address Book
4. Shipping Options
5. Payment Gateways
6. Self-service Tools
7. Marketing Instruments

4. Context
5. Personalization

1. Implicit Personalization
2. Explicit Personalization

6. CS - DC
7. BI

Interesting is people's behavior in researching travel related information and decision making. It turns out that their favorite methods include researching travel related price comparison sites, RSS-feeds, review sites, blogs and travel sites, while consumer generated content and easy to use tools have a huge impact on their decision making.

Online Travel is a booming segment representing 2% of Internet traffic and 24% of online advertising expenses and offers excellent growth opportunities during the coming years, in the US as in Europe and increasingly in Asia/Pacific. Among the leading sites Expedia, TripAdvisor, Y! Travel, Orbitz, VirtualTourist (Blog) and Gusto (Network)..., and of course it's also possible to research flight related information in the US via Google, just type the airport's three letter code followed by the word "airport" or the name of the airline followed by the flight number.

Having a passion for travel and sports I did a bit of research about Bezurk.com, a travel search engine located in Asia Pacific, which recently launched a new flight search product incorporating a very innovative user interface featuring cutting edge AJAX making sorting, filtering and comparing travel products a walk in the park.

Labels: bizdev, strategy

  ¶ 'Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry' posted by eA : 5:01 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Major Rebranding into iGoogle Google's Personalized Homepage has proven to be one of the most successful products since it's initial launch in 2005 under codename Fusion. After rebranding Froogle into Google Product Search this is the second major rebranding within a short time. It's iGoogle now, no longer Google's Personalized Homepage or Fusion.


Personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services and iGoogle just sounds better on an international level.

With the rebranding also an innovation has been introduced, it's possible to design one's own widgets (Google calls them Google Gadgets) for iGoogle without programming knowledge and share them with friends. The Google Gadget Maker provides seven different templates: Framed Photo, GoogleGram, Daily Me, Free Form, YouTube Channel, Personal List and Countdown. Check them out.

Widgets and gadgets also represent an innovative (viral) way for marketers to reach the user directly and advertise their products and services.

Seen overall this approach to a personalized start-page improves usability and has the potential to improve search relevance incorporating data provided by the user.

Labels: branding, google, markets

  ¶ 'Major Rebranding into iGoogle' posted by eA : 6:08 PM  1 comments links to this post