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Oklahoma has launched seven pilot programs as part of ECO (Encouraging Conservation in Oklahoma) - a sustainable travel initiative.

Science Museum, Oklahoma

The seven pilot programs include the Colcord Hotel, Oklahoma City; Keystone State Park, Sand Springs; Maple Place Bed and Breakfast, Enid; Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, Oklahoma City; Oklahoma Tourism Information Center, Blackwell; Polo Gr...

The report with the same title published earlier this year by PhoCusWright and Amadeus IT Group is based on extensive research with over one hundred corporate executives responsible for travel procurement decisions in their companies and paints a picture of a corporate travel market with a significantly different behavior pattern from the rest of the world when it comes to planning, purchasing and...

It’s not altogether surprising to see more experience based travel sites popping up. Unlike the “all-in-one” travel sites, this segment still has a tremendous amount of room for growth. Enter on the scene, Kijubi.com, the experience marketplace. It took me a moment to realize that the name, as twodotohish as it is, is actually pronounced “Could you be”, hence the “Could you be… having fun right no...

Philip Bowman, chief executive of Smiths Group in London, has begun publicly complaining about the long security lines at European airports he frequents. In a speech in Brussels last week, he told his audience, “Sometimes I wonder whether the same energy and elan is always applied to relieving restrictions as is usually shown – for very good and understandable reasons – in imposing them.”

Five Minutes of Fame at The PhoCusWright 2008

Winners of The Travel Innovations Summit go on to Center Stage to present their groundbreaking applications and solutions in front of a crowd of the world’s leading travel executives.

TripIt

Wandrian

Yapta

Interactive MOBILE @dvertising

Home & Abroad

Triporati

...

Reine Sammut, la cuisine du Coeur ! at Les Explorers Situé en Provence et au coeur du Lubéron, à seulement 1 h de l'aéroport Marseille-Provence, le villag...

Here’s my presentation on “Marketing Your Hotel or Resort in a Web 2.0 World” from the Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals (HFTP) Annual Convention & Tradeshow, held at Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas. With a 75 minute time slot and about 7.5 days of potential content, the attendees got an opportunity to sip from the fire hose of marketing strategy and web technology.

photo credit: ...

Google just released their newest foray into the world of ratings and reviews with their Sidewiki product. The first, and I think one of the most important things to consider, is that Sidewiki is only available for users who download and install the Google Toolbar. Although there are probably millions of people who have installed the toolbar, there are millions more who have installed the toolbar,...

Kevin Luke May is the co-founder, editor and brains behind Tnooz (www.tnooz.com/), which launched in September 2009. A journalist for 16 years, Kevin May was the editor for Travolution prior to founding his own startup in Tnooz.

Kevin May, Editor - Tnooz

Tnooz

Published below is a Q&A with Kevin May, which reveals a fair bit about how and why Tnooz was launched, what makes it tick, and where it is heading to.

Question: How did Tnooz come about? I mean, was it something which you had been thinking about and you felt it was the right time now, or was it triggered by a meeting with someone, or some event?
Kevin May: The Tnooz team decided that there was a hole in the B2B travel media marketplace for a global brand which is focused on travel technology, online distribution, digital markeing, social media and related disciplines. The web allows us to create that kind of media product in a far more exciting way than was possible in the days of print-based media.

Question: From the looks of it, you’re aggregating contributors from the across the world to offer both local and global perspectives. You think this will help attract a more global audience, instead of being limited to a specific region? Anything else you had in mind when you came up this concept?
Kevin May: I feel strongly that the aggregation of B2B travel media content is starting to dilute the overall value and message of the source content. Tnooz has taken a different approach, creating a roster of writers (we call them nodes) around the world who write new content for us, rather than Tnooz aggregating a raft of blogs and new sources.

Question: The PhocusWright Connection – Is it an official partnership? Other than the presence of Gene Quinn and Philip Wolf, what kind of role – if any – did PhocusWright have in the startup? Any plans for content sharing or other arrangements with PhocusWright?
Kevin May: We are an independent media company, seeking to have strategic partners with organisations around the world. We have to be research-neutral, sector-neutral and maintain our position as an analytical, edgy, accurate and valuable provider of news and commentary. We will write about PhoCusWright in the same objective way as any other research company, despite the connections, and also work with them and others to ensure we have relevant and useful content.

Question: Is Tnooz going to be more of a media publication or a platform for bloggers? I mean, do you have any editorial guidelines, oversight,etc. for what gets published?
Kevin May: Tnooz is a media business which has high quality articles at its core. We have a mixture of professional journalists and a range of industry bloggers and other experts in the sector. And, for me, there is no distinction between them all. They all produce unique content for Tnooz and in turn reach a wider and global audience.

Question: Related question – You studied criminology, became a member of the media at the Police Gazette, moved to the web at Media Week and towards the Travel Industry at Travolution. With Tnooz, you now move further down the road into Travel Tech, but still in media. Is Tnooz a career move, are you moving towards something you love doing, or do you just enjoy being on the move, so to speak?
Kevin May: I am journalist of 16 years and love what I do. Co-founding Tnooz with Gene Quinn and Fred Lalonde is a career move of sorts away from the structure and culture of a traditional media company to a start-up. But I still enjoy getting my hands dirty by reporting, analysing and editing, and coordinating teams of great writers.

Question: I read a quote from you, which says “remember your core readership and keep an eye on the competition.” Can you expand on that, as relates to Tnooz? What kind of reader profile are we looking at here? And who do you consider as your main competition?
Kevin May: It’s simple: sit still and you’ll be yesterday’s news in next to no time. Modern media requires agility in technology and the ability to test ideas which enthuse your own audience as well as attract new readers. We are targeting anyone who works in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry with an interest or responsibility for technology, marketing, media and distribution.

Question: In another recent interview, you mention that Tnooz is ‘developing a number of information services which have never been provided before on a global scale.’ Is the TJobs section one of these services? What other services do you offer, or plan to offer?
Kevin May: You will find out in the coming weeks and months. We don’t give away our trade secrets beforehand!

Question: Your launch was great – built up anticipation and doled out information in dribbles. What kind of marketing strategy does Tnooz have in mind, going forward?
Kevin May: We coined the phrase non-marketing marketing early on. This simply meant that we seeded a few key places with information (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) and let the community take over. The buzz ahead of the site’s soft-launch was fantastic and we couldn’t have asked for a better response. We have a number of initiatives in the pipeline, but the best method of growing a media brand is by constantly producing unique and engaging content.

Question: Again, related question – I understand there is no Venture Capital involved. Will that be true going forward, or are you open to investment, if it helps you achieve your growth targets?
Kevin May: We keep our business strategy to ourselves and will do our corporate work behind the scenes, like most companies.

Question: Anything else you’d like to add about Tnooz?
Kevin May: Keep watching, it’s going to be a fascinating ride.

...

From ikbenamy-projects.blogspot.com/ comes a literal insider's view of riding a high speed train in a wheelchair.


See:

http://ikbenamy-projects.blogspot.com/2007/09/high-speed-rail-for-wheelchair.html

...

The Denver Zoo on Google Place Pages.

Late in the afternoon on Friday, Google quietly rolled out a new Google Maps product aimed at creating a richer map browsing experience for the consumer. Enter Google Place Pages, exit Yelp. The new offering is nothing short of a reference library for every place on the planet.

Yeah, not just the U.S., not just businesses, everything. Or from the Google Blog p...

Today's news clippings illustrate the Achilles Heel of the Me Generation - hubris - and its treatment - a bracing dose of reality therapy:

A survey released earlier this month by the National Association of Home Builders shows that baby boomers consider themselves high-tech, not high maintenance.

If they are buying a new home, boomers want it to include high-speed Internet access, but m...

O Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo apresenta un curso por Profa. Viviane Sarraf:

"Arte, Design, Cultura e Deficiência Visual."

Dias 24 e 25 de outubro de 2009

Contato:

On Monday, September 21, 1009, Travel Insights 100 officially launched, it is officially described as a partnership between UpTake, Sentias and BootsnAll Travel Network. But it is more than that, it is really a partnership of 100 members interested in learning about and informing others about all aspects of travel.

Travel Insights 100 members are experts from across the travel industry and around ...

To RollingRains.com readers from professor Bruna Mendes in Brazil:

A longstanding desire of mine has been to bring together a variety of articles that address tourism and people with disabilities allowing a fuller discussion of the subject in academic circles now that many professors have contracts to develop activities in some regions.

To do so I am looking for authors who are interested in writing...

Air France has just announced details of their plans to offer seats on the inaugural A380 flight from Paris to JFK and, a day later, JFK back to CDG. The 1st flight (which is really the inaugural flight) leaves Paris CDG on November 20th with the return from JFK (after some crew rest and photo ops, no doubt) on November 21st.

They are auctioning 380 seats - unclear what will happen to the other 158...

There has been some discussion recently about customer dissatisfaction with the online travel buying experience. A call for more innovative solutions has been made, to improve this situation and bring about much needed changes allowing a less time consuming and often cumbersome search and search again, and again, process to get relevant result suiting personal travel preferences. There has been a ...

Hyatt responds to outcry

The Hyatt responds to the public outcry, just announced they will offer positions to their recently fired staff.

“BOSTON (September 25, 2009) – All housekeepers affected by August staff reductions at the three Hyatt hotels in Boston will be offered new full-time positions in the Boston market. The jobs, which will be provided by an affiliate of United Service Companies, w...

In Pittsburgh, dozens and dozens of downtown businesses closed during the G20 Meetings, September 24-25, 2009. Those that stayed open, saw minimal benefit.

“It’s like a ghost town. I don’t know why we opened today,” said the owner of a fast food restaurant. “We’ll be throwing out over a thousand dollars in perishable food. There just aren’t any customers. We’ll be closed for the second day of the...

Fall has arrived in the Iowa Great Lakes region and the ladies at The Wash House gift shop in West Okoboji, Iowa are ready to celebrate it. Stop by the gift shop this weekend and see all the wonderful fall colors, pumpkins, floral arrangements and candles they have to offer. Donna has been busy making some [...]

La rue Cihelnà vient quasiment chercher le promeneur au pied du pont Charles, côté Mala Strana. Étroite et élégante, elle propose toutes sortes de bibelots, marionnettes, objets de porcelaine ou bijou...