I am blogging from the PhoCusWright@ITB. The day began with a BloggerSummit, clearly the leaders in new media from around the world with representatives from Europe, North and South America. We exchanged best practices in blogging and tweeting. This was followed by an early look at the five minute of fame innovators who will present tomorrow. Philip Wolf then addressed the bloggers on his views on major trends for 2009. Philip announced the theme for PhoCusWright Conference 09 – Money, Media Mobile, & Moxey. More on themes as we get closer to the conference in Orlando in November.
After lunch, the first panel of bloggers who were asked the top trends they see in 2009. A lot of discussion about Twitter. The online poll had the 1) Shift in philosophy on social media, 2) hire a social media guy, and 3)PR firms will use social media. Unfortunately the panel missed mobile. That was further evidence that the travel industry still has not recognized the impact of the mobile tidal wave approaching.
The second session first reviewed these three top trends. Then a discussion on ROI of social media was discussed. In my view it is about reputation and identifying who in a social network has that influence. Tools are coming to the market to help easily identify this, such as NodeXL