November 14, 2006

Live from PhoCusWright

I am listening to the opening panel at this year’s PhoCusWright Executive Conference. The Wall Street panel seems to be missing the Travel 2.0 wave by labeling the new move to social networks and other Travel 2.0 brands as not worthy of investment and incapable of stand-alone success. The attitude expressed seems to be missing the next disruptive impact of […]
November 13, 2006

See You in Hollywood!

A little later today I will be off to the PhoCusWright Executive Conference in Hollywood. As an PhoCusWright analyst , I will be blogging both on the PCWI blog site and on this blog as well. With the focus on Travel 2.0, this year’s conference promises to be packed with lots of announcements, engaging presentations and controversy –o Are Travel […]
November 8, 2006

The Consumer as the Ultimate Aggregator

Much has been written about the changing travel distribution landscape. The four GDS have been forced to lower their fees in exchange for “full content” agreements with the airlines. A closer look at these agreements reveals loopholes regarding special promotional fares. Recently there has been some rumbling from the major hotel chains about going direct. TMC platforms such as TravelBahn […]
November 2, 2006

Using the Virtual World for Real World Business

Second Life is a virtual world where you can explore and interact with other online players. Initially Second Life was similar to other online multi-player games where an avatar representing your real or desired self can teleport to anywhere in the virtual world. Second Life gained additional prominence when it was featured on the cover of the May 20th Business […]
October 19, 2006

Loki – A new twist on Location Based Services

Traditionally, most software developers think of GPS or A-GPS as the preferred technology to pinpoint your location and deliver relevant content related to that location. Loki an application developed by Skyhook Wireless, uses the ubiquitousness of Wi-Fi networks to determine your location. Between the movement to provide wireless connectivity throughout a city (e.g. San Francisco, Philadelphia) and the integration of […]
October 13, 2006

An Automated Travel Assistant

Every since I first viewed the historic Knowledge Navigator video produced by John Scully CEO of Apple in the late 1980’s, I have believed that an intelligent assistant would truly be a killer app for the travel industry. As originally envisioned, Knowledge Navigator was going to be a tablet, the size of an opened magazine, and would have very sophisticated […]