1001 not out (and Happy 2011)

2010 has closed. Welcome and all the best for 2011. In time for the end of 2010 I have completed another milestone here at the BOOT.

The rate per month may be slowing but another 100 posts are live on the BOOT. In my regular "not out series" recap I post a few reminders and highlights form the last 100 posts. It started with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, 701, 801 and 901 not out. Here we go....

I examined search, looked at the future of recommendations and made up a lot of new words:

• Introduced the Tastegraph via an interview with LikeCube. Also talked Tastegraph with TripAdvisor's Adam Medros;
  
• On Tnooz published five tips for launching a social media strategy;
• Discussed the future of Page rank and authority also on Tnooz (with new words like memegraph, expertgraph and genomegraph);
• Introduced some new (made up concepts) of search becoming multi-destinational and multi-destinational (more Tnooz goodness)
• Introduced the concept of the Twelevator pitch - if you cant describe your business in 140 characters then something is wrong
  

Focused on Australia I looked into:

• How Groupon took over the world and the business model hit Australia with a bang (Jump on it raised millions);
• How interesting and competitive the online vacation rental/short let marketing was getting in Australia via a conversation with the boss of Occupancy.com and estimated the size of the online vacation rentail/short let market in Australia at $450-$500mm per year.
  

Some handy tools:

• Summarised all of the TripAdvisor acquisitions in a (hopefully) useful table; and
• Posted the BOOT's guide to researching the world
  

From various conference presentations and attendences I:

• Took you through how social media "hijacked" Eyefortravel asia - in a good way;
  
• Shared some Stories from TravelTech;
  
• Presented at WebInTravel and posted two follow up stories on Tnooz (part 1, part 2); and
• Attended PhoCusWright and posted reviews and comments on Everbread, Movitas, HomeAway, SilverRail and Revinate vs TrustYou
  

Speaking of reviews, the BOOT covered another 200,000kms or so and wrote reviews of

• Air NZ economy class;
• Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy;
  
• Qantas Premium Economy
  

Ultimately I ranked Cathay Pacific as my airline of the year after a close pitched battle between the Cathay Pacific and Virgin Atlantic Herringbone seats

On the quirky front:

• I shared Best looking cappuccino in the world care of the Observatory Hotel
• Qantas killed Virgin in a on-board movie; and
  
• I wrote and published on Customer Underground my biggest post ever. 5,500 words on Dell Hell.

Three more business traveller tips were published on

• Surviving 5 star hotels
• Travelling in China; and
  
• Surviving business travel in economy class

Finally - the BOOT received mentions in

• The Guardian;
  
• USA today; and
  
• The Australian

If you are still reading, I will keep writing. All the best for 2011 - see you on the road.

Thanks to Dustin Ling for the photo of the BOOT in action at ATEC

901 not out

100 more posts live on the BOOT. 4 years, 200,000 plus words, 150,000 visitors, 240,000 page views and still going. In my regular "not out series" recap I post a few reminders and highlights form the last 100 posts. It started with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, 701 and 801 not out. Here we go....

Buy buy buy. We may still be waiting for the mega deal but the tuck-ins are everywhere

• Zuji/Travelocity bought Indian based Travelguru
• WRI went for $340mm
• TripAdvisor went further into China with Kuxun
  

Bust bust bust. The Global F'n Crisis had casualties

• Roamfree went into administration as the BOOT had to press delete on comment after comment
• Offline travel maybe dying but I had 3+3 recommendations on how it can save itself
  

Talk talk talk. The BOOT went conference crazy

• Talked EveryYou at WebInTravel - even though a back injury prevented by from actually going
• Joined the Kevin and Gene army of nodes and wrote 8 tnooz posts on subjects as varied as Augmented reality, Lonely Planet, Google, New Zealand and the Do over
• Overheard intermediaries and suppliers sharing war stories at NoVacancy
• EveryYou launched at TRAVELTech (see below)
• Another amazing week at PhoCusWright
• Spoke at Ad:Tech
  

Track track track - kept my eye on big Asian online players that are active in the market but quiet in the results arena.

• Tracking Google - broke the story first that Google meta-search was coming
  
• Tracking AsiaRooms and their TUI A&S stablemates
• Tracking Agoda, finally getting my hands on a Citi reporting estimating their turnover at $244mm for 2009 and early integration with Booking
  
• Tracking MakeMyTrip and claims they have made US$5mm off $500mm in gross sales
• Tracking Lonely Planet and their online plans
• Tracking Kayak and the private sale plans and follow up with Jetsetter CEO Drew Patterson
  

Theory theory theory

• Laid out my predications for 2010
  
• I introduced the concept of EveryYou - arguing that the future of online travel is “The development of a specific and targeted recommendation of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time”
• Posted my thoughts on the secrets of innovation
• Mused on my 3 rules for a UGC start-up
• Pondered what next for Google in online video marketing
  

Puff Puff Puff - away from the industry I also posted

• More business traveller tips
• More seat reviews
• Introduced the SkyMall follies
• First Class is dead!

I haven't run out of things to say yet, so if you're still listening, then I will keep typing.

801 not out

Another 100 posts are live on the InterTubes. Time again for my regular "not out series" recap where I go through the last 100 posts and remind you of the themes that have been dominating the blog. I started almost three years ago with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, and 701 not out. This comes at a time that the BOOT passed the 100k visitor mark.

Two new segments for the Blog

• Seat Reviews including Qantas Economy, Qantas Premium Economy, JAL Business, BA Business, Singapore Raffles and United Business ; and
  
• Business traveller tips - what to pack, what to wear and getting through security.

Meta search action a-plenty which I tried to summarise in my post "Meta-search vs Online Travel Agents: the three main differences and why they matter"

• TripAdvisor launching air meta-search and received criticism (including from me) for allowing too many reviews from non-travellers
  
• Travelzoo launching Fly.com
• Kayak branching into content and review meta-search through expanded Travelpost
• Yahoo! went the other way and euthenased FareChase
• Cheapflights launched in Australia with a sub-par product
• Car meta-search company Oodles topped the car traffic numbers in Australia
• Sidestep founders came back with the oddly named Voyij
  

While also having time for Travel Discovery and Inspiration sites such as:

• event based search site Joobili
• the high profile Triporati
• data loving Tripbase

...and we found out how much Expedia paid for VirtualTourist and OneTime

BOOT interview mania with start ups and industry shakers

• Alfonso Castellano of TripSay (part 1 and 2)
• AsiaRoom came out of the closet, launched direct contracting and the BOOT found out more about them and their TUI ODS stable-mates including revenue numbers
  
• Jim Hornthal of Triporati
• Yen Lee of Uptake
• Reuven Levitt of Tripbase (part 1 and 2)
• Steve Hafner of Kayak
  

oh...and...a plane actually landed on water

701 not out

This last 100 posts has flown by. It is time for my regular "not out series" where I recap the last 100 posts and remind you of the themes that have been dominating the blog. I started almost three years ago with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. and 601 not out.

I spent a lot of the last 100 posts attending and covering the big online travel conferences of Oceania, Asia and the US. A couple of highlights:

From TRAVELtech in Sydney

• Richard Noon of Webjet estimating the Australian turnover of Expedia, Zuji and Travel.com.au; and
  
• WorldNomads the inspiring Footprints charity program with the fantastic marketing and conversion benefits.

From Eyefortravel in Sydney

• Me talking about helping consumers navigate too much information;

From WebInTravel in Singapore

• Alfred Chang of Ctrip sharing his views of the market share "online" in China;
• Ram of PhoCusWright hosting an interesting round table on India with heads from Makemytrip and Yatra; and
  
• Phillip Wolf and Ram Badrinathan of PhoCusWright and me talking about online travel, Google, UGC, the Economy and (of course) Asia.
  

From PhoCusWright in LA

• I tried to sort out all of the trip planning sites and mobile applications;
• We heard interesting stories from the bosses of Expedia, Priceline and Kayak; and
• We came across the interesting way in which an offline publisher in Germany (MairDumont) is supporting and online trip planner (TripWolf).
  

While I was busy at Gabfests the world went into an economic death spiral:

• XL went bust, Alitalia too (kind of); But
  
• Uptake, HomeAway, and TripWolf managed to raise some money, bucking the trend.
  

I touched on some (in my view) interesting themes including

• Whether or not BA did a good or bad job point all of their Highlife content online;
• Whether or not Google has too much influence over how we design our websites and content strategies; and
• Whether or not you should use paid search as a place for a he said, she said bitch fight.
  

And in BOOT news

• We watched live on the Internet as a family member escaped from the horrors of the attacks on Mumbai
  
• We hit 1,000 subscribers;
• You heard me talk to Addison Schonland;
  
• I saw a man die at Hong Kong airport;
  
• We joined the Recombobulation Revolution!!!
  

I'm having a blast writing, I hope you are enjoying the reading.

PS - in case you happen to be counting this is actually post 703

601 not out

Every hundred posts I do a quick summary of what has been dominating the blog. A regular "not out series" to keep readers up to date. Started first with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401 and 501 not out.

A number of different industry themes came out in the last few months

• Gotcha Capitalism - how companies (including travel companies like Budget) hide fees and charges that undermine the advertised price. Not even Moose Hunters are safe.
  
• Airline Bad news is everywhere - bad news days for airlines became band news months and weeks. But clearly it is all the fault of those thieving, stealing, cheating oil speculators
  
• Start up changed names as the URL trading industry heated up - Kango became UpTake, Vailoma became TripSay and Bezurk became Wego
• BAR - I argued that BAR does not build brand in hotels
• India - Expedia entered the market, maybe bought a slice of TravelGuru and Ram from PhoCusWright and I talked and talked about what this meant for a heating up region. Revenue Management seems to be the first thing to be burned
  
• Content: is there money in it and if so what is the mode?. TripAdvisor think so and are buying up everything they can to prove it. The money is also starting to flow in Asia. But there is also trouble as the eyeball chasing advertisers are beginning to hold onto their money
  
• Last-minute model on hiatus: I called the Last-minute booking model on hiatus and maybe dead (model not company). Others picked up the story (without crediting me); and
• Mobile : I started the first in a series of thoughts on mobile technology and online travel.
  

And on the fun/quirky/ranting side

• Qantas to decided to give up on rewarding frequent flyers by introducing a flawed and plain out nasty to consumers AnySeat rewards program. You now have to fly to the moon (literally - 2.5 million miles) to be able to book a first class seat to New York
  
• BOOT made it into the Australian Financial Review but that did not stop Google from accusing me of being a Spam merchant
  
• We had a first competition on the BOOT with rude consequences
• As always the most consistent part of the blog - that no matter how much hope it wont be the case, the in-flight entertainment system on Qantas failed again and again; and
  
• Phillip Wolfe of PhoCusWright (with a lot of help from Rod Cuthbert of Viator) brought together a great group of online travel players in Sydney. The BOOT tried to the same thing in London and ended up with a much smaller (but no less interesting) group of bloggers.

And the BOOT got his butt kicked with a genuine, take not prisoners, hopefully never to be seen again Royal Flush.

I am still writing, hope you are still reading.