As the tech world clammers for a closed beta invite of Google Wave, it is left to the lucky few to play around and report back.
The original Google Wave Developer Preview clip on YouTube [views: 4.5 million and counting] gave a tantalising glimpse to the basics of the product.
But now the wider web community is beginning to have a play with some of its features. Here is a quick overview of how the map functionality works. Critical, in GoogleWaveLand, for sharing travel plans.
The collapse of BlueSky Travel System is turning into a rather intriguing saga, as a number of parties central to the story battle it out as to what really happened in the run up to the company going under earlier this week.
The confusion comes as Tnooz learns that a bid for the business was put on the table earlier today. Administrators MCR confirm a bid was received but will not disclose the value and source of the offer.
But there now appears to be a major discrepancy between what Thomas Cook Group and the administrators are saying publicly about the contract at what appears to be at the heart of BlueSky’s demise.
A couple of Tnooz posts about Microsoft Surface have me reaching for the reality-check button.
The reason? Most travel agents, in the U.S. at least, still prefer to use DOS-like linear commands and time-worn scripts on their green-screen computers (the screen on Sabre’s actually is blue, I believe) as their preferred user interface. GUIs? Nah, too inefficient.
So, TravelTainment is constructing a Microsoft Surface application for travel agents, and Sheraton apparently has one of the best Microsoft Surface applications in any vertical.
At some of Sheraton’s U.S. locations, including the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers and the Sheraton Boston Hotel, guests apparently can run their fingertips along those cool-looking Surface tables and book restaurants and map their car routes.
Twitter being the social-network-of-the-moment that it is has managed to inspire many a company to examine how easy it might be – or not – to monetise its interconnectivity into a viable business.
Step forward Inoqo, a Twitter based, late room availability site which has got some of the consumer and tech media excited since it launched last week.
This is inevitable – Twitter has this affect on the media. But this isn’t a Twitter story at all – this is what Inoqo hopes will be a canny tale of travel distribution.
Mr and Mrs Smith, the UK-based luxe hotel guide and reservation brand, has come a long way in the past few years, especially given its latest decision to scrap a technology partnership to start from scratch and build its own booking system.
An existing agreement with TravelIntelligence, which saw the review company’s Starfish platform plugged into the back end of the Smith system, will come to an end in December 2009 to be replaced with a piece of technology created in-house.
The decision to create SAMS – Smith Availability Management System – is one which affects many travel firms which have in the past used third party software to power critical parts of their business.
Figures from the latest annual SITA report into passenger habits at six major airport hubs around the globe were released today and make interesting reading.
The study, SITA-Air Transport World Passenger Self-Service (PSS) Survey, examined a variety of factors which impact on the airport experience including web and self-service check-in, interaction with airlines via mobile and security issues.
The standout stats centre on the increased use of self-service check-in at the airports featured in the survey.
Being a journalist I’m partial to a good headline.
And I figured I needed something to grab attention for my first post on Tnooz. I’m delighted to be in such talented company, but I wonder if I’ve got anywhere near the experience or knowledge of my newly acquired peers.
In fact, it’s this that has got me thinking. What am I here for?
Kayak undoubtedly has an unwelcome surprise for TripIt, Dopplr, Traxo and Sabre’s TripCase, among other contenders.
That’s because Kayak has quietly introduced in beta Kayak Trips, an itinerary-sharing service, to about half of its registered users. The service also is being tested on Kayak’s UK site and in France.
Kayak thus becomes the first metasearch engine to get into the post-reservations management game.
European – and increasingly global – metasearch engine Skyscanner has hired one of the UK’s current dot-com darlings to become a non-executive director of the business.
But Jason Stockwood’s appointment following his departure as managing director of dating giant match.com probably says a lot about Skyscanner’s intentions to push the brand around the globe – or as he puts it: harness the “huge potential to build an explosive global brand over the next couple of years”.
Perhaps the first dilemma Stockwood, chief executive and co-founder Gareth Williams and co will wrestle with is what to do about Skyscanner’s marketing strategy.
In 2000, Roger Liew became employee No. 5 of Orbitz, the airline-owned website that was to launch the following year.
In the seemingly irrational world of travel technology, with its mainframe computers, EDIFACT messaging and incompatible legacy systems, Liew and the 14 other technophiles who became Orbitz’s first employees had a few things going for them in addition to their MIT degrees.
“Our advantage was that none of the early people knew anything about travel,” Liew recalls.
As the always-connected traveller turns to mobile and other devices to search and book products, travel brands must finally grasp the importance of providing a seamless multi-channel customer experience.
Another year, another 2,500 articles published on Tnooz. But which stories attracted the most traffic or moved readers in their dozens to add their comments?
Tnooz is lucky and privileged to have some of the brightest minds in the industry reporting and contributing to its service almost every single day of the year.
With the rapid advancements in mobile and social media, travel companies often find themselves struggling to separate hype from fact.