Am glad that, finally, this idea trickles through into the brains of some savvy industry watchers.

The Bazaar and Spice Market metaphor is excellent. Been there and know the feeling.

Maybe we should go back to the ole travel agents after all in stead of pushing them out of work:-)

Twitter is planning to reprioritize the display of its tweets – see Mashable article here: http://j.mp/crdAec – reportedly giving preference to the items most frequently retweeted or originating from those with the greatest clout.

For travel businesses working in the realm of social marketing, things may start looking more like the “Grand Bizarre.”

Social media has always faced three fundamental challenges:
a) Disrespect for intellectual property
b) Communication of inaccurate information
c) Hyperbolic propagandizing

Sadly, it sometimes does not matter if the content is not yours or not accurate, as long as it packaged in an entertaining or sensational manner, it can be used to accomplish an objective.

Case in point, the Eric Qualman Socialnomics Video – We have all watched it open countless conference panels discussing social media.

It’s too bad that it blatantly rips off the “Did You Know 3.0″ video production design (including its Fatboy Slim soundtrack) and that a good number of the “facts” like “80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees” & “35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle” are simply false.

Here’s a blog post I wrote last year on the topic: http://j.mp/7zRbc

I agree that there is a social media revolution, but let’s not all get sucked in to a propaganda machine designed to sell a book (which it did – making it the #2 business book on Amazon.) With 1.6+ million YouTube views & counting and a top selling book, Eric Qualman gained influence.

Crowdsourcing gets ugly when there is a mob mentality or someone is intentionally (and effectively) manipulating the public. Manipulation of TripAdvisor ratings becomes only the tip of the iceberg when so much money is at stake.

Until accuracy and responsibility (which can be quite boring and no fun at all…) start to take precedence over style & celebrity, we may be looking forward to a period of “The Grand Bizarre” in the highly fragmented global travel industry.

I hope it can be avoided, but it seems inevitable that social media will ultimately help us learn from our past mistakes.

In fairness to Eric Qualman, he did release a much more responsible second video with better fact checking and an accredited design and soundtrack. It has gotten about 150,000+ views.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by tnooznooz: Latest! What is the difference between the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and online travel?:
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