Kango

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with Yen Lee, president of the new travel search company Kango. For those who do not know Yen, he has an extensive background in online travel most recently as the head of Yahoo! Travel. So what is unique about Kango? The company is building a semantic travel search engine. Rather than simply displaying results of a key word search by PageRank (the method used by Google) , Kango delivers results that are more personalized based on specific attributes entered into the search criteria. Kango is creating an ontology of global travel content that includes ranking of superlatives within review sites. This enables the search engine to rate a given hotel, for example, putting greater value on adjectives such as "This is the best hotel for kids in Monterey California". Kango allows users to search hotels, activities and other travel related content filtered to meet their own specific preferences. In other words, rather than simply searching for a four star hotel in Monterey, Kango users can use specific descriptive words such as "romantic" to identify the most appropriate hotel to meet their needs. Though the idea of segmenting travel search has been introduced by sites such as the Travelocity Experience Finder or Home and Abroad, Kango's backend semantic catalogue represents a different approach. These other experience oriented sites have created a taxonomy of their content enabling an experience oriented search limited to their traditional content. Rather than simply putting content into categories, Kango's ontology defines travel content in terms of superlatives delivering a numeric ranking of search results that integrates mutiple user generated content. This includes review sites such as Trip Advisor and travel blog sites such as Gusto!. This is not simply a repurposing of ratings from these sites. The Kango engine evaluates reviews and blogs of a specific hotel property for example, across multiple sites to deliver a consolidated rating that reflects the descriptive needs of the user. Kango is adding this semantic interperation of travel content not only to traditional hotel information, but also by embracing the Long Tail concept, Kango is including content options such as campgrounds and other disenfranchised elements of travel industry that normally are not included in standard OTA content. Kango's focus is on the planning phase of travel and will refer their users to booking sites for reservations. This is truly an innovative approach to travel planning that has the potential to truly change the way consumers search travel content.

Why Social Networking Matters for the Corporate Travel Market

The BEAT recently covered my NBTA presentation on Web 2.0 and the release of my new study "Corporate Travel Technologies: Today and Tomorrow". In the article Jay projects a somewhat skeptical view on whether social networking apps will ever appear in the corporate travel industry. I understand Jay's skepticism. Throughout my 25 years in the corporate travel industry, I have seen many so-called revolutionary apps announced at trade shows, but never implemented. When it comes to social networking, this trend transcends any specific industry, and thus is a phenomenon that will impact all travel industry segments, even corporate travel! I was talking this morning with the CEO of a new European based social networking platform, Dopplr, that allows individuals to identify other people in their network who are traveling to the same destination. Dopplr's focus is primarily on business travel. With recent PhoCusWright research that shows that 1/2 of all business trips include an extension for leisure activity, identifying other social networking contacts who are at the destination becomes important. Even from a pure business enterprise perspective, identifying other corporate employees who are at the same destination could have additional value for the traveler. Social Networking is here to stay. Still not convinced? Then perhaps it's an age thing! PhoCusWright research also shows that people under 35 are much more familiar with social networking apps than those over 35. This generational gap will be most prominent when the current college age Facebook users enter the workforce.

Why Travel Mash-Ups are Important

As much as the OTAs may position themselves as a one-stop shops for travel planning and booking, the reality is that no single site can make this claim. With the introduction of over 30+ travel sites over the past 2 years, travel content on the Web has never been more fragmented. Sites that provide travel blogs, itinerary sharing and rating systems abound. The future of destination content should include a mash-up of multiple sites such as the recent by American Express regarding their travel mash-up of Travel & Leisure, American Express Publishing and Lonely Planet. In my view consumers would flock to mash-up sites that combine multiple reviews from Trip Advisor, IGOUGO and others, organized around a single hotel search. Obviously copyright issues may be an obstacle, but if the review sites benefit financially through referral income, they may be willing to provide the individual ratings. The same needs to be true for itinerary sharing sites, multiple samples from Realtravel and Gusto! would be beneficial. Mash-ups are here to stay and will continue to play a major role in online travel.

BBC buys Lonely Planet - The Future of Guidbook content

Some may be surprised by the acquisition of Lonely Planet by the BBC. Why would a traditional media giant want travel destination content? What does this mean for the future of guidebooks? There are a number of ways to look at this purchase. Combining Lonely Planet content with BBC video such as Michael Palin's travel series seems an obvious step, but I believe there is more to this transaction. Large media giants such as BBC are challenged by the growth of the Web which is clearly steeling viewers from the traditional broadcast television medium. The BBC is not blind to this trend and has created some interesting user interfaces on the Web. In specific, the BBC has a very creative interactive time line that allows users to drill down to find out information about specific time periods in British History. Rather than offering the user simple historical text, the BBC history time line allows the user to select information that is of particular interest to fit their needs and drill down to the appropriate detail. Applying this approach to Lonely Planet information would be very logical and enable better navigation of the content. With the growth of user generated content and BBC's control over massive libraries of video content, the BBC could use the Lonely Planet acquisition to drive a new model in the market that combines all three of these sources into an interactive display allowing users more flexibility. The integration of multiple sources of content is a natural evolutionary step in destination information and I am hopeful the BBC will use this opportunity to drive a new model in the market.

Corporate Travel Technology: Today and Tomorrow

I am pleased to announce the release of my new study: "Corporate Travel Technology: Today and Tomorrow". The study is now available for immediate download at the Travel Tech Consulting online store: http://traveltechnology.stores.yahoo.net/cotrtetoandt.html

Are Airlines a Commodity?

I am writing from Houston Texas where I attended a consultant's forum sponsored by Continental Airlines. The session was primarily focused on the corporate market , but did include a review of some very impressive stats, including some slides which showed that CO is the best US network carrier for on-time performance and lowest baggage loss.

Part of the session included a meeting with Continental's Chairman & CEO, Larry Kellner and Jeff Smisek, Continental's president. Though I still doubt whether Continental can break the commodity label, these two executives did represent a breath of fresh air. Both gentleman were very open and candid about their plans for expansion, relationship with customers and respect for their employees. I left the meeting wishing Continental had a bigger presence in the San Fransisco Bay Area.

WiMax verses 3G, 4G and Beyond

The Tech industry has been talking about ubiquitous computing for some time. Any observer would agree that it has become common place for business people to multi-task - e.g. listening to a speaker while reading one's email, but the fact is that this only the beginning of our always connected future. An interesting battle has emerged between the traditional telecom players who are offering 3G (Third generation) wireless networks with some now talking about 4G capabilities. An alternative trend is the emergence of WiMax, a broadband technology that could be thought of as Wi-Fi on steroids. With telecom and tech companies such as Sprint and Intel embracing WiMax, many perceive the wireless roadmap as a "fork in the road". Rather than 3G verses WiMax, a blending of the two technologies seems to be more likely. Devices such as the Apple I-Phone with built in WiFi point to a hybrid future where both traditional telecom and WiMax networks co-exist is more likely. The wild card in this game is Google. For many months the blogosphere has been chasing rumors that Google is building their own mobile device that will compete head to head with traditional offerings from Nokia, LG and Motorola as well as the Apple iPhone. No matter which network becomes dominant the days of the always connected traveler are here to stay and all travel companies must develop m-commerce strategies to reflect this fact.

Call Center Point of Sale

Over the last 20 years I have been involved with a number projects involving point of sale UIs for call center agents. Going back to my days with United Airlines when Casto Travel was the first installation on the West Coast for the, at that time new Apollo Focalpoint UI, to recent projects with Alaska.org, Vegas.com and Vail Resorts, I have continued to be disappointed that call center travel technology still lags behind both online UIs and non-travel call center apps. Too often, common wisdom has pushed any call center development effort to the back burner in favor of direct consumer online efforts. The problem with this approach, is a lack of understanding of off-line's role in support of complex online transactions. Another inhibiting factor is the traditional limitations of Web-based interfaces verses robust Windows-based desktop tools. Now that we've seen the formal introduction of AJAX or FLASH in the consumer online travel arena, let's hope similar use of these Web 2.0 tools makes it way to the agent's desktop.

Observations from the NBTA convention

Last week's NBTA's annual convention was billed as the biggest and most successful travel management conference ever. A common question I was asked while roaming the tradeshow floor, "What do you believe was the hot topic at this year's conference?". My response was simplly stated "nothing really new here". In reality I believe more was left unsaid then presented in any particular seminar or general session. For example, Sam Gilliland, CEO of Sabre, presented a panel of ex-airline execs who chatted with Peter Greenberg. I really wanted to know what the private equity buyout of Sabre means to the industry not to mention the Travelport acquition by Blackstone and the recent IPO by Orbitz. Instead the two airline executives talked about the need for high speed rail for the NorthEast corridor (DOH!). A familiar theme in Sam's introduction speech was "you the corporate travel manager, really controls the industry", but is this really true?

Perhaps the problem with this conference is that the position of corporate travel manager is a moving target. This week, I have been updating my NBTA database from 2004 and I immediately noticed about a 70% turnover in names just for the letters A and B! Could it be that the coveted target of the suppliers at the conference is a moving one? Is the position of travel manager a long term career? My apologies to my friends and colleagues who have been in their role for many years, but the reality of the market is that at an average company a new travel manager emerges after about 4-5 years. Why is this? Corporate travel management is not a core competency of any organization (except TMCs that is). There is little room to advance in the position other than adding more commodities to the role if the the CTM is in procurement (as many are moving towards) or moving to other positions in the company. So if I were to conservatively estimate that 50% of all travel managers turnover in a 5 year period, marketing to these individuals becomes a constant re-education effort. No wonder the conference lacks innovation, there are so many newcomers to the position every year, it is nearly impossible to move to start a more forward thinking dialogue.

CorporateTravel Technology Today and Tomorrow

I am pleased to announce that my most recent corporate travel study: Corporate Travel Technology: Today and Tomorrow is now available for a pre-published order with a discount of $100 (purchase price is normally $600, pre-publication price of $499). In addition if you are attending the NBTA show next week you can receive an additional $100 discount if you order the study by August 31, 2007. The study will be released in mid- late August 2007. This research is the result of intensive review of products and services offered in the corporate travel space. You can check out the table of contents here and purchase the study through the TTCI or PhoCusWright stores.

Here is a link to the flyer we are distributing at next week's NBTA conference.

I'm Back....

My apologies to my loyal blog readers. I was on vacation in Israel for most of June and I have been on the run finishing up various projects since I returned. A couple words of advice concerning travel to Israel. My family and I felt extremely safe during our stay. Don't let the US media make you believe otherwise. As the birth place of three of the world's major religions, visiting Israel is like no other experience. That being said we did have a slight mishap while enjoying the Dead Sea. My cousin's rent-a-car was broken into and about 1/2 our luggage (all the luggage we had with us) was stolen. This included our passports. Though Israel is very safe, personal property is not, especially in remote areas where Bedouin's live. I am sorry to report, per the Israeli police, that the Bedouin's main source of income is theft. So if you do travel to Israel and see a Bedouin wearing a Steely Dan t-shirt, wearing my wife's skirt listing to my son's IPOD, let me know! In reality personal possessions can be replaced. BTW if you ever do lose your passport in Israel I would recommend the consulate in Jerusalem rather than the Embassy in Tel Aviv. They were extremely helpful in getting us temporary passports.

I realize a lot has been happening over the last month in both travel and technology. I hope to make up for lost time this week with a number of entries.

Working with 3rd party software developers

I found it interesting that two prominent software companies (if you can call a GDS a software company) one within the travel industry, Sabre, the other the poster child for social computing, Myspace, have both recently come out with rules (or lack of) regarding 3rd party software developers that hook into their systems. In the case of Sabre, there has been a lot recent press around the new fees Sabre is now charging 3rd party applications such as Booking Builder. For Myspace the issue is one of widgets used by third parts to embed content inside their site. The most common example is Youtube whose growth as a company's was significantly driven by MySpace.

In a recent blog entry by Josh Kopelman, Managing Director of First Round Capital (which was also carried on the Always On Network), Josh compared MySpace's lack of a clear "widget road map" to that of Prodigy. "This brings back memories from the early days of the Internet, when companies like Prodigy and AOL were the only online services in town. Despite the launch of the web browser (which unleashed the creation of millions of web sites), AOL and Prodigy initially focused on maintaining their proprietary online environment and controlling everything on their site." "Myspace does not have a formal development program and has blocked several widgets , (and) built their own widgets to compete in certain areas." In contrast, Facebook, Myspace's chief competitor has announced a new development platform encouraging 3rd party applications that work with their site.

Though I recognize that contrasting Sabre's actions to that of Myspace is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison, but the end result is similar with each company trying to protect what they perceive as their proprietary competitive advantage. Like Myspace, Sabre is blocking some third party development , while promoting their own alternative tools (based on Agentware). Hopefully one of the other GDS (Galileo, Amadeus are you listening?) will learn from the Myspace / Facebook battle and take an opposite stance from Sabre, promoting and supporting 3rd party development tools.

Digital Public Space Advertising

I am fan of the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report. In the film Tom Cruise is bombarded by digital advertising as he walks through a crowded mall. The ads are triggered by a retina scan personalizing the offering to respond to the character's specific needs. (In the case of the film, Tom Cruise actually replaced his eyes with another character's so the ads reflect that person's preferences).

A recent article in Always On talked about the emergence of adverting in public spaces such as NYC taxi cabs. Combining that with the growth of Behavioral Targeting, the world described in Minority Report is rapidly emerging. Each generation has become more desensitized to the onslaught of media. My 16 year old son is perfectly happy doing his homework, responding to multiple IM messages all while listing to his favorite tunes. I have no doubt that his current ability to manage multiple media inputs will allow him to handle the coming onslaught of personalized advertising. The growth of public space advertising over the next 5 years will be dramatic.

Desktop tools

I met some representatives from OTOlabs at the recent TravelCom conference in Las Vegas in April. Desktop tools such as the Southwest's DING! application have clearly proven their value in creating a more intimate relationship with customers. OTOlabs' is the developer of ThinkDesktop applications such as Vail Resorts' SnowMate. I worked with Vail Resorts (as part of a PhoCusWright engagement) back in 2005. The SnowMate application is a critical tool Vail has successfully used to bond with their best customers. The Southwest DING! application had over 1 million downloads the first six months. Southwest delivers daily messages on special promotions to the desktop of millions of customers reinforcing their image as a low fare leader and bonding the customer to the Southwest brand.

I am a strong believer that providing a small desktop application to deliver personalized information to your customer is an essential component of a Travel 2.0 strategy. To my surprise the OTOlabs folks indicated that other airlines have been very slow to embrace this concept. This is truly baffling considering the transparency of the Web and desire of airlines to develop a closer bond with their best customers.

Service Oriented Architectures

A lot has been written over the last three years about the topic of a service oriented architectures (SOA). The concept refers to a more flexible way to create software using Web services. Rather than creating tightly coupled code that bounds specific functionality within the application, software written using SOA principles creates loosely coupled components that can easily be removed or altered without impacting the entire application. "SOA turns monolithic inflexible applications into hundreds, even thousands of small flexible applications" Gartner research estimates that by 2008, more than 60% of enterprises will use SOA as a “guiding principle” when creating mission-critical applications and processes.”

Understanding the underlying architecture of software has always been a difficult task for a variety of buyers in the travel value chain. Whether it is a corporate travel manager evaluating self-booking software or a leisure travel agency looking at reservation technology, the need to evaluate the underlying software architecture has never been greater.

Often vendors confuse the issue by stressing their use of Web services. Utilizing Web services to connect to disparate sources of content has become the norm in the last 3-4 years. Just because an application uses Web services for connectivity does not mean the software has been written using a SOA approach. As an example, a major hotel chain still uses a mainframe running TPF (an old operating system created by IBM for the GDS) as their central reservation platform. The company has created a Web services layer to aid in the communication with property based system and external channel distributors. This is obviously a good use of Web services but does not reflect a service-oriented architecture. If this chain wanted to do a complete revision of their rate structure, the antiquated mainframe approach would lead to a nightmare of programming tasks. If this application was built using SOA, an overall rate revision would be done with less pain, implemented faster and would not disrupt other modules of the reservation process. Unfortunately for this supplier, SOA theories were not around in the 1970's when the core reservation system was built.

Wireless Travel Applications

Last week I was interviewed by USA Today Weekend regarding mobile technology for the traveler. The premise of the call was focused on the prevalence of IPODs among travelers. The reporter asked some specific questions about downloading audio blogs for use by leisure travelers. The obvious application would allow the provider to segment the traveler population into special interest groups. A guided city tour for a history buff may be quite different from a couple looking for gourmet restaurants. Our conversation went beyond this point to encompass all types of gadgets now carried by frequent leisure or corporate travelers. I mentioned that last year I wrote an article for the PhoCusWright GDX technology subscription service on the hotel room of tomorrow. A common theme within that article is the emergence of multi-media stations in hotel rooms where travelers could hook up their MP3, digital camera or laptop and view the content on new HDTV sets. As always I am interested in any new application being deployed by travel suppliers or intermediaries that enhances the travel experience. If you know of some interesting apps, please let me know.

Web 3.0

First let me apologize to my blog readers for my long absense. I have been juggling a number of different client projects working long hours (which I know is the norm for today's 24/7 business environment). Fortunately three of the projects are closing out this week so I am back.

Lately I've been seeing a number of articles describing Web 3.0. Is Web 3.0 just another buzz word fueling the pundits and press or does it have some substance? One fallacy that is perpetuated by buzz words such as Web 2.0, 3.0 is the impression that the introduction of new technologies and approaches happens all at once negating prior technologies. In reality technology change is evolutionary. For example adding an improved consumer UI using AJAX or Flash to a Travel 1.0 platform may change aspects of the application to be more engaging, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the software is Travel 2.0 throughout its underlying code.

So what is Web 3.0? A common mantra expressed around Web 3.0 is that software will be more pervasive, faster and cheaper to deploy. Web 3.0 applications will understand the semantics of Web sites enabling new levels of machine-to-machine communication. Personalization will filter information to deliver information that is more relevant to the consumer delivered on the device of there choice. Information itself will be dynamically generated reflecting the needs of the supplier to sell perishable inventory. With the travel industry still struggling to integrate Web 2.0 features and functionality (e.g. user generated content, new UIs using AJAX or Flash) the arrival of Web 3.0 will likely take some time to manifest itself in travel applications.

O'Reilly ECT Day #2- Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies in Everyday Life

The talk began with this basic premise: How do you balance needs of the users with emerging technologies? The goal of the talk was to use different lens on emerging tech and end-users. The backside of technology development is people. How to segment people which are not like "you" - don't design for oneself or one size fits all. There are four life stages each with a different set of properties- stage one - friends, attention, play/leisure, sex, consumption; stage #2 - Sex, friends , money , play/leisure, labor; stage #3 - labor, family, money, power, property; stage #4 - family, health, religion, hobbies, friends. technology adoption and priorities reflect these four life stages. Corporations are currently driving technology. Corporations need to satisfy shareholders reflecting continuous growth. To monetize the interaction people the user must be passionate about the technology. Unhappy users don't make products stick. Four aspects of modern technology: persistence (never goes away) searchability (ability to find what you want), replicability (what is truth?, the ability to copy), Invisible audiences - (don't have a sense who is in the audience- you don't know who your are talking). All rules of privacy is changing. When things really go mobile will create a new shift in practice - combining location and technology.

O"Reilly ECT - The Coming Age of Magic -Mike Kuniavsky, Co-founder and Principal, ThingM

Ubiquitous computing is moving away from traditional platforms (PC, PDA, smartphone) to include non traditional platforms such running shoes. In 1995 General Magic designed their wireless handheld interface as a desktop. This interface had limited functionality partially due to the desktop metaphor. Extending the desktop metaphor to a wireless device doesn't work with ubiquitous computing. Mike is advocating the use of existing cultural understanding (magic) to describe the behavior of ubiquitous computing objects. Design principles- every day objects (shoes, hammers, hats, plates), they are familiar, physical, no screen , not human, not superhuman, reinforcing the fact that we don't believe in magic. Ambient orb from Ambient Devices looks like a crystal ball. the Nokia medallion - allows communication. Wands (Nintendo Wii), Hitachi Magic wanted. Concept of wands already exists based on embedded technology. The move towards "magic" devices is already happening. The age of magic is coming. Using the magic metaphor should not be an excuse for poor design.

Jeff Hawkins

Jeff is the original founder and designer of Palm. He described human function and how his new company Numenta is developing next generation for intelligent computing. Jeff stated that you can’t get computers to act as humans- visual perception, auditory perception, somatosensory perception, Languages, Adaptive behavior, planning, thinking etc….

What is preventing this? Common wisdom believes:

• Computers are not powerful enough - no longer the case

• Brains are too complex to understand
  

• Brains work on quantum principles
  

• Brains are magic

Reality is not too complex, don’t work on strange principles and we just didn’t understand how they work.

Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) –

1) Creates a model of its worked

2) Recognizes new patterns

3) Predicts

Generates behavior Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC)

Simple vision system –

HTM applications areas of focus:

1. Automotive
2. Gaming
3. Network modeling
4. Drug discovery
5. Vision systems
6. Market analysis
7. Business modeling
8. Nurture applications
9. Anything requiring prices timing or high order temporal data
10. Music
11. Language
12. Robotics