Friday 4 August 2006 by Edward.

Sony just launched their GPS-stick — the GPS-CS1. How does it stack up against the earlier-launched TrackStick?

The Sony GPS-stick records time, latitude and longitude. You clip it to yourself then log data to the stick as you travel. When you’re ready, you import the logged data to your computer via a USB cable. Using the supplied image tracker and picture motion browser software, photos taken during the trip can be synchronized with the GPS data and photo locations identified. These photo locations can be imported to Google Maps. The unit cost is US$150.00

Though I don’t have all spec sheets in, here is a comparison between the two GPS-sticks.

DATA
Sony-GPS: lat, lon, time. TrackStick: lat, lon, time, date, speed, heading, altitude.
CHANNELS
Sony-GPS: 12 TrackStick: 12, 24 satellites
OUTPUT
Sony-GPS: NA. Trackstick: RTF, CSV, HTML, KML
COMPATIBILITY
Sony-GPS: Google Maps. Trackstick: Google Maps/Earth, Mapquest, Virtual Earth
COST
Sony-GPS: US$150.00. TrackStick: US$220.00+

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, GPS, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Friday 4 August 2006 by Edward.

On 22 August 2006, Sydney, Australia, plays host to this year’s TravelTech one-day “Power to the People” conference, to discuss the rise in community-based, networking websites and real-time information.

Topics include: Online Retail; Hotel Distribution; Web Shopping Habits; Digital Marketing; Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0.

Speakers include:
Michael Walmsley, Hitwise Asia; Simon vanWyk, Hothouse Interactive; Gai Tyrrell, Jetset Techworld; Don Richter, Tourism Victoria; Richard Noon, Webjet; Graham Middleton, Tourism Australia; Dr Amantha Imbar, consumer psychologist; Cameron Holland, Lonely Planet; Steven Greenway, Virgin Blue; and more ….

Roger A. Brooks Rule 18 “The Rule of Marketing verses Product Development” states that ‘Happiness is positive cash flow.’ First, spend almost all your effort on product development. Once you have something for people to see and do then move your effort over to market the product. It’s a balancing act thereafter.

Posted in AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Sunday 30 July 2006 by Edward.

Google offers a beta test for Picasa Web Album, a facility to download and geolocate images. You can add captions, post and view comments, and organize photos online. Picasa allows you to upload, and download back to your computer. Here is a sample to a public album posted by Noel Jenkins, and how it appears on Google Earth.

Now here’s a useful tool. You can subscribe to Noel Jenkins’ album via an RSS feed. Every time the album is updated a notice would go out automatically to all subscribers.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 25 “The Rule of frequency” states that ‘Repetition gets results, repetition gets result.’ Did you get that? Repetition gets results. This is the key to getting people to visit your website. Be consistent. Send out that website newsletter or that update notice.

Posted in Multimedia, Maps, AFTER the visit | No Comments »

Friday 28 July 2006 by Edward.

Merriam-Webster now has their dictionary and thesaurus on a 250Mb USB dictionary-stick with room to spare, as shown on PopGadget.net. What a great tool for the travel writer.

With 300,000 words in this dictionary and 500,000 words in the thesaurus, a spell and grammar guide, the travel writer can now write the masterpiece travel story, even while on the road (or plane, train, auto, bike, hike, or beach).

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Wednesday 19 July 2006 by Edward.

Track Stick records its own location, time, date, speed, heading and altitude at preset intervals. With over 1Mb of memory, it can store months of travel information. All recorded history can be outputted to the following formats: RTF, CSV, HTML, and KML.

Posted in Maps, GPS, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit | 1 Comment »

Saturday 15 July 2006 by Edward.

RoboGeo creates a product to “geo-reference” (latitude, longitude, altitude) and “date/time-stamp” your photos, allowing you to retrace your steps, and export them onto Google Map or onto Google Earth. RoboGEO does this without requiring a wire connection between your camera and your GPS. The new version 4.2 does more. You can now associate any file with the photos you took, such as audio and drawings, and GPS tracklogs. Imagine touring southern France meeting and recording conversations with people or local music, taking photos and creating some watercolour sketches. You can now assemble a geographic travelogue of your trip, display tour guide routes on your website, or simply share photos with others.

Roger A. Brooks‘ Rule 6 “The Rule of Wayfinding” theorizes that ‘Real men don’t ask for directions.’ The journeys our early explorers took were difficult undertakings. These days, says Brooks, (most) tourists are not looking for that type of challenge.

Posted in Multimedia, GPS, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Thursday 13 July 2006 by Edward.

Trip Planner is a new travel tool from Yahoo!They’re giving away two plane tickets a day to those who enter a trip into their database. You can explore trips, browse trips and create trips. A login to an Yahoo! account is needed. You can view existing, publicly-shared trips identified by tags placed on global Yahoo! Map. I viewed a one-month trip “Stockholm: World cup 2006″ created by Dave_Bohn, Sweden. The trip had photos, comments and the number of people who like the entry. There’s a lot of “drilling” that can be had with Yahoo!s Trip Planner — maybe too much for my liking. The more you drill the more you encounter advertising. Personally, I found Yahoo!s interface and navigation way too complex, with too much (unexpected) advertising. I think a re-design is required here. Is it about the trip or about the ads?

Have you seen Trip Tracker.net ? Now here’s a more intuitive, organic interface that is a pleasure to browse. I feel this website is more about the journey, about the people, about the photos and about the trip logs. I viewed a journey named Panamericana from PatetGuy, from Montréal to Panajachel, Honduras, and encountered, uncluttered, clear navigation — in spite of 53 trip entries and 284 photos. A bonus is that trips can also be viewed on Google Earth. Now, Trip Tracker has not yet introduced advertisements. If (when) they do, I recommend they appear at the bottom of each photo/trip entry — out of they way for much of the navigation, yet included where it counts most.

Posted in Website/Event, AFTER the visit | No Comments »

Friday 7 July 2006 by Edward.

With over 70-90% of tourists visiting their destination online, it’s important that you take advantage of emerging internet tools:

RSS
Open APIs/Web services/Mashups
Advanced User Interfaces
Contextual Advertising
Group Forming Networks

Bob Offut and Cathy Schetzina outline what each tool is and how it fits in with new developments in empowering visitors to your website.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 3 “The Rule of Billboards and Exits” tells you to ‘Put your bait out on the highway.’

Posted in AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Wednesday 5 July 2006 by Edward.

Guests staying at the Sheraton Hotels & Resorts can now enter a story about their visit and have it displayed on the home page of their new website www.sheraton.com – the first hotel industry website to draw attention to guest-generated content and build an online social network.

While this form of online social networking is not new to the tourism industry (see visitPA, USA) it shows the power of bringing “word of mouth” to your tourist destination, and exemplifies the value in building online communities.

Remember, Roger A. Brooks‘ Rule 23 “The Rule of Public relations” states that ‘Bragging is more effective when someone else does it for you.’

Posted in Blogs/Podcast/eInfo, AFTER the visit | No Comments »

Monday 3 July 2006 by Edward.

TripTracker is a new web service, used to create and share travel journals online.

“The hungryhippo” records meals he ate on a trip, titled “Anthony’s Epicurean Adventure“. Gregor takes to the ocean in his trip “Sailing the southern Adriatic Sea“. My favourite journal to date is patetguy’s 213-photo record “Panamerica” — an adventure by two young Québecers — from Montréal, Canada, to Tapachula, Honduras. Their ultimate destination is “de Montréal, Qc, Canada, à la Tierra del Fuego, Argentine, et revenir”. Good luck guys!

If you have a GPS unit, a digital camera, and a written log of your trip, you can create your own online journal. TripTracker will show a map of your route with waypoints. At each waypoint you can enter a slideshow. Each photo in the slideshow can be annotated with text.

In my discusions with TripTracker, they note that they have already given some thought to licensing TripTracker map presentations to tourist agencies and tour operators. Presentations can be used for promotion of tours and travel destinations. I intend to keep my eye on this service.

Posted in Maps, GPS, AFTER the visit | No Comments »