Travel Book Publishers Try to Reclaim the Web
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The Rough Guides and Lonely Planet series of travel books play catch up on the Web, after worries about giving away content.
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The same Internet that's making so much of the world just a virtual click away is revolutionizing the way the US tourism industry entices people to come visit in person.
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Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of business travelers who write blogs have learned that their Web journals are more than online platforms to blow off steam.
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Two new offerings from Web giants this fall will test if consumers are ready to leave the paper book behind.
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Online travel agencies like Travelocity and Expedia are looking overseas as growth in domestic bookings has slowed.
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A new study shows airline and hotel websites may sell better than online travel agencies. Who knew?
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The web as your auld grannie might have wished it
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New chapters in the portal's quest for user-generated content.
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The Web 2.0-social networking phenomenon&#39;s seemingly irresistible force field has ensnared yet another niche: travel.Dopplr, a hosted service, allows users to track the travel schedule and whereabouts of themselves and their friends through a visual interface reminiscent of Facebook, rather than traditional means such as e-mail.Although the application is still in private-beta phase, its backers have wasted no time in courting workers in large enterprises -- those with the most intense travel schedules. While for most users, Dopplr is invite-only -- a buzz-building gimmick harkening back to the early days of Gmail -- the company more recently created the Dopplr 100. Employees from the 100 companies on the list can sign up for the service. Among the 100 are Sun, Microsoft, and IBM.Other startups, such as Tripit, are also trying to marry social networking and travel itineraries. Tripit takes user-submitted information such as airline and hotel confirmation e-mails and uses the data within to generate a tailored itinerary, replete with maps, local weather info and the like. It also allows users to create lists of friends.But Dopplr may stand out in terms of early buzz -- the company claims nearly 100,000 users -- and for quickly orienting itself around business users.Dopplr&#39;s chief operating officer, Taneli Tikka, said the company&#39;s enterprise ambitions arose from research into their existing user profiles. &quot;We analyzed the user base and found that clearly there were industries ... that were using it more than others,&quot; he said.James Governor, an analyst in the U.K. with Redmonk, is a vocal cheerleader for Dopplr. (Governor also shares an office with Dopplr founder Matt Biddulph, but says their business relationship ends there.) Governor recently issued a challenge to software companies listed on the Dopplr 100 through his blog, urging employees to sign up.He says Dopplr ultimately provides &quot;manufactured serendipity,&quot; for social and business-related scenarios.For example, if you had to travel to a distant city on business, you might well spend the night in your hotel room alone. But Dopplr could alert you to the presence of a friend or colleague who by happenstance is also in town, Governor said.Governor also notes the enduring presence of Web 2.0 conferences, despite the ever-growing richness of the communication-centric technologies that give rise to such events. &quot;Increasingly we work and meet in online interactions. .... That&#39;s not to say it&#39;s not rich, but it&#39;s no substitution for face-to-face contact.&quot;&quot;Some people don&#39;t like other people, and Dopplr probably isn&#39;t for them,&quot; he joked.Dopplr could also help enterprises save time and money, Governor speculated. A company might send three teams of workers with slightly overlapping responsibilities abroad on separate trips over time, for different reasons. &quot;With Dopplr you might be able say wait, let&#39;s send one guy on all three calls.&quot;The question outstanding, though, is how Dopplr will evolve its service into something fully enterprise-ready.One crucial topic for CIOs is security. Business users have given Dopplr feedback regarding this issue, according to Tikka. &quot;That&#39;s definitely something we need to carefully look at. We think companies should keep their confidential information with them and keep it confidential,&quot; he said. &quot;We would only be limited to kind of trivial stuff that doesn&#39;t really help if someone was to eavesdrop.&quot;In the meantime, Tikka said, Dopplr plans to monetize its service through a couple of avenues. Later this year, the company hopes to offer subscription-based premium accounts, which would include assorted value-added services to the basic platform. The company also intends to deliver finely tuned commercial advertising based on user profile information. Also in the works are plans to extend the Dopplr 100.
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Bloggers are scoring rich paydays by   turning their online diaries into books, but some publishers   say the craze could fizzle out with a glut of new titles   destined to yield disappointing sales.
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Blog: Travel search site SideStep acquieres travel social network TripUp
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Early Internet entrepreneurs envisioned a day when consumers would devour short bites of entertainment on their computer screens delivered over the Internet by fat broadband pipes. When the companies failed, executives blamed it on ...
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The commercial web is 10 years old, yet the online publishing industry still hasn't figured out how to measure accurately the number of people visiting each site. What's at stake? More than $8 billion a year. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg.
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With the growth of small-business and independent employee travel, booking sites are scrambling to redesign their Web sites to serve this market.
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Internet consultant Mary Hodder spends most of her life online. She has gone almost entirely digital. It may not be long before you do, too. Commentary by Adam L. Penenberg.
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Writers struggling to find a publisher are taking the high-tech, grass-roots approach.
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Book publishers are slowly warming up to the idea of putting their content online, with two companies announcing separate plans to offer web-based methods to search through their catalogs.