Take Control of Your Website

There are many reasons why corporate and artist sites should not carry advertising. But the most obvious one is that outside ads change the conversation. In one of the few places that a marketer can completely control their message; they're sharing the stage with outsiders who have a different agenda. >>Full Story

Thoughts// This interesting experiment (or cruel prank depending on your point of view) reported in the Silicon Alley Insider, is a prime example of why you shouldn't allow outside Google text ads within your site. For a period of time this week, Columbia Records website ran a targeted prank ad featured above that read: "Major Labels are Obsolete...RIP or learn and thrive". The ad was delivered to more than 6,000 site visitors and generated a click rate of 0.6% (4 clicks). Small impact but nevertheless an important lesson to all of us on the dangers of contextual advertising and networks!

~ Happy Friday! (PS: I am still wondering how we have so many Michigan folks here!)

Travel Trends - Trazzler, TripKick, PlanetEye, Knol

Trazzler - From the founders of 71miles and Twitter, comes the 'Where would I rather be right now?' travel site Trazzler. If you have been reading the blog for a while, you know we are big fans of 71miles and twitter, so we were excited about the new site. And like both those sites, Trazzler is quiet in design and focused on its mission. The site takes into account your location and (they say soon) your personality to deliver one travel recommendation at a time (some call it 'One Deal at a Time'). The recommendations are actually written by the human hand, rather than crudely pulled from other sites, and offer a simple description of the travel experience...don't like it, click 'next.' Integration with Kayak provides the booking engine connection for the site.

And from the Trazzler blog, a great description of the site's mission:

Trazzler's mission is to free people from the distractions and cruft of online travel research. Clear your mind and ask yourself, "Where would I rather be right now?" Then flip through trip pages designed to place you emotionally in a moment with great photography and expert travel writing. Discover travel experiences with a more natural, meandering online experience. Add to your wishlist, explore your travel personality, and take a more inspired approach to online travel—Trazzler is about making it fun.

Wonderful. The site is a refreshing re-thinking of the travel planning site model.
http://trazzler.com/

TripKick - TripKick is SeatGuru for hotels. The service allows you to search (at this time within a limited number of cities) for hotel rooms and determine which room has the best view, best bathroom or is the quietest and away from the elevator. Brilliant. For example, check out the page on the W in Seattle, the site lists what rooms are oversized and have great views. Plus, the design of the site is simple, clean and easy to use. Thank you, TripKick.
http://www.tripkick.com/

PlanetEye - More new travel sites. With backing from some large investors, including Microsoft, PlanetEye takes a slightly different angle on the 'clip and save' travel planning site with a focus on mapping (from Microsoft) and images. In addition, the site features several 'local experts' in a variety of locations.
http://www.planeteye.com

Knol - Finally, a quick note about Google's launch of Knol (a unit of knowledge), the search giant's Wikipedia challenger. Knol, in simple terms, is a user-generated content / article site, like Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia, Knol will and can contain multiple articles on the same subject. Plus, unless you authorize contribution from other users, no one else can edit your 'knol.' Similar to Squidoo. And what is the travel connection? Think of all the expert 'knol' pages you can create about your destination. A lot of work, sure, but the SEO returns could be worth it. Keep an eye on this site, with Google backing it is sure to grow rapidly.
http://knol.google.com

The State of the American Traveler - July Report

Our friends at Destination Analysts passed along the newest edition of their extremely informative 'The State of the American Traveler' report. You can view the entire report here (.pdf), but here are some interactive-specific highlights:

Plus, be sure to take a look at the larger chart on page 4, for the question 'In the past 12 months, which of these resources or internet technologies have you used to specifically help plan your leisure travel?' Some of the results:

UGC Reviews of Hotels - 23.2%
UGC Travel Itinerary or Blog - 16.7%
UGC Destination Reviews - 16.1%
DMO Pages on a Social Media Site - 6.8%
Mobile / PDA To Access Travel Info - 17.2%
Google Earth - 19.2%
Online Travel Videos - 8.8%
Word of Mouth - 32.1%

The numbers that really jump out at me are the 16.7% who used an 'UGC Itinerary or Blog' and the 6.8% that used a 'DMO Page on a Social Media Site.' Both of those are pretty healthy numbers.

As far as the 17.2% who used a mobile device, I would like to see a deeper analysis into those results. My guess is the majority of those mobile visits are for such activities as checking flights, checking-in for flights and weather, rather than actual requests for decision-making travel info.

'Google Earth' seems surprising high, but it should be a little red flag that causes you to examine your organizations possible uses for Google Earth. See our recent post about Walt Disney World.

'Online Travel Videos' seems a little low, but I would attribute that to the lack of quality content. The majority of 'travel videos' currently online are simply re-purposed TV ads, not useful or informative travel pieces. Once that content becomes available, I would expect to see the number increase.

And finally, remember that while even those online, social, interactive marketing efforts might not result in convenient to track conversions, they could be increasing the 'word of mouth' about your destination. Which is still one of, if not the, best way to get your message out.

Travel Trends - Disney, Writing Travelers, TripWolf

Disney Goes 3D - Ever since Google purchased SketchUp, bloggers have speculated on what combinations were possible...the most often quoted was a Google version of Second Life. Disney has taken advantage of this technology and created the entire Walt Disney World Resort complex in an extensive 3D layer in Google Earth. How extensive you wonder? ...included significant amounts of real-world objects such as a monorail, picnic tables, benches, streetlights, signs, and trees. LOTS of trees. As in thousands of them!... Yeah, extensive. The 3D layer is simply amazing, I can only speculate how many hundreds hours this took.

Of course, someone out there is thinking, 'well, with in the park in 3D, would this reduce attendance?' You laugh, but I have heard those questions asked. The obvious answer would be no. I will (safely) assume this new feature will only further encourage travel to Disney World, give consumers a better idea of what is available at each park, greatly assist travel agents and generate a ton of press.

Would this apply to your community and CVB? Possibly, there are some communities who are actively adding there city to Google Earth, such as Westport, Ireland. And Google is encouraging participation via the Cities in 3D Program. However, most of these 3D buildings are created by 3D building enthusiasts (3D nerds). So, find so local computer science majors at your local college / high school, send them the 'How To Video' and get your city on the map. If it is not already there.
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/

WritingTravellers - More wiki, social, online-to-print guides. Are you seeing a trend here? WritingTravellers takes the co-authored travel guide beyond the wiki (or website) such as WikiTravel.org and allows visitors to print a copy of the travel guide book they helped create. Perfect for those people who think they could do it better. The site is still in beta and has limited content at this point, however it is another important example and project that begins to layout the future of the travel guide.
http://www.writingtravellers.com/

TripWolf - Speaking of social travel, TripWolf, which we posted about a few days ago (Random Thoughts: Travel 2.0 and TripWolf), has launched into public beta...meaning you can go explore the site. In addition, the team at TripWolf announced that MairDumont, probably most well known on this side of the Atlantic for the Marco Polo travel guide series, is backing the effort by 'taken the unprecedented step of putting all of its high-quality content - covering more than 200,000 destinations and points of interest - online for free.' So, let's read that again, a major travel guide publishing house is planning on putting all of it's content onto a social travel site and allowing consumers to access it for free. I knew it, there is a trend here!
http://www.tripwolf.com/

Travel Trends: Google AdPlanner & Quantcast

Google AdPlanner - In another sign that Google is going to just take over every fathomable task in my life, the giant recently unveiled a new ad-planning tool for agencies and marketers. AdPlanner, is designed to help agencies identify sites where their target audience might be active. While it uses audience measurement data (from Nielsen), AdPlanner also combines it with search engine data and information from third parties, to determine with more precision what sites attract a certain demographic audience. Via a simple interface, buyers can enter basic demographic target information and potential sites to buy into Ad Planner, and then can quickly generate a potential media plan. The product also calculates the plan’s total estimated reach.
http://www.nytimes.com/

Quantcast - Those of you reading this blog know how obsessed Troy and I are about measurement and analytics and inconsistency that's rampant between what the various measurement tools out there. Qantcast recently announced a plan to hopefully "reconcile the difference" between what publishers say their traffic is (using Google Analytics, Omniture etc.) versus what Nielsen and ComScore report out (using online panels). The new mechanism will offer "people-based traffic counts" for sites registered with Quantcast, basically a "a hybrid of panel-based data and cookie-based measurement", using a formula to account for the inconsistencies from cookies.
http://adage.com/digital/

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. >>Full Story

Thoughts// This profound piece on how search—and more specifically Google—has transformed our daily lives, can be summed up in this vivid quote: Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

The author examines how our mind is increasingly dependent on Google and how this addiction is effecting our brains and inhibiting cognition. Besides transforming how we read, technology is deeply embedded in our daily lives—it's our map, clock, printing press, calculator and radio and TV—and is forcing other media to conform to its norms. Consider:

1. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads

2. Magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets

3. Newspapers devote devote pages of space for shorter article abstracts

While I am not sure I entirely agree with the premise of this article, this is nevertheless a very interesting read on how technology will continue to impact and revolutionize the consumption of media for years to come.

Travel Trends - Panoramio, Priceline.com, Offbeat Guides, Tripology, Google TV Ads

Google Introduces 'Look Around' with Panoramio - Last week Google, via it's recently acquired subsidiarity Panoramio, introduced a new 'Look Around' feature, which allows the visitor to click through images, view different angles and essentially take a virtual tour of the area. If this sounds familiar, it should...Microsoft has been showing off Photosynth for a year now...unlike Photosynth, it appears that Panoramio and Google have actually launched the product for public use. The technology behind the 'Look Around' feature, and Photosynth, is quite impressive and with so many images available via Flickr or Photobucket, the possibilities to combine hundreds of thousands of photos into one tour...of a specific area...could prove to be a powerful tool to further encourage travel.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/

Priceline's Sunshine Guarantee - As part of its summer promo Priceline.com...and Mr. Shatner...has launched a Sunshine Guarantee for your vacation. Book via priceline to 100+ destinations and if it rains (more than .5 of an inch) you get your money back. An interesting promo...that I am sure if valid in Arizona!
http://www.priceline.com/

Off Beat Guides Launches - TechCrunch has a great review of the newly launched beta of offbeatguides.com. Started by Technorati founder Dave Sifry...TechCrunch also has a video interview with Dave...Off Beat Guides combines online content, maps, weather, current events etc, etc all specific to your travel dates into a printable .pdf guide or as an actual paper guide (complete with your name on the cover). However, unlike competitor Nile Guide, Off Beat Guides charges $10 for the .pdf and $25 for the printed copy...which brings up a concern (as mentioned by TechCrunch readers) of selling Creative Commons and public domain content for a profit. Something doesn't add up there. Overall, an intriguing product and another example of print on demand technology becoming more and more prevalent.
http://www.offbeatguides.com/beta

Tripology - Launched a few months ago, Tripology, like Off Beat Guides, spins the online travel planning market back around. Instead of planning your trip online and breaking free from the dictatorship of the travel agent, Tripology allows a user to enter a travel destination and finds a travel agent to plan your trip for you. LendingTree for travel, I suppose.
http://www.tripology.com/

Google Begins Tracking TV Ads Via Google Analytics - Yes, more Google...but, they just keeping doing the right things to make our lives easier. Another post from TechCrunch summarizes how Google has begun using it's Analytics program to not only track you online stats and campaigns, but also TV ads purchased via Google TV Ads. As the review notes, there is not a direct correlation between online visitation and the TV ads, but if your goal is to drive traffic to a website, you can at least view the spikes and dips in website traffic after the TV ad has run. Add that to the fact that Google is now selling ads online, TV (with satellite provider Dish Network), in newspapers and on radio and you can begin to see how Google Analytics (and Google) will and could quickly become the centralized location to track all of your advertising.
http://www.techcrunch.com/

Here's Google!!

The US travel industry is facing a terrible year, thanks to credit crunched consumers and a weak US dollar. But Google sees an online opportunity in the struggling industry. The search giant plans to expand its travel offering, which currently seems to be confined to one-off videos and ads from tourism boards. In the future, the site will have marketer-sponsored pages where would-be vacationers can learn tons about a destination and see related user-generated content. Check out this link to a YouTube New Zealand channel for an idea of the kinds of videos destined for such pages. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Surely some of you read the recent article / blog post from Business Week declaring Google's intentions to jump into the heavily crowded field of travel planning. The story goes on to say that Google is thinking about creating 'a one-stop shop for travel information' as well as citing a recent (and still active) campaign from the New Zealand Office of Tourism...'Nearly 900,000 people have watched a New Zealand tourism board’s video ad since it was uploaded to YouTube last September. That kind of traffic is bound to draw marketers.'

But, before you start waving the white flag to the titan of all things search, let's take a step back.

First, talk of Google Travel has been around for a while, as evidence by a search for 'Google Travel'...since at least 2004...bloggers have speculated at length about the amazing integrations possible with Google Talk, Google Video (YouTube), AdSense, etc, etc. So, the news of Google Travel is nothing new.

Secondly, Google already has a seat at the table when it comes to online travel planning. Offerings including search, maps, photos, videos, weather, news, directions, etc. and are already heavily used by, what I would safely assume, a lot of travelers. In fact, bloggers even mocked-up this Google Travel page (not bad) almost 2 years ago. Plus, the team at Google Maps recently posted an entry on using Google Maps to plan a vacation. As you can see, travel is already a large part of Google's offerings and our usage of the site.

And keep in mind, Google, unlike Yahoo or MSN, is not (really) in the content creation business. Last time I checked, they don't have sports columnists or writers...they pull, collect, aggregate and display content from around the web in an easy to use format.

Which is another reason why you need to break down the wall around your website and start creating and offering content on sites such as TripAdvisor, WikiTravel, Flickr, YouTube, etc, etc, etc. Google, like a lot of sites, travel or not, pull content from these types of sites.

Now, as far as YouTube and that New Zealand spot. New Zealand has done a good job creating and promoting their Pure New Zealand channel on YouTube. The spots are great and the traffic is impressive. But, this was certainly not pulled together on a shoestring budget...so forget those thoughts of your homemade travel commercial receiving millions of visits.

At a conference last year, a rep from YouTube highlighted this campaign and proceeded to tell the group that the cost was somewhere in the neighborhood of $250k. And that $250k will get you prominent placement on the YouTube homepage, which is where the majority of those 900,000 views have come from. As our friends at Travolution pointed out in a recent post, the next closest video New Zealand video has only 26,016 views (similar to other 'viral' travel promo videos). A good result, but no where near 900,000.

Not to mention that Weta Digital, the company behind the impressive effects in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and a New Zealand company) just happened to help out with some of the effects on that popular video. Not bad.

So, the next time you are at a conference and hear someone talking about how Google is going to take over the travel space, you can tell them it has already happened...for a price.

Take Control of Your Maps

We live in the era of Google Maps. What started off as an impressive refresh of Mapquest-style maps now fuels web mashups. With APIs official and unofficial, Google Maps is simple enough for front-end designers to embed and for back-end programmers to target. Along the way to becoming nearly ubiquitous, it has played a major role in the “democratization of mapping.” For the practical developer who wants to add geospatial information to a site or application, the Google Maps API has been an easy call.

But, perhaps no longer...ask yourself this question: why would you, as a website developer who controls all aspects of your site, from typography to layout, to color palette to photography, to UI functionality, allow a big, alien blob to be plopped down in the middle of your otherwise meticulously designed application? >>Full Story

Thoughts// Visualization through dynamic mapping is a core function of most—if not all—destination sites and the majority of us (including yours truly) are fixated on using a Google, Yahoo or Live "mash up" maps. While these third party applications are for the most part practical, affordable, and accessible, the ultimate downside is that they come with a loss of branding.

This thought provoking article explores the increasingly accessible world of custom map development through open source platforms. While custom map development does come at a slightly higher upfront cost than the free third party API's, these costs could be mitigated if the development is deployed over a long term.

But...if neither custom map development nor using API tools from Google fits your budget, smaller DMO's might have another mapping option out there. Yes, this is a shameless plug...but, a former colleague at Travel Oregon, Sean Egusa, recently left us to form his own mapping application, SideStreet. SideStreet allows organizations to provide "personality" based mapping by providing an application to turn existing PDF's, JPGs or GIFs into an interactive guide.

Travel Trends - Blogging While Traveling, Forms, yatt'it

Have Blog, Will Travel - One of the ways I keep up with the Arizona Office of Tourism's social footprint is by subscribing to several Google Alerts on the subject. FYI, you will see some interesting things written about your state / city / attraction. But I digress. The other day, I came across a blog currently being written by an Irish family who decided to take 3 kids and a RV across the U.S. for 6 (count 'em, 6!) months. Aside from the fact that it is amazing that technology allows them to share the entire trip with relatives and friends thousands of miles away, in near real-time, the blog is a fascinating read as well as an interesting look at how travelers perceive your destination. One of many, I am sure, but really, 6 months...you owe them a quick look. We can only hope they make it to Wally World.
http://freerangetravels.blogspot.com/

Did you fill out a form for that? - A lot people don't like forms, count Luke Wroblewski as one of those people. Website blog A List Apart brings us an excerpt from Luke's upcoming book that discusses why forms are bad and how you can start to get rid of them. Of course, for a DMO or attraction or airline that needs a physical address to fulfill that brochure you ordered, getting rid of forms is going to be tough...okay, impossible...but Luke does provide some pointers to at least make the process less painful.
http://www.alistapart.com/

Join our Social Network too! - You mean you are not part of your favorite hotel's social network? Well stop writing posts on your GE Microwave / Blender social network (those blendies are so last year) and point all of your free time at yattit.com. Hyatt launched into the social networking world last year with this travel tip / recommendation site which combines Gold Passport members, concierge advice and Frommer's information. I think the idea of including tips from the on site concierge staff is great, same with subsidizing the content offering via Frommers, but the site seems to be coming up a bit short. So far this year there have been a grand total of 2 tips in the Phoenix / Scottsdale section...2 tips in 3 months...not exactly the up-to-date insider information I am looking for. Again, it all goes back to critical mass. If you don't have enough people populating your UGC site with content it will slowly fade away. Perhaps Hyatt should have focused more energy into providing (for example) text message alerts during your stay...the concierge could send you a text if they have show tickets or a great dinner reservation or a tee time. Anything besides another social network. I already belong to 489 of them...one more is just too much.
http://www.yattit.com/

Travel Trends - Zicasso, Four Points, Google Search

Zicasso - Add one more travel site to your online planning schedule. Zicasso, the online travel planning site that lets travel agents compete for your business (think LendingTree.com), officially came out of beta on Monday. As you can see by a simple Google search, there is quite a bit of buzz about this new site. While we will not go into a full review of the site (take a look at the Google search results for additional reviews), this new offering is certainly a different angle on booking travel online. Personally, I like the idea, but it will be interesting to see if this takes off or simply moves to the end of a very long list.
http://www.zicasso.com/

Four Points - While browsing for hotels in Tucson a few weeks ago, I came across a very different execution for a hotel homepage. Plus, the team at Travolution acknowledged the site as well at PhoCusWright@ITB 08. Considering the typical look of a hotel / resort homepage, I initially thought this page was a mistake. However, as you can see on the site, Four Points simply directs the user immediately to the search function. No upsell, no affinity program to push, no tabs...you came to this site because you wanted to find a hotel, so here you are. Good stuff.
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/

Google Search...in Search - This past week Google rolled out a little experiment it has been tinkering with, search boxes within search results. Take a look at it if you search for 'amazon' in Google. Notice that amazon.com is the top result and within that result is the option to search within the amazon.com site for more information on TVs, books, DVDs, etc. The additional boxes show up when 'we (Google) detect a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site.' Which means, like most things with Google, you cannot control it.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Travel Trends - South Carolina, College Kids

Time to Thaw - The South Carolina Department of Tourism has recently launched a cold weather message campaign in the city of Chicago which drives consumers to the 'Time to Thaw' microsite. The microsite contains your standard info, a cute little 'thaw' button that melts some ice, a video, etc. Nothing groundbreaking or one-of-a-kind, but a solid campaign microsite none the less. Of course my favorite part of the site is the 'submit a Windsurfin' Wall Photo Contest' which features Chicagoans in a variety of funny poses. See Jeb above. Nice.
http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/time-to-thaw/

College Kids Have Too Much Time On Their Hands - Or, at least I think so. eMarketer.com brings us this report from Youth Trends showing website usage from college level consumers.

Survey says:

The discrepancy between the top ten sites for Males and Females is no surprise, however the use of Wikipedia by guys may suggest quite a few term papers are being referenced from the popular wiki site.

As far as usage, the one stat that stands out to me is only 2% of users have uploaded their own videos. However, no surprise that virtual communities, i.e. Second Life, are low on the list.

Considering most of us over the age of 22 think that everyone younger than 22 are the ones populating such culturally rich sites like break.com (warning, stupid guy humor), it is a bit surprising to see that stat.

However, I think a lot of us who have run a consumer-generated video promotion have discovered that we are a society who would rather watch than work.
http://www.emarketer.com/

Travel Trends - Consumer Satisfaction, Video, Internet Usage

Consumer Satisfaction Declines For Major OTAs - Consumer satisfaction with major online travel players has dipped to an all-time low, while satisfaction with the e-commerce sector overall has risen, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. For the third straight year, satisfaction has risen, this year by 2%, reaching an all-time high of 81.6 on the 100-point scale. However, satisfaction with online travel e-commerce has gone in the opposite direction. For the second year in a row, satisfaction has dipped to an all-time low of 75. Only four online travel companies are tracked: Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline. In addition, a category of "All Others," representing hotel sites, airlines and travel search engines, is tracked.
http://www.theacsi.org/
From Travel Advance and traveltrade.com

That's A Lot of Video - A recently released comScore Video Metrix service report, revealed that U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month of December, 2007, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service. Google Sites saw substantial growth and extended its video market share gains, now accounting for nearly one out of every three videos viewed online.
http://blogs.mediapost.com/

Going Online To Purchase Travel - According to the latest Nielsen Global Online Survey on internet shopping habits, more than 85% of the world's online population has used the internet to make a purchase, increasing the market for online shopping by 40% in the past two years.

And, take a look at what those consumers were purchasing:

Popular Online Purchases
(Global Average, % of Online Purchasers in Past Three Months)

Purchase / % of Online Purchasers

Books / 41%
Clothing, Accessories, Shoes / 36%
Video, DVD, Games / 24%
Airline ticket, reservations / 24%
Electronic equipment / 23%
Music / 19%
Cosmetics, nutrition supplies / 19%
Tours, hotel reservations / 16%
Event tickets / 15%
Computer software / 14%
Groceries / 14%
Toys, dolls / 9%
Sporting goods / 8%
Automobiles & parts / 4%
Sports memorabilia / 3%
Other / 20%

Source: The Nielsen Company, 2007/Marketing Charts, January 2008

http://blogs.mediapost.com/

(Photo Credit: http://www.crucialminutiae.com/)

Gucci Loves New York...

Gucci "Loves" New York, but perhaps New York does not share the sentiment? In an effort to promote the opening of its flagship store in New York, luxury brand Gucci recently launched www.GucciLovesNY.com, a site that pays homage to the city by featuring the favorite chic hangouts of the brand's CEO and creative director - including restaurants, clubs, boutiques and spas. One problem...the economic development arm for the State of New York is locked in a dispute with Gucci over use of the legendary "heart" symbol synonymous with the "I love NY" campaign. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Kudos to the marketing team at Gucci. They could have played it safe and celebrated the new Gucci flagship store by running one of those run-of-the-mill fashion campaigns we’ve become accustomed; yes, the ones with super skinny blondes enjoying the party life (not that there’s anything wrong with it).

Instead however, they chose to pay homage to the city that is the fashion capital of the country and built a whole campaign around it. Visitors to the site can view locations on a Google “mashup” map and read about why each location makes “Gucci love New York.” The site also has blogs from a group of fashion bloggers, all of whom also add their favorite New York places to go. Visitors can participate by submit their own posts, complete with a photo of themselves in front of their favorite place.

And what’s more, the company also designed 600 commemorative purses and 100% of the proceeds from the sale of these purses are slated to be given away to a charity that maintains childrens' playgrounds at Central Park (at $600 or so a pop, that adds up nicely).

The campaign also has a ton of potential to extend itself to other channels: Madonna’s “I love NY” which plays in the background would make for popular ringtones, they could leverage the photos on Flickr, perhaps add a Twitter feed to track the hippest places frequented by Gucci staff and of course some point of sale interaction with customers.

Despite all of these positives, Gucci's love for NY is unrequited. As of this writing, the legal wrangling over the use of the “heart” symbol continues; in addition, some fashionista bloggers are up in arms about the fact that none of the bloggers on the site are from NYC. Guess you can’t please them all!

Gucci…perhaps you should head West?

Quick Case Study: Google Trends

Last week I discussed using Google Trends to monitor and gain insight into your web presence, and with Super Bowl XLII this past Sunday in beautiful Glendale, Arizona (Go Grand Canyon State!), I thought this would be a good case study for the system.

As a refresher, Google Trends shows a graphical representation of search volume for (up to) 5 keywords over a period of time.

The graph above shows the search volume for the keywords 'superbowl,' 'glendale,' 'arizona,' ' phoenix' and 'scottsdale' during the month on January. In looking at this graph, I was surprised by the late build-up of the word 'superbowl,' which only overtook the works 'arizona' and 'phoenix' around the 16th or 17th of January. And notice the pattern for 'arizona,' it really does not fluctuate to greatly during the month of January...any assumptions that the Super Bowl being in Arizona would result in a direct spike in online traffic appears to be unfounded (at least in terms of Google Search).

Unfortunately, Google Trends does not allow us to look at the data a granular level, such as a keyword like 'arizona travel.'

For another look at the data, let's drill down to the states of Massachusetts:
And New York:
Another interesting note, notice that the keyword 'arizona' (orange line) is pretty consistent in New York, but certainly takes a larger jump in Massachusetts. A possible explanation is that we do limited advertising in Boston / Massachusetts, but a bit more in New York...so the volume of search was already high in New York.

Some of you are probably asleep at this point, but for the rest of you, try out a couple of searches using Google Trends. It does provide a good look at search traffic...especially the volume of that traffic during a major event.

Word of the Week - Google PageRank

Google PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to determine the weight of a set of linked (or hyperlinked) web pages. It is one of the (assumed to be) primary pieces of the larger Google Search algorithm which determines order of appearance in a keyword search.

A larger number of quality links from high PageRank sites will increase your PageRank.

Of course, that is the condensed version, for a complete and technical explanation of PageRank, I would recommend the PageRank article on Wikipedia.

More FREE Ways to Track Your Web Presence

Due to the popularity of our post last week, 'Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To', I thought we would mention a couple other online tools that can help you track and understand you presence on the web.

Not to mention kill off a few hours at work obsessing over your Google Page Rank.

Google Trends: Speaking of which, Google Trends is a good (and fascinating) look at trends relating to keyword searches via Google. For example, you can enter two keywords...such as 'ski resorts' and 'cruises'...and be presented with a graphical representation of the number of searches for those words. See the chart above. Of course, very granular or specific keywords might not show any results, but it is an interesting way to determine search volume, on a timeline, from a high level.
http://www.google.com/trends

Microsoft adCenter Labs: Ah, probably my favorite, not to mention the (at times) most confusing, free stats / SEO tool out there. While Microsoft commonly gets overlooked by Google and Yahoo! in the ad sales space, the adCenter Labs offering is a great look into some of the data available from search engines (not to mention a scary look into how much Microsoft and Google know about your search patterns). Stats available include basic information such as Ad Text Writer, which automatically generate text ads for an input URL, and Keyword Group Detection. However, if you have a computer science degree from Oxford (or a lot of free time) you can investigate topics such as 'Entity Association Graph' and 'Context-Based Acronym Resolution.' In all seriousness, adCenter Labs is another great free tool.
http://adlab.msn.com/

Quintura: Our final example is the 'visual search engine' Quintura, which displays your results as well as a related keyword cloud. The cloud results provide an interesting (and slightly addictive) view of your key search terms as well as some insight into other keywords that you might have been unaware of.
http://www.quintura.com/

Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To

Like a lot of you, the Arizona Office of Tourism uses quite a few web statistics / analytics tools to track web presence. Some are free, such as Google Analytics, and others are fee-based, such as WebTrends or Omniture. But aside from those major players, there are a few other free tools available to track not only your online presence, but the presence of your competitors.

Oh, and did I mention they are free?

(Note: Like most things free, there is usually a fee model with some of these services. The fee model just includes more features, if you want them)

Let's review:

Alexa: The most well-known of the 'open (free) internet ratings services,' Alexa was created in 1996 and then purchased by Amazon.com in 1999. Basically, the service gathers data from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed in there browser and then generates reports based on that data. While there has been a lot of debate about the accuracy of the Alexa user base as a reliable representation of internet users, the service does offer some in-depth statistics and comparative tools.
http://www.alexa.com/

Compete.com: A relatively new internet rating service, compete.com gathers information from 'a diverse sample of 2,000,000+ U.S. internet users' who have allowed compete.com to 'analyze the web pages they visit and ask them questions via surveys.' The site allows you to compare two websites against each other for a competitive view of visitors, 'engagement' and growth. See the Troy (blue) vs. Mo (red) graph pictured above.
http://www.compete.com/

Quantcast: Another new service, this one directed at advertisers, quantcast offers the opportunity to view audience reports for perspective sites. While it does offer similar statistical data, quantcast also attempts to put a demographic overview on the data.

For instance, arizonaguide.com reaches:
a very slightly female biased, primarily older group.The typical visitor stays at Choice Hotels, uses Frommers, and reads gardenweb.com.

Or, visitcalifornia.com reaches:
a very slightly female biased group.The typical visitor rents cars from Budget, uses Yahoo! Travel, and sails on Norwegian Cruises.

Probably not 100% accurate, but interesting none the less.
http://www.quantcast.com/

Popuri.us: And to sum it all up, you can use popuri.us. This 'check at-a-glance' tool allows you to view data about your site such as Google PageRank, Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, Google BackLinks, Technorati Links, del.icio.us Bookmarks, amongst others. A good tool for a quick look at your web presence.
http://popuri.us/

Again, most of these services are not reporting 100% accurate information. Assumptions are made, audiences are not exact. But, if you are looking for some additional statistics or analytics about your site, I would suggest you give one of these products a try.

After all, they are free!

Travel Trends - Google Tracking Flights, TripAdvisor

Google Including Flights In Search Results - Google gave the flying public an early Christmas present today by including flight status results within the search results. The service allows consumers to simply type in the airline and flight number into the normal Google search box and then returns the latest flight info, courtesy of flightstats.com (see example above). On a side note, how reassuring are those search results? Looking for an example for this post I searched for 'Southwest 75' at random and that video was the top result. Luckily, the video in question is just from a flight simulation game. Whew.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com

TripAdvisor Officially Launches New Design - As we reported a couple of months ago on the Interactive Trend Report, TripAdvisor has been beta-testing a new design for the popular travel review site. Over the last few days TripAdvisor made the switch-over complete and now the new design is coming up as the standard homepage for most users. While I heard a few rumblings of the site looking too similar to other OTA sites (Expedia, Travelocity, etc.), it is really just a new skin on the same content (which is a good thing). Granted, a few pieces have changed, but if you compare this new version to the previous version, a majority of the content is in the same spot. Plus, the new site includes a very addictive travel game from recent TripAdvisor acquisition TravelPod. Of course, I am a geography nerd and love anything with maps and capitals.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/

Travel Trends - My Location, Talking Outdoor

When Outdoor Talks Back - A great post from MediaPost's Mobile Insider blog talks about a deal between outdoor giant Clear Channel and Bluetooth content provider Qwikker that will allow thousands of outdoor ads to talk to your phone. Basically, if you and your Bluetooth enabled phone come close enough to a certain ad, say a subway transit board, a signal will be sent from the board to your phone, asking you to interact with the ad...perhaps via a download or message (similar to the popular RFID ads used by Mini earlier this year, pictured). But before your start avoiding bus shelters and subways, remember that this type of technology will be (more than likely) permission based. Now that is an interactive ad.
http://blogs.mediapost.com/

Google Maps Launches My Location - Earlier this month, Google Maps...who are slowing mapping everyone and everything...launched another product offering called My Location. My Location will allow cell phone users, with or without a GPS-enabled phone, to see a real-time representation of their location on a (Google) map. Sounds good, might be interesting. But the real benefit for Google is the integrated advertising opportunity that this technology creates.

Let's say you use Google for mobile search (or online search) and they know you have searched for a pizza restaurant in Scottsdale. So, the next time you are physically near that pizza restaurant, Google sends you a text message coupon for that restaurant. Or if you are near a certain store, Target for example, Google can send you an ad or message relating to that store.

Considering the shear amount of usable data gathered by both providers and application creators (such as this one) as well as its wide-spread use, this type of mobile advertising could create some extremely targeted advertising opportunities for marketers.
http://www.google.com/mobile/