Accessing your bookmarks from any computer was always a problem until the social bookmark sites such as De.licio.us and Digg.com came along. On these sites you simply create an account and save web pages to your account accessible from any website. But in practice you find that you end up saving lots and lots of web pages with no real rhyme or reason. Certainly not like the bookmarks in your browser, which are clearly labelled and highly organised into relevant categories.

I always thought the issue of bookmarks across multiple computers was a real problem, and although I have dumped lots of sites into Digg I hardly tag them with much thought. But, the other day I heard about Foxmarks via the Techcrunch blog. It seemed like the solution to all problems - a free plugin for Firefox that allowed you to synchronise your browser bookmarks across numerous computers. To make this product even more exciting Mitch Kapor (the guy who launched Lotus 123 in the 80’s) is heading it up and the stated plan is to use the intelligence of the collective masses bookmarks and ordering of these bookmarks by the user with some considered relevancy to create a human powered search engine. Perhaps this is the competitor to Google that everyone is waiting on with baited breath.

Recent interest in the launch of the Mahalo search engine, which is completely human powered, continues the debates over Google versus the rest of the world - which is ongoing and if Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia) ever gets his human powered search engine off the ground it will only be even more heated. Those anti Google argue that the search results are not relevant enough to the search terms, that there are simply too many erroneous results and then there is the cheating of the results. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that purely human driven search engines can ever become a ‘real’ competitor to Google. There is a critical mass of results that need to be achieved before the search engine is usable and users very quickly lose interest in a search engine that does not have enough relevant results to provide them with what they are looking for - therefore, despite the numerous irrelevant results we are immediately drawn back to Google. I submitted Xebidy Strategic Design to Mahalo over 6 weeks ago and it still has not been catalogued - let alone many of the major serach terms that I deal with ever day in the travel industry.

To me Foxmarks provides the alternative. A human powered, automated search engine based on taxonomies created for your very own personal use and therefore with greater relevancy and consideration - unlike the folksonomies of the social bookmarking sites with are plagued with throw-away terms.

But is has been interesting watching the comments section on the Tech Crunch post as many people have bought up examples of other such products which have existed in the past or exist now. That is, cross computer bookmarks. The most obvious one is Google; first there is your personal page which allows you to create bookmarks neatly organised into categories, and then there is Google Browser Sync which is also a plugin for Firefox syncing bookmarks and even cookies if you want. Then there are a whole host of others such as Yoono, ULinkIt (which became Quiver), Smarky, and Hot Links - which dates back to 2000.

What is the difference? With the exception of Google there is a big difference. Firstly, being a plugin for Firefox Foxmarks will gain a much faster pickup than other similar offerings, and that pickup will only grow as the exponential growth of Firefox continues. Smarky is also a Firefox plugin, but in my opinion Foxmarks will outstrip it overnight because of the weight of the guys like Mitch Kapor and Todd Agulnick which will create the necessary marketing hype.

But is Foxmarks the angelic competitor to Google? No! Those that see the Google algorithm as purely a construct of Page Rank are missing a very important point. There are so many factors that go into this complicated algorithm, such as inward and outward links, traffic, onsite optimisation techniques such as keyword density, keyword positioning within paragraphs, image naming and so on and so on. If Google believes that Foxmarks creates a database of any relevance they will simply include some level of weighting for bookmarks in Browser Sync and Google personal pages - overcoming this critical mass is surely nigh impossible.

I am really enjoying working on the Oz Experience project at present as everyday so many things come up that just reinforce what I am preaching about selling on the Internet and Web 2.0. The latest involves bad press.

I have talked about this before, particularly in our March article which discusses Creating a Relationship with your Customers; there exists a real risk in the greater social Internet of bad press blowing up in your face. In the case of Oz Experience a customer who travelled earlier this year has created an anti-Oz Experience page in Facebook. After I have read the guys complaint I immediately spotted one inconsistency - he had heard of problems and therefore decided to travel an alternative method. he had not actually experienced any problems. Although I only consult to Oz Experience I was well aware that during the time this guy is talking about they did everything possible to put on more buses and alleviate any backloads. Those customers that were well organised experienced very little problems.

It is interesting to see that there is already a comment to this regard by a customer on this Facebook page. From my point of view it is important that the company address the complaint immediately. I believe that Oz Experience should consider commenting on this guys page saying “hey did you personally experience any problems? and hey, we did have a few overloads due to people changing their minds at the last minute etc - but this is how we have reorganised our routes and bus management to avoid it happening again in the future”.

The important point for the rest of us, however, is that it is vital that you have someone monitoring the social Internet for these types of PR nightmares. Given the positive feedback of customers to this Facebook page it is unlikely that this will manifest itself much further and by monitoring the situation Oz Experience is more than well placed to deal with it quickly, efficiently and turn it into a positive. Can you say this of your business? Are you aware of what people are saying about your business on the Internet?

Just a plug - for those that are interested, Xebidy offers a monthly subscriber service to our Xefeed product which monitors the greater Internet, blogoshphere and media sharing sites for information continually about our clients, manually checking the information and then feeding the good news in an RSS format that can be reused as marketing material on your own site, and feeding bad news directly to you for dealing with quickly.

Well, the snow has arrived and we will be shutting the office for the next three months (only joking - but don’t I wish). In fact, quite the opposite as things are really heating up for us. Watch out for the release of information on our work with the well known Content Management Server - Silver Stripe. While Silver Stripe has been working away on many features at the Google Summer of Code we have been completely revamping the user interface, and have to say - it is so cool! We should have information up on the website, including an online demo in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, attached is this months article entitled “Web 2.0 Technologies”. It is part 2 of a 3 part series, the first one being “What is Web 2.0?” last month. If you missed the first article you can download it here..

In part 1 we looked at What is Web 2.0 and built up a picture of your website as a tiny piece of a much larger experience with engaged customers connecting through technology. In part 3 we look at how some of the Web 2.0 technologies can be applied to the travel industry to create Travel 2.0.

In this paper we will introduce you to VoIP, blogging, RSS, wikis, multimedia sharing sites and for those still hanging in there we have a few extar geeky technologies summarised.

Web 2.0 Technologies

So while “tagging” my “blog” I was thinking about the growing phenomenon of “folksonomies” and thought that I would update the “wiki” with a new definition and I should search the “blogosphere” to see what other people were thinking and maybe I could create a “mash-up” of a site like this as long as it obeyed acknowledged “netiquette”.

Is this just bullshit to you? Don’t worry; it’s official according to a poll of 2091 people in Britain by market research company YouGov “Blog”, “netiquette”, “cookie” and “wiki” have been voted among the most irritating words used by geeks in relation to the Internet. Number one most annoying is “folksonomies” - which is the collective naming of web items as opposed to a taxonomy which is the naming conventions of one. Still confused? Check out my article last month on What is Web 2.0?

According to the poll the second most annoying is “blogosphere” - the online world of blogs (which came third), followed by “netiquette”, or internet etiquette, and “blook”, a book based on a blog, coming in number five.

In many of my recent speaking engagements I have referred to RSS in some cases even branding them “the new email marketing”. But increasingly I am getting the asked the same questions - what are RSS feeds and how do I set them up on my computer.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a time-saving way for you to receive constantly updated news and information (often called “RSS feeds”, “news feeds” or simply “feeds”) from your favorite Web sites and blogs. By using RSS you can stay on top of the news and information you need without using your e-mail system and without repeatedly checking multiple Web sites to see if they have been updated. RSS simplifies the way you stay informed and helps you take control of overloaded email inboxes.

Typically RSS feeds consist of headlines and short summaries of new articles, blog entries or search results, though some Web sites and blogs offer the full text of articles or blog entries as feeds.

To receive RSS feeds, three things are necessary:
1) The Web site or blog that you wish to receive feeds from must offer feeds.
2) You must have a feed reader, and
3) You need to select the feeds you wish to receive.

Choosing which feed reader you prefer is probably the most daunting as there are just so many freely available. The best starting point is probably your Intenet browser, as Internet Explorer 7 (the latest version), Safari for Apple Mac, and Firefox all have RSS readers built into them. Alternatively you can download feed-reader software to your desktop or register with a free Web-based feed reader such as Yahoo.com, Bloglines.com, Google Reader or Newsgator.com. One of the advantages of web-based alternatives is that you receive all your feeds in one place regardless of which computer you are using.

With the Web-based feed readers, the process of signing up for feeds can be quite simple. After you’ve registered with the feed reader Web site, you enter the URL of the feed you wish to receive into the feed reader, and a few clicks later you ready to receive and read feeds.

As an example, go to www.bloglines.com. Complete the simple registration process and then click on the My Feeds tab. Then click on the “add” link on the left. On the right you’ll be presented with a space for the Web site or feed URL. Enter feed://xebidy.com/?feed=rss2 for Xebidy blog feed. Bloglines then lists our feed. Click subscribe and the feed will then be listed on the left. You can now setup as many as you want - say your newspaper headings, some forum sites you are interested etc. Come back to Bloglines whenever you want to check for updates.

To make it even easier for you an orange symbol has become synonomous with RSS feeds and usually clicking on this or the associated links will provide you with the URL of the feed to paste into your chosen reader. In this months coming article I will be discussing RSS feeds in a bit more detail as we look into some of the technologies that are making up the phenomenon of Web 2.0 and next month we will apply some of these to get a theory of Travel 2.0. In coming months we will do a complete feature on RSS feeds and some of the unique initiatives you might be able to capitalise on. Look out for these or better still subscribe to our feeds and have them delivered to your desktop.

I have promoted heavily in the past the possibilities of using sites such as My Space and Bebo for promoting your company to the target market. I now have an amazing example of this working in practice. I am referring to two excellent groups that have been formed on the Facebook website for Oz Experience (one group is for both Oz Experience and Kiwi Experience).

As I have said before is that these types of social media inevitably lead to the growing of a like-minded community of users who are actively promoting the virtues of your company. The below quote is taken from an email sent to Oz Experience from one of the users of the Oz Experience group.

I’ve seen many a topic on here describing peoples bad experiences on the Oz or Kiwi Experience, which I must admit worried me slightly as I’m doing both, due to fly out in July.

I looked elsewhere to see what other peoples opinions were and found some groups on facebook that are dedicated to the Oz/Kiwi experiences, and each has nothing but praise for them both.

I think you need to be a member of facebook, but here’s the links…

1. Oz/Kiwi Experience
2. Oz Experience
3. Kiwi Experience

After reading these I feel a lot more positive about my trip than when I read this topic.

No matter how much you spend on marketing - you will never achieve as good leverage at this. The Oz Experience site has 401 members alone and over 190 images posted! Seriously, social media works!

You will need to register to Facebook to see the sites - which is easy, and does not hammer you with spam or anything.

I am to give a presentation to the Queenstown Business Network tonight on e-Marketing. That is a very big subject and one could talk for a whole day rather than the one hour I have.

The plan is to give an overview introduction starting with a general roundup of some of the elements of SEO and then go into some more marketing focuses topics such as online advertising, getting links, and so on. Time permitting then the plan is to look at some alternative channels of attracting customers such forums and review sites, mainstream grouping sites, and user generated content; finishing up with a look at how familiar technologies such as surveys, newsletters and emails can be used.

Of course, like anything we do as XSD the whole presentation is underpinned by the theme of Web 2.0.

Attached is the full presentation for all to download - I expect to rush over large parts of this - so by downloading it, you are getting the full schmoozel.

I know, I am very late to report this but it sucks. I have previously posted about how cool the Pandora website and the whole concept was. Basically, you select an artist and then through a process called the Genome Music Project Pandora streams other music to you that is deemed similar. You can rate the songs if you like them or not, from which it builds up your profile and suggests more music in your style. It worked really well for me.

Unfortunately, it seems there are issues with license agreements outside of the US - and that sucks for the rest of us in the world!

In the meantime I keep listening to my other favourite Internet music, Fine Tune.

Check this out - the wicked computers of the future!

Following last weeks post regarding the importance of owning the user experience in the Web 2.0 era the question arose on whether search engines will in fact continue to be relevant into the future?

Two factors will ensure that the role of search engines will expand over time:

• The fragmentation of travel inventory; very few travel suppliers sell more than their own products through their websites.
• The low cost of search for the user: pragmatism is still a greater force then loyalty. Nearly one-half of online travel consumers will compare more than 2 air and hotel travel providers when they book their next trip. Brand loyalty remains on the critical list – less than 23% of North American leisure travellers view themselves as brand loyal when buying leisure travel.

As the role of search engines continues to grow in dominance so to does the spending on paid listings (the results that appear on the right hand column of a Google search) rise. Paradoxically, the return on investment of these marketing campaigns is declining and will so more and more, as more travel suppliers enter the search bidding process. Greater appreciation of analytics will also drive a greater understanding of the keywords that generate business and therefore a greater pressure on search results and the cost per click of advertising.

The only solution is to invest more heavily in sustainable search engine initiatives, which, when done right, will have a longer term impact on your organic search engine rankings and hence sales on a more profitable basis. All businesses should be striving to developer richer user experiences that make the most of available data to build up a sustainable competitive advantage over the rankings positions of their competitors.