So continuing on from my earlier post about Backpacking Queensland (which you can read here) going live and “that’ email from Simon Gehert, I quote:

“Rarely have we seen something more obviously shoehorned into existing technology where it shouldn’t be. Take an open source CMS you didn’t develop complete with tag clouds, social network site links, unrelated blog headline feeds, google maps etc ,which was never intended for this purpose, add some crap interface design, a link to your site in the footer which says “Well made in New Zealand by Xebidy … and you have all the makings for a car crash of epic proportions.”

In my earlier post about the site I discussed the Silver Stripe content management system. One of things I said was that in the whole scheme of things Silver Stripe is not a very large Open Source project, which means that unfortunately at this stage a lot of the functionality such as tags, social bookmarks, RSS feeds, maps etc we have had to develop ourselves - plus there is not enough people using the Bootstrap interface yet. So I thought I would use this post to introduce you to some of this functionality and explain what it means and why we have chosen to use it in the Backpacking Queensland site:

Tags: I posted last month on the tags in Backpacking Queensland (read that post here) and my belief that in fact the tag system we have used in this site are more meaningful that many of the tags I have seen on other sites. The way they work is that users can add their own keywords to pages throughout the site as they travel the site to use to remind them of the pages. When an internal page is tagged this tag helps to build up the tag cloud which appears on the home page. The larger the font of the tags on the home page, then the more pages within the site that have been tagged with those tags. Tags, subsequently, provide an informal navigation structure created by the users. We added a little twist to the whole tagging concept by also then providing the user with links to You Tube for videos, Flickr for photos, Wikipedia for definitions, and del.icio.us for other pages across the Internet tagged the same. That means, if a user tags a page Cairns and then wants to see videos and images of Cairns from where they are on the Backpacking Queensland site the functionality is there.

Social network links: The social bookmarks facilitate users saving the Backpacking Queensland pages in popular bookmarking websites. Sites such as Digg and Del.icio.us are where users save their favourite web pages instead of saving them in their browsers. This is very pertinent for travellers who are never in the same Internet Cafe, or on the same computer, and so use these social bookmarking sites save pages they might want to go back to for booking or more information. By providing these links we think we are making it easier for the users, one less impediment to use, and therefore hopefully increasing users likelihood of returning to the Backpacking Queensland site. We included the ability to save a page to Facebook as well, because lets’ face it, everyone in this market uses Facebook.

Blog feeds: I have written and presented so many times before about the importance of user generated content. In the new Internet users are seeking information from their peers about the products they are consuming, whether they be travel products or otherwise. Reviews and ratings sites, forums, and blogs provide a user with a great deal of independent content to help them evaluate their options. In the same way as a traveller will talk to other travellers in the hostel common space so too do they use the Internet to research their travels. On the Backpacking Queensland website we have introduced links directly to blogs about the member products. Like the concept of linking the users to You Tube and Flickr for same tag images and videos, we believe that by providing this information on the Backpacking Queensland users will be able to get the independent feedback they require about the products without necessarily needing to go searching elsewhere. The travel stories are all received through our Xebidy Xefeed product where the feeds can be checked for relevancy and then fed back to the Backpacking Queensland website. It means that “unrelated” feeds do not appear. We have handed this completely over to the girls at Gate 7 to manage on a daily basis - although we do offer a complete Internet and social media monitoring service in house here, which you can find out more about here.

Google maps: I think the functionality is pretty intuitive here and don’t quite know what Mr Gehert is referring to when he says “… which was never intended for this purpose”. The maps show you where the member being shown on that page is, and an aggregating map shows where all the members in the area are. Rather than using stylised maps which are meaningless to a user who has not been to, say, Toowoomba, a Google map can be traversed and can show different views from street levels to satellite. On the Backpacking Queensland site we default to satellite maps for the aggregating views because they are fun and make the site look cool, and then use hybrid maps which combine the satellite map with streets for more purpose (unless the satellite view is not high enough density and we just use street view). The user can easily change these views. As many know mapping is something we take quite seriously at Xebidy and unfortunately it becomes a function of time and cost as to how much mapping functionality to include to a client. We are currently undertaking a very extensive development with another client that would see the maps being able to change the content on the page around them and also have a lot of information around the main focus of the map, for example, a hostel can show where supermarkets, ATM’s things to do etc are relative to them. Hopefully, we can extend Backpacking Queensland mapping in this direction at some point in the future.

There is lots more cool functionality in this site, and lots more to Mr Geherts’ email and I will introduce all this tomorrow - need to get on with some work now. As I am sure you can all see, loving the new Backpacking Queensland site though, well done guys.

On Friday I had the pleasure of meeting one of the most exciting ventures in the travel and Internet market - and surely to be one of the hottest properties this year!!

I am talking about Arnna Alexander and www.oe.tv - a video sharing website for travellers. While she declares herself a Kiwi, Arnna has spent a large amount of her life growing up in Sweden (her mother is Swedish) and most of the last 5 years in London - although a lot of last year was spent travelling the world with the Pro Triathlon Circuit where she honed her skills in online web streaming (check out www.triathlon.org).

While video sharing sites are not new, www.oe.tv really is something special. It is appeals directly to a target niche market and I believe will grow to be very prolific in this market. Arnna cited an example of one video that she says was posted on both You Tube and OE.TV simultaneously - while it received 7 viewings on You Tube it received 440 viewings in the same period on OE.TV. Clearly, I can see the value to travel businesses that such marketing opportunities afford; and the onto guys are already there - apparently there is a great competition about to be launched involving Stray, New Zealand comedian presenter Mickey Havoc and radio station B FM.

Arnna’s background is TV and film production and this is the side of the business that she clearly relishes; I caught her on her return from a trip to Japan where she had created a series of Travelogues. She took pride in showing me how easy it was to create a video and uploaded (something she had done in a matter of minutes at the airport in Japan using wireless).

That’s one of the big selling pitches of OE.TV it offers slick well oiled technology. In particular online encoding, which means that you can post your video in most formats and the site does the behind the scenes work to convert it for web streaming. All the hosting and streaming are managed out of the US and all the web design has been handled out of Sweden (and a great looking site it is too). The staggering thing is that the whole project has taken less than a year to get off the ground and the actual site has only been live for about 6 weeks - certainly a lot of interest has been generated in such a short time (I was pointed to check it out by 3 people alone).

This might be a startup, but it is by no means a small operation - I met a handful of staff and there is a marketing team based in the UK also. In fact, Arnna plans to spend only the next 6 months in NZ before heading back to London to give things a big push there (back-to-back winters argh!). I did not quite understand the investment structure but Arnna explained that they were in the process of attracting investment - “but only the right investment; (they) don’t need the cash but rather strongly motivated partners to make this a success”.

Arnna describes the venture as My Space meets Lonely Planet. As well as user generated content the team are producing their own series of short 6 minute or so travel stories - many of them involving well known celebrities. In fact, this is where I think OE.TV strategy is very clever. Using her contacts from film and TV Arnna has attracted a host of stars such as ex Shortland Streeters Paul Ellis, Leighton Cardno and Paul Reid. In fact, Arnna was in Japan with Adam Sinclair (the Scottish guy in the Trainspotting sequel). I have watched quite a few of them and some of them are really funny. Check out the Monkeys & Shenanigans series.

From a users point of view the site comes with much of the My Space features, the ability to set up your own profile page, “have friends” who can comment on your page, share photos, travel blogs etc., but very nicely presented. It is already along way ahead of anything You Tube has to offer - and I would seriously promoted it to any traveller to share their videos (whether they be public or private). There are lots of other cool features like the ability to build up travel chapters combined with a blog and a good photo sharing page, which is being enhanced with tagging features.

So, what’s next for OE.TV? Well watch this space as I hope to find out a lot more about the technology and are already promoting to many that they should be active on the site. I will watch and report this with anticipation. There are a series of videos due out soon featuring two well known celebrities, one NZ and one English, traveling around NZ (but we can’t know who yet). Plus, I am really interested in the coming functionality that has users tagging other users videos and images - the application and success of this will be very interesting to us in Web 2.0 geek world.

Good luck Arnna and crew I really look forward to catching up again in a month or so for an update.

This is seriously cool!

I was working in the Oz Experience office with Bruce Thurlow the Online Manager for Oz Experience and Adventure Tours when we set up this You Tube channel called 100Adventure. It has only just started but the idea is that users can post their videos of their trip on the Adventure Tours Groups including the newly acquired Wayward Bus. The next step is to start promoting the channel and get some suscribers involved. There is already a huge amount of content that we have found on You Tube covering all the ATA companies and Bruce and his team plan to contact these guys over the next few months to get them involved. Keep you eye on this channel it could be the beginning of big things to come.

I also know a cool secret about a wicked competition coming up from the team at ATA and TNT Magazine regarding You Tube, Flickr and a whole host of user generated content and free travel. Watch this space it is set to be one of the best things I have seen in Web 2.0 application to tourism business ever.