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It’s no secret that the travel industry were quick in learning how to surf the wave of the Internet. The ability to effectively differentiate with a travel facilitation type online start-up is, however, becoming a major factor. Differentiation is one thing that startup Tripit.com feel they have.

Announced at TechCrunch40 today, Tripit has a team with real online travel experience and are pitching themselves as a unique online travel service that will allow anyone to:

• Organize trip details into one master online itinerary — even if arrangements are booked at multiple travel sites
• Automatically include maps, directions and weather in their master itinerary
• Have the option to book restaurants, theater tickets, activities and more right from within the online itinerary
• Safely access travel plans online, share them, check-in for flights, or print an itinerary

Initially, when I first visited Tripit, I came away thinking that these guys were really going to struggle as they didn’t seem to offer anything that special. I immediately thought, “Oh yeah, another orbitz“. But I took some time to watch their demo and it became very clear to me that these guys have identified a potential niche leveraging the web 2.0 revolution- trip planning.

By focusing on a service that provides the user with the ability to easily organise their trip, Tripit have a potentially unlimited target audience. Recent statistics show that customers increasingly prefer to book direct with a travel operator online, if they have this option is available to them. As a result more travel operators will go online and offer their inventory to clients directly in the future. This is where the tripit service may indeed be the perfect solution for any traveller.

The next logical step would be for a site like tripit to actually make the inventory of all these independent operators available to users. As it happens I know of a certain start-up who have been working on this type of technology, stay tuned to Rev2 for more news on this in the future.

The classic price comparison model offered by the likes of Orbitz and Travelocity was groundbreaking some years ago. More recently Tripadvisor has become extremely popular by taking more of a web 2.0 approach to travel with a focus on depth of relevant customer reviews, content and inventory on offer.

However, Tripadvisor’s web 2.0 strategy was proven to a be a little patchy when they were beaten in the travel industry ‘land grab’ on Facebook by Craig Ulliot’s Where I’ve been application. This Facebook application was subsequently picked up by Tripadvisor in a ground breaking acquisition.

I definitely believe that there is room for a player, like Tripit, with a primary business objective focused on providing online travel planning solutions to be successful. Although the big players could move in this direction, their focus will be hard to shift from their existing business models which focus more on transactional travel inventory sales online.

Recently I read an article where Orbitz CMO Randy Susan Wagner was quoted saying, “If you want loyalty get a dog. Loyalty is a marketing myth.” Wagner is convinced that building engagement over time is a more effective strategy than simply targeting loyalty. Apparently, Orbitz feel that they can create this engagement with customers who are not even considering the topic of travel with interactive games and extensions of old offers. To me this approach is creeping dangerously close to becoming a strategy based on distraction.

If I were Orbitz I would be keeping an eye on the likes of tripit as they create ongoing customer engagement whilst maintaining relevance to the topic of travel. What’s your opinion? Do you think that the current online travel giants days are numbered?

Quietly tucked away in the Facebook Developer wiki, as I noticed while browsing around today, was Facebook’s next step to world domination (at least, developer domination) — to offer data storage. Until the launch of this service, developers have been responsible for providing their own storage for the information pertaining to their Facebook applications, the most popular external option being Amazon’s S3 service.

At this stage it seems unclear as to what the precise data storage offering from Facebook is going to be. The Developer wiki indicates that the new service is in Beta, however, there are no indications around more specific details such as space limitations. Costs are also not revealed so one could assume that the data storage offered may be free for a while whilst the service is still in Beta.

It’s not at all surprising that Facebook have decided to start offering a data storage service. The desire to have ones own Facebook application has spread like wild fire since the social network opened up its development platform earlier this year. Providing a storage facility for would be application developers simply makes the list of barriers to getting their own app live a little shorter.

It will be interesting to watch as this new service is officially rolled out by Facebook and announcements are made that indicate their intentions with regards to pricing for this service. If they were to charge for data storage, one would assume that they would then be in direct competition with the likes of Amazon S3 .

But what if facebook take the opposite approach and decide to make data storage a free service? Will this further amplify the Facebook revolution?

I wait with bated breath for the official announcement from Facebook…

The New York Times is continuing to show their intention to keep pace with the Web 2.0 revolution with the recent launch of their News Quiz Facebook application. It’s great to see such a move from one of the world’s oldest and most respected traditional publications.

Whilst some may think that this move is very bold and progressive on the part of the NYTimes, I am not that surprised at all. Web 2.0 strategy is not all new to the old paper. They have already launched features to their online readers such as Mytimes and have been mildly successful in the space, of course, no way near to the scale of other, niche players.

So, given the NYTimes has some reasonable experience in the 2.0 arena one would expect that their first go at a Facebook app would produce something better than average. I’m pleased to say that, in my opinion, they have definitely delivered.

Their new Facebook app is impressive on a number of levels. Firstly, it’s simple. We all wonder why the most wildly successful ‘foundational’ Facebook apps seem so bland in terms of their objectives (compare people, top friends etc…). My belief is that their success stems from their simplicity. With this in mind, I think New York time’s have done well in going for a simple 5 question quiz that is presented to subscribers each business day (Mon-Fri).

The quiz is made up of questions that relate to top current news stories that are deemed important by the New York Times editorial staff. Your ongoing score is calculated and you receive your ‘times IQ’. As to be expected now on Facebook, you can easily compare your ‘IQ’ with each friend in your network who also has the application installed.

There are also a number of features that the app has which are very smart from a marketing strategy perspective. Unlike may Facebook apps, the news quiz app actively seeks persistent daily user interaction. By playing to their strength of new high quality content, the NY times are able to engage the user easily.

Each time the user takes the 5 question test, they are presented with an opportunity to discover more relevant news on the main NY Times site. The user is provided with additional motivation to surf the main external site by being baited to study fr the next days test. Brilliant!

In my mind, there aren’t many Facebook apps that have been successful in generating significant targeted traffic to their main website from a Facebook app. I think that we may have found a break in this trend.

Being a well balanced app from a user perspective, it’s providing the New York Times with presence on the fastest growing social network while maximising potential to drive traffic to the main website of the publication.

Apart from this one, do any Rev2 readers have first hand experience with any Facebook app that has successfully driven high volume targeted traffic to an external site?

The advent of web 2.0 is often discussed from a business perspective. However, there are a number of non for profit start-ups that are beginning to make some positive progress by adopting the 2.0 web revolution.

Changing the present is a website that fits into this category for sure. The site is operated by Important Gifts Inc and has a classy board of advisers including 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams. Joining Williams on the board are the heads of more than 125 nonprofits, including Teach for America, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Sierra Club, and Sesame Workshop.

The website itself centers around a simple proposition of giving gifts to charities that are accepted members of the Changing the Present community. The content is clearly aimed at getting any capable person to re-consider their options when passing on a relatively (in the context of the human race) insignificant gift to a family member or friend.

Why not honour your friend of family member by donating a gift to a worthy charity. As Changing the present suggests, “Who really wants another pair of fuzzy slippers?”.

One specific feature of the site that I found particularly stick and amusing was the Stupid Gifts section. Once I had grasped the purpose of the site I was initially taken back by this tab labelled ‘Stupid Gifts’. The tab had that ‘don’t click here’ effect on me. Naturally I had to click

The Stupid Gifts section represents a classic web 2.0 tactic in action. Labelled as ‘The Hall of Shame’ the site offers a function that facilitates visitors in up-loading examples of presents or gifts that are ridiculous, meaningless and pointless. There are some excellent examples such as the noteholder or the baby don’t cry. Other visitors can then submit votes on the stupidity level of these pointless gifts.

The objective here is to demonstrate how the average persons gift budget could be used so much more effectively via a donation using the Change the Present service. I think that the section does a great job of achieving this objective.

Apart from this site feature there are more conventional site features and marketing tactics employed. I suppose that the tell a friend feature on the site has a lot more potential given the ‘weight’ of meaning that the core value of the site carries. Most of us with a heart find it hard to overlook opportunities to help out worthy charities and causes.

The sites tag line of, “Changing the world one gift at a time”, says it all really. Do you think sites like this can really make a difference?

The progress of Facebook has today become a little clearer. The question on everyone’s mind is if Facebook plans to hold out and go for an IPO or succumb to the potentially enormous buy out offers that are surely close on their horizon.

Personally, I cannot see the likes of Google allowing Facebook to grow that much more before the big G-men step in and take over Facebook, ‘YouTube style’. However, it seems that Mark Zuckerberg and his team are enjoying a steady flow of significant offers from eager investors.

Companies such as Microsoft, Facebooks ad-serving partner, are keen to get a piece of Facebook and they are not the only big player with such intentions. Facebook’s last round of funding was in 2006 and totalled $25M, a figure that is sure to be surpassed if they chose to take the option of additional funding again.

Initial indications from reliable sources indicate that “There are several B’s involved in the discussions.” Original facebook investor Peter Thiel from Founders Fund has some grand ideas around the figure that would tickle facebook’s fancy:

“If we got an offer from someone for $10 billion, we probably would listen to them,” Thiel told the Deal in a recent interview. “I don’t think we’re going to get that offer, and we’re not going to solicit it.”

Facebooks initial acquisition in the form of parakey in July this year indicated a strong desire by the start-up to recruit top level minds to help grow their 40 million strong online social network. Parakey was started by the original founders of Mozilla Firefox, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt.

One thing is for sure, interesting times lie ahead for Facebook from a business perspective. They seem to be following a path based on lessons learnt from Google’s successful IPO strategy. This observation is supported by additional comments made by Thiel who inferred that a target for a public offering would be more in the vicinity of 2009 by which time facebook should have been able to build a stronger business.

I’m off now to talk to the bank manager about a facebook IPO savings scheme, target January 2009. Like many others, I missed the Google IPO. If history serves, no one wants to miss this one.

I’m not sure about other Rev2 readers, but if I had $1 for every time I shouldn’t have taken that last $20 out of the ATM for another ‘few beers’ on a Friday night, I would be a little richer. If new service Dimetracker had have been at my disposal I may have been able to curb that desire to spend.

Dimetracker is a new online service that allows you to use your cell phone as a tool to maintain your personal budget. The site uses a classic example of poor budgeting behavior that we can all relate to, the old ‘Wallet receipt stockpiling’. The idea behind the service is simple, instead of adding that next sales receipt to the growing number of existing examples in your wallet, why not transfer the information to Dimetracker immediately via a text from your cell phone.

Once you have uploaded your spending information to Dimetracker you can enjoy the benefits of a professional personal budgeting service. Create budgets that you can stick to. Check your progress against your personalized budget via your cell phone (again by text message).

The more I think about this simple service, the more I believe it’s got great potential. Everyone knows that you should keep your sales receipts in order to balance your personal account and understand your optimal budget. Keeping the receipts is not the problem for most of us, its doing something with the data on the receipts before the fade thats the issue! Using your mobile to seize the moment when you have just made a purchase makes so much sense.

The Dimetracker service is, to a certain extent, unique. Many banks such as Lloyds TSB in the UK now have cell phone text alerts for their customers. Whilst this is a more than useful service that I have used for a while, these offerings are limited to alerts alone. There is no ability to build on the flow of data to formulate effective budgeting advice.

The new service has a modest Facebook group and is (unfortunately) only available to US customers on certain popular networks. So for now I will continue to spend too much on beer and try hard to not lose my cell phone when I have had too many beers. I’m going to need it when Dimetracker becomes available outside of the United States.

Australia-based Phoja is a “free social photo discussion service, where users can share photos and discuss about them with the rest of the community”.

At first glance, the service came across as a simple Digg-clone for photographers. However, the more clicks I made during my first visit to the site, the more I realised how unique this site is. Whilst Phoja incorporates a community voting system similar to Digg, the benefits that community members can gain from the site are different all together.

Using a voting system in a community where the topic(s) of discussion are all visual presents some great potential. To use an example from Phojas about page, imagine if you were a girl (just for the sake of my example- I don’t EVER imagine myself as a girl) and you were out on a shopping spree. You need to buy a dress as soon as possible for an event. You narrow your selection down to two, but you can’t make up your mind…..

This is where Phoja could potentially come into its own, just upload a photo of one dress and then a photo of the alternative and let your community decide which ones best for you. After all, it is the community that you are trying to impress with your clothing and appearance right?

Phoja will accept images online or directly from your mobile phone. As the quality of mobile phone imagery increases, Phoja should experience some nice organic growth in content from this channel.

Phoja has also presented an opportunity for any community member to profit from their venture, regardless of whether the user uploads a photo or not. Each comment loaded against a new image is graded by the community. At any one point in time, the comment with the highest number of votes will receive the adsense commission from the ads placed on the applicable page. To receive this benefit a member will obviously require a live adsense advertisers account.

All in all, I think that this Melbourne based Aussie start-up have done very well. There are so many community voted content sites like digg popping up these days, very few of which have a unique offering that can form the basis of a sustainable competitive advantage. As for Phoja it’s not surprising at all that by avoiding this ‘copy-cat’ trap they are beginning to gain some real traction.

The long anticipated introduction of a Google wiki service as part of the Google apps group of products may finally be ready for launch. Sources suggest that the office 2.0 conference to be held in San Francisco next week could provide the perfect stage for an announcement from Google Spreadsheets product manager Jonothan Rochelle who will be in attendance.

It has been nearly a year since Google acquired Jotspot, the wiki service that will no doubt provide the platform for Googles latest addition to their stable of current applications. Since the acquisition, the Jotspot service has been in a ‘holding pattern’ with no additional subscriptions being accepted. However, those with existing log-in access who have attempted to enter the secure side of the Jotspot site have apparently been served up a somewhat fuzzy looking ‘Google wiki’ logo.

Most people that enjoy the geeky side of life are happy for Google to keep pumping out new, useful and most importantly free services. The big G are masters at understanding what people want (surprise, surprise) and implementing services to meet these needs with accuracy and speed. This is obviously a core strategic competency that Google enjoy.

Interestingly though, I have spoken with a number not so geeky of people who have absolutely no understanding of Googles attempt to break into the market dominated by big Bills Microsoft for so many years. These people are slowly becoming aware of the Google account function, however, this is more as a result of their transition to using the Google talk service.

To my mind, the key question here is how does Google cut through and help global Joe public understand that Google has much more to offer than the best search engine service?

After all, where would Google search be today if it never broke the barrier of only being used by geeky early adopters?