Tourism Marketing

This article mirrors from the UK to what was documented in an earlier posting regarding Australian Tourism Marketing on Facebook. Amazing how times have changed so rapidly!

	Social networking is taking over email, says Facebook director
	June 10, 2008
	TravelMole’s Dinah Hatch reports that – in the United Kingdom – time spent on social network sites has now surpassed time spent emailing, according to Facebook’s UK director Blake Chandlee. Chandlee told delegates at the Eye For Travel Travel Distribution Summit in London recently that the average user of social networking sites spends 302 minutes a month on sites such as Facebook, TripAdvisor and Bebo, while they spent only 179 minutes emailing. “If you are only planning on using traditional media to market your product you are only going to be successful some of the time,” said Chandlee. “You need to think how you can add value to the customer experience using these sites. Some 52% of all 25 to 34-year-olds in the UK are on Facebook now and in the last 30 days in the UK, 28 million events (people making arrangements to meet up) have been created on Facebook.” “There are 10.5 million people in the UK with a profile on Facebook and 100,000 of them have a travel profile, Chandlee continued. “They can be targeted and a whole new level of marketing opens up.” But Lastminute.com’s CEO Ian McCaig warned that caution should be taken before companies jump into the social networking environment in an attempt to market their product. He explained: “There must be a level of sophistication and consideration because interruptive marketing in this environment does not work and alienates the customer as well as potentially damaging your brand. “You need to check that your marketing is not popping up in an environment where a transaction is not taking place and people are just talking to each other. Intruding on social networking with your brand in an irrelevant situation is not welcomed.”
	Author: TOURISM staff Organization: Canadian Tourism Commission E-mail: tourism@ctc-cct.ca

You can to to www.rockymountaineer.com and click on the souvenir section/library to order the book TRIP OF A LIFETIME which tells the story of Rocky Mountianeer.  It is a wonderful 15 year history of this ‘overnight success.  Tomorrow is the day that they will welcome thier ONE MILLIONTH GUEST onboard. 

‘This is one of the most deserved awards given out in the history of Canada’s tourism Industry.   Congratulations Peter!

Canadian Tourism Hall of Fame inductees honoured
	June 3, 2008
	Canada’s tourism products and services are among the best in the world, in no small part because of committed people like the five individuals inducted into the Canadian Tourism Hall of Fame at an intimate reception at the Westin Hotel, in Ottawa. “These five Canadians have made remarkable contributions over the years to the tourism sector and to their communities,” says Randy Williams, President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC). “All are an inspiration to their peers, role models for young people entering the sector and outstanding examples of what can be achieved through tourism in Canada.” TIAC is proud to announce this year’s inductees are Peter Armstrong, Walter Smith, Jean-Marc Eustache, Guy Laliberté and The Hon. Charles Lapointe. Peter Armstrong Founder of Rocky Mountaineer Vacations As the founder of Rocky Mountaineer Vacations, Peter Armstrong has seen his organization evolve from a small entrepreneurial start-up company into one of Canada’s leading tourism providers. He helped revitalize train travel in Canada, offering visitors the “World’s Leading Travel Experience by Train”. His commitment to excellence extends beyond the visitor experience; the company has also been recognized as one of Canada’s 50 Best Employers.

	Google takes on Destination Marketing
	June 2, 2008
	In a post last week in Business Week, Catherine Holahan talks about an interview she did with Rob Torres, Google’s managing director for Travel where she gets the skinny on Google’s plans for the “$90+ billion global travel ad and sales market. Google has set its sights on Travel Destinations as a revenue opportunity. As Holahan outlines in her article, Google is trying to take back control of the “advertising” opportunities around what is now primarily user-generated content posted by the general public to the leading video sharing site YouTube.com. Google’s Rob Torres says, “the goal of Google’s travel division (aside from generating revenue!) is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos…already, about 50% of travelers use some sort of online social media site to research their plans…why not give them a one-stop shop for travel information.” So Google’s quest is to “help” travel destinations and the associations and tourism boards that run them by helping them distribute canned and “advertorial” web video spots, on YouTube.com – and then lead users to other content including paid search ads, instead of encouraging advertisers to purchase ads around user generated content. Check out the example that Holahan refers to in the article – New Zealand, which to date has had 884,621 views! In addition, they have posted 40 other videos to YouTube. Currently when you do a search in YouTube.com for the term “New Zealand” the top result is the destination’s promotional video – not the user generated videos posted by users. According to Marion Edward in “Mouth/Mouse: Social Networking and the Travel Industry, “YouTube has already grown to serve more than 100 million video views per day and is receiving more than 65,000 video uploads daily…with a user base ranging from 18-49, spanning all geographies.” There are however tourism destinations already actively posting videos to YouTube and other video sharing sites such as Yahoo! Video, Break.com, and Metacafe.com, but user generated content seems to still be the most watched videos. I am sure that Google will make some changes to the algorithms that YouTube.com uses to serve up search results. This medium then becomes less of a social network and more a “pay to play” advertising vehicle. My take? Google wants to make sure that they are capitalizing on the revenue opportunity the You Tube.com presents – which is fairly minimal if destinations are simply advertising in conjunction with user generated content, and many are not yet comfortable with that. Advertisers seem to still want “control” over the message and have not fully embraced “endorsing” or accepting the reality of user generated content and reviews, and the role they now play in the buying cycle of travel. “Fueling Google’s travel plans is consumers move to researching and booking vacations online… In 2007, more travel sales were booked online than in person”, says Google’s Rob Torres. “That means travel marketers, many of whom already spend millions on search ads and the like, will likely shift more of their budgets to the Web…rather than try to convince travel marketers to advertise on user-generated videos, they can sell sponsored destination pages on YouTube where travel marketers can post their own videos and influence or control what types of content users upload. Then Google can also sell other forms of advertising, such as search ads, to drive traffic to the site.” Will users who consume YouTube.com embrace an advertising message over user generated content? Is there room for both? I guess we will see! www.ideahatching.com
	Author: Alicia Whalen Organization: A Couple of Chicks E-Marketing E-mail: awhalen@acoupleofchicks.com

Boutique hotels: good for the good times?
	May 22, 2008
	Boutique hotels have been all the rage in the lodging industry. Developers want to build them. Guests want to stay in them. Travel writers want to wax on about their virtues. But Robert Mandelbaum asks on Hospitalitynet.org if boutique hotels are popular with their owners? How has boutique hotel financial performance stacked up to industry-wide benchmarks as the lodging industry has progressed through the ups and downs of the recent business cycle? To answer these questions, PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR) has analyzed the revenues, expenses, and profits from a group of boutique hotels which provided their year-end financial statements to PKF-HR for the firm’s annual Trends in the Hotel Industry survey. The sample consisted solely of properties that provided data for each year from 2000 to 2006 (most current data available). While boutique revenues have exceeded industry averages, so have operating expenses. From 2000 through 2006, total expenses have run approximately 55% greater at boutique hotels than the typical US hotel when measured on a dollar-per-available-room basis. Fortunately, the boutique sample achieved unit-level profits that averaged 57% greater than the total Trends sample. In general, boutique hotels achieved superior gains in revenue and profits during periods of prosperity, but also suffered to a greater degree during the depths of the 2001 through 2003 industry recession. From 2000 to 2003, US hotels averaged a decline in total revenue of 15.1%, while profits fell off 36.2%. Unfortunately for boutique hotel owners and operators, the declines in performance were much worse. During the industry recession, the typical boutique property in the Trends sample suffered declines of 25.0 % in total revenue and 52.9% in profits. Conversely, from 2004 through 2006 boutique hotels enjoyed a quicker pace of recovery than the industry at large. During this period boutique properties saw their revenues grow 36.6%, while profits increased a very healthy 75.5%. The recovery for the typical US hotel was more gradual. Industry-wide growth averaged 26.7% for revenues and 45.8 % for profits. The volatile performance of this lodging segment can be partially attributable to the urban location of most boutique hotels. In general, urban areas, especially the major gateway cities suffered the most during the 2001 to 2003 industry recession. Fortunately, these same cities have recovered strongly since then. The “first generation” of boutique hotels had some common development characteristics, writes Mandelbaum. They were frequently constructed within the shell of a historic building and located just a few blocks off the prime heart of the central business district. By receiving historic structure and urban re-development tax credits, these boutique properties were able keep their overall development costs in-line, and devote a large portion of their development budgets to interior design. This moderation in development cost, along with superior market performance, combined to provide a favorable impact on the return on investment. In recent years, most boutique hotels have been built from the ground up and don’t possess the antique charm historically associated with boutique properties. Instead, they thrive on the desire to be hip, modern, trendy, and full of the latest technological and entertainment amenities. In turn, development costs have escalated, but justified by the strong historical financial performance of this sector. Given the historical elastic performance of the boutique hotel segment, Mandelbaum notes, it will be interesting to see how these unique properties perform when industry performance is basically flat. PKF-HR believes boutique hotels will continue to enjoy the strong performance premiums they’ve historically achieved, but without the wild cyclical oscillations seen in the past.
	Author: TOURISM staff Organization: Canadian Tourism Commission E-mail: tourism@ctc-cct.ca

MySpace to change face of Aussie tourism
	May 9, 2008
	Jessica Hurt writes in Australia’s The Advertiser in Adelaide, that the days of television advertising as the main tool for attracting tourists to the land down under are long gone. Before setting off on a big adventure, many travellers are now likely to book their trips online, check out reviews from other holidaymakers, scroll through accommodation and travel sites and then keeping friends up to date with their trip through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. And now the impact of these sites is about to be put to the test, Hurt argues. From this week onwards, the world’s largest social networking site, MySpace, will be used to lure the lucrative youth market to Australia, from countries including Britain and the US. Tourism Australia announced the campaign at a market briefing with local tourism operators in Adelaide recently. Targeting the all-important 18 to 30-year-old market, the interactive campaign will aim to stimulate travel to Australia as well as promote Australia’s working holiday visa program run in Britain, the US, Canada and Ireland. People in these countries will be able to designate Australia as a category on their web page and upload their own photographs from their Australian holiday to share with other users. The campaign will run over 12 months and is being launched in Ireland and Britain this week and rolled out to the remaining markets early in May. Tourism Australia managing director Geoff Buckley believes the way to reach the youth market is to “talk to them in their own language, and through the media they prefer; online communities like MySpace provide an authentic environment for young travellers to share their own stories,” he says. As well as a new mode of communication, we could soon see a new tourism branding for Australia. Not since Paul Hogan put a shrimp on a barbie in the famous ’80s tourism ads has Auatralia managed to brand itself so well, writes Hurt. In March, 2005, a bikini-clad model named Lara Bingle helped launch the controversial “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. Tenders are out for Tourism Australia’s global creative and media buying agencies. The results are expected to be known by August. The future of the “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign is expected to be decided around that time. The new MySpace page will harness social networking by including interactive elements such as a “widget” that users can drop and drag their “top friends” into. Friends of the profile will be able to upload their own photos and video content to the site, as well as being able to upload features from the Tourism Australia page on their own MySpace profiles. According to Nielsen Online, nearly half the Australian population has social networking profiles and, in the next 12 months, half of the non-users indicated they would be signing up. Tourism Australia’s general manager of trade development, Matt Cameron-Smith, noted social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, could be valuable tools for marketing Australia as a tourism destination.
	Author: TOURISM staff Organization: Canadian Tourism Commission E-mail: tourism@ctc-cct.ca

Shifting a bike tour into higher gear

The challenge: Attract new, younger customers. The plan: Become an industry expert through media outreach. The payoff: A new generation of customers ready to travel

STEVE LADURANTAYE

Globe and Mail Update – March 3, 2008 at 10:30 AM EDT

BikeHike Adventures, a Vancouver-based adventure tour company, has been organizing sports-themed vacations for its actively inclined clientele for more than a decade. Veteran traveller Trish Sare, BikeHike’s 42-year-old owner and operator, founded the company in 1994 after wandering the world for the better part of 15 years.

National Geographic Adventure magazine has recognized Ms. Sare as one of the best adventure tour operators in the world. In November, the magazine’s team of adventure editors and travel writers voted BikeHike the second-best biking outfitter on Earth.

The typical BikeHike explorer is active and outdoorsy, aged 25 to 55, with a disposable income large enough to absorb up to $3,000 for a two-week vacation (not counting airfare) that may well find them sleeping in a tent.

While Ms. Sare’s expeditions are physically challenging, she says her customers are “just regular mortals in good physical condition” who work out a few times a week.

Still, it’s a safe bet that weak-kneed culture vultures won’t be signing up for BikeHike’s nine-day “high-energy extravaganza” (biking, hiking, rafting, kayaking and rappelling) in Brazil this year, or the coast-to-coast “muscle power” expedition in Costa Rica.

In the midst of Ms. Sare’s fairy-tale existence, a few storm clouds have appeared on the horizon. “Things are changing,” she says, explaining that she’s traditionally relied on word of mouth to bring her new customers.

“Our clients are getting a little older, and maybe they’re starting to look for a little more luxury and something a little softer.”

If she is going to keep her business going in the right direction, she needs to revitalize her customer roster with younger people who will keep coming back year after year, instead of relying on those loyal travellers who have been with her from the start.

While Ms. Sare doesn’t want to give up the adrenalin-based adventures, she has decided to change her business plan to include family excursions and “wellness trips” centred around yoga and meditation. “I wish I had an answer as to why we haven’t grown faster. I don’t have a business background, so I learn as I go,” she says, explaining that her bookings have plateaued at about 100 customer trips a year.

What the experts say

Hill & Knowlton Canada’s senior vice-president, Kadi Kaljuste, says Ms. Sare should mention the National Geographic award on every piece of paper BikeHike produces – be it pamphlets, letterhead or business cards.

She should also make sure her company’s voice mail mentions the designation to help entice first-time callers.

“Larger companies can simply order more letterhead,” Ms. Kaljuste says. “For smaller companies, it can be cost prohibitive to dump what you have. You can get stickers done to put on all of your printed materials – it’s a simple fix.”

Ms. Kaljuste also sees opportunities for Ms. Sare to reach out to younger travellers by becoming something of a celebrity. She says Ms. Sare should approach tourism authorities – national, provincial and municipal – and offer herself up as an example of a successful operator.

She should also seek out speaking opportunities, as a way of prospecting for new leads.

“She can offer herself up as the poster child of excellence in adventure travel,” Ms. Kaljuste says.

She should find other industry awards – why not try for entrepreneur of the year, Ms. Kaljuste asks – and do whatever needs to be done to ensure BikeHike makes it to the top of the National Geographic rankings again next year.

She warns that media hits have a best-before date. Ms. Sare did the right thing when she sent out a press release to let the world know about the designation, provided she had a good media contact list. She says every small-business owner should have a “living, breathing list” of important media publications, and know what is being written about them.

“It has to be sent to the right people – there’s the mainstream media, regional dailies, trade publications, blogs,” she says.

Maggie Fox, founder of Social Media Group in Dundas, Ont., agrees that Ms. Sare stands a good chance of becoming something of an Internet celebrity in her field. Thousands of potential customers are reading travel blogs each day, and who better to write one than someone who zips around the world non-stop?

“Most people talk on and on about the one trip they took last year, but this is her life,” Ms. Fox says. “She could have one of the biggest, most influential travel blogs on the Internet. She has the stories; she has the pictures. That’s a lot of interesting stuff to talk about that a lot of people would be interested in reading.”

Ms. Sare already has a blog on BikeHike’s website, but it’s only updated once a month. If a business is going to bother, Ms. Fox says there needs to be an investment of time and resources. If it’s done right, it should lead to more customers.

“You’ll never save on labour with social media because it takes time and effort to participate in online communities,” she says. “But if you’re comparing it to a media buy, it’s a lot cheaper.”

Essential to any website, Ms. Fox says, are assets such as photographs. She’s “shocked” there are so few images for prospective customers to look at when they visit the BikeHike site, and says it’s likely one of the easiest things to fix.

Ms. Fox also strongly encourages Ms. Sare to find bloggers who are already covering her industry. She suggests using Google’s blog search feature to root them out, and then checking them out at Technorati – a website that shows how influential a blog is by counting how many other pages use it as a link.

“Find those people,” she says. “Leave comments that are in context. Add value, start to form relationships with these people.”

Readers tend to place value in what their favourite bloggers write, so Ms. Fox says Ms. Sare should consider offering an influential writer a free trip.

The blogger would be expected to file regular updates to his or her site – a word-of-mouth coup that could lead to more business.

If she’d rather not let a stranger travel the world on her dime, she could turn to her repeat customers and have them file regular dispatches from their next trip.

“She’s not sending these people to Disneyland,” Ms. Fox says. “This is really interesting stuff that people will want to read about.”

Of course, things can go wrong online.

It’s essential that she not flood bloggers with advertisements or quick one-liners. If you annoy them, the effort could backfire.

“It’s like a conversation,” she says. “You don’t just walk up to a group of people while they are talking and say, ‘Hey, look what I am doing.’ It’s off-putting. It all has to stem from legitimate – and I’m going to emphasize that – legitimate relationships. She can’t spam them with content. She has to really make it a marketing effort to get out there and read that stuff and figure out who’s talking about what, and contribute.”

IN A NUTSHELL

Become an expert

People browse blogs looking for expert opinions about things that interest them. Start a blog, and become the trusted source of information.

Tell your story

A website has to be more than a lot of text explaining what a company does. Use photos and video to present a realistic picture of what you are offering.

Know your outlets

Every small business owner should have their own list of relevant media publications that cover their industry.

Take advantage of awards

If you receive an important industry designation, make sure you tell people.

VCM Weekly E-News

Trust us – Blog is not a Star Trek Term Blog visitation is growing at a rapid rate, and the user-generated content appearing on blogs can have a significant impact on both destination and travel supplier selection. This month’s e-newsletter from YPartnership reveals some interesting findings about this phenomenon. BOOMING BLOGS The influence of the Internet on travel planning continues to grow. According to our 2007 National Leisure Travel MONITORSM, two thirds of active travelers now go exclusively to the Internet to obtain information when planning vacations, and 4 out of 10 now report “regularly reading” visitor critiques and opinions online (more than the 3 out of 10 who report reading critiques and reviews authored by professional journalists!). Most of these user-generated opinions may be found in the growing population of web logs (blogs). The role of blogs in the evaluation of travel suppliers is one of increasing interest to most travel marketers. Of particular interest is the influence of user-generated reviews on the selection of specific hotels, resorts, attractions and other travel suppliers. Much of this interest is due to the growing incidence of travel-related blog visitation: one quarter of leisure travelers who have used the Internet to obtain information on travel experiences and/or suppliers have visited a “blog” to seek and/or review information about a specific destination or travel supplier during the past twelve months. Nearly one third of those who have consulted a blog for travel planning purposes state they have visited Tripadvisor.com. Other popular sites include Traveller.org, Ysearchblog.com (Yahoo! search blog), Myspace.com, Virtualtourist.com and Lonelyplanet.com as revealed in table appearing below. 2007 % Have Visited To Seek And/Or Review Information About A Destination Or Travel Service Supplier During Past 12 Months* 25 Have Visited:** TripAdvisor.com 32 Traveller.org 19 Ysearchblog.com (Yahoo! Search Blog) 17 MySpace.com 15 VirtualTourist.com 13 LonelyPlanet.com 11 Travelblog.org 8 LiveJournal.com 3 Xanga.com 2 Other 23 *Among those who have used the Internet to obtain travel information for one or more leisure trips during the last 12 months. **Among those who have visited a blog during the last 12 months. Does not equal 100% due to multiple responses. These numbers represent a significant increase over the levels recorded just two years ago, thereby underscoring the growing interest consumers have in seeking what they believe to be more “objective” assessments of travel experiences from individuals who can comment with a high degree of ascribed credibility. This type of “conversational marketing” represents a new discipline in marketing science, and the implication for travel service marketers is clear: popular blog content should be monitored regularly to remain abreast of the buzz circulating online and evaluate the potential influence user-generated content may have on future customer behavior. Source: YPartnership. Copyright © 2007 Ypartnership 423 South Keller Rd., Suite 100OrlandoFL32810 All Rights Reserved

Quoted from http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/08/11/web-strategy-what-the-web-strategist-should-know-about-facebook/:

Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook

Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook

August 11th, 2007 | Category: Facebook Strategy, Widget Strategy, Social Networking, Web Strategy

You: A Web Strategist
If you’re responsible for the direction of your online strategies for your company or organization, you’ve probably been asked by your colleagues to take a look at a social network. If you’re new to the Facebook phenomenon, this will serve as a guide for you to get started, link to resources to help, and provide an overview as a web decision maker

[Facebook is a identity, community, and application platform that provides the web strategist many opportunities to connect with online communities]

Web Strategy Theory to know before you go forward
If you’ve not already figured it out, the corporate website is becoming less relevant, and web marketing (and support) has spread off your domain and google results. You also know that prospects trust the opinions of existing customers (who are ‘like them’) far more than marketers, and Facebook let’s these communities of practice assemble, your brand is decentralized –embrace!.

If you don’t understand these concepts, it’s hard to move forward, please re-read those posts above.

Opportunities
Communities of practice are forming with Facebook, users with similiar interests are starting to link and connect to each other. Facebook recently opened it’s platform up to all users (it used to be for colleges only) and also opened it’s application platform up for anyone to create widget’s or mini-applications within their platform. For the web strategist, the opportunity to extend to these areas are ripe: Join or build a community, deploy an application (widget), invest in advertising, gather intelligence from profiles, and extend one’s network.

What you should know:

Invites via email spur growth: Invites are coming through emails, at one point, I was received dozens on one week, this is a sign of mass.

Discussions: Within the groups sections, there are questions posed, answers, and discussions, if you’re a believer in the Cluetrain manifesto, this is a sign of a marketplace.

Business audience, not just 20s: When Facebook opened up to the whole world, it extended it’s reach past college, this may have been due to many of the original Facebook users graduating and moving the workplace. Many of my contacts and friends within Facebook are senior managers, directors, VPs, and CEOs, this is not child’s play. Recent research indicated that the fastest growth segment was 35+. See my Facebook demographic and audience analysis.

Affinity Groups: Individuals with similiar interests, problems, or traits are starting to self-assemble through their friends network, or within the groups. All of these are opt-in, so these are engaged users, that have self-selected: ‘Hey I belong here’. These are communities, and are micro-segments of marketplaces.

Opt-in: Unlike traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Facebook has many opt-in features that let users review, approve, and accept invites for friends, applications, groups, and other features.

Limited Search Crawling: Facebook is a ‘closed’ network, and you can only see most data if you’ve a login, most indivudals pages are somewhat private to non-friends. As a result this limits the ability of traditional search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and others to crawl and index the data. This will prove to be an interesting dynamic in the next few years.

High Growth: Facebook has one of the fastest growth rates, and could potentially overtake MySpace if these rates continue. See stats from John Bell.

Features to know:

The Platform

Identity Platform: Facebook has opt-in user profiles and rich metadata, they’ve massive intelligence on users. Similarly, users can see detailed metadata about friends that are connected to them. Traditonally, blogs, forums and other tools don’t provide this detailed amount of user data.

Community Platform: Users can connect to affinity groups, Facebook can map relationships and affinities. Communities are forming (all opt-in) and are segmenting by interest. Community is another word for Market.

Application Platform: Facebook controls API platform and can gain intelligence from application deployment, data, and usage.

Clunky User Interface: Facebook is notorious for being confusing for the early and even experienced user, things are often not where they should be, and it’s difficult to tell where one’s ‘homepage’ is.

Home Page: The home page is really a ‘news’ page that aggregates content like an RSS feedreader. It also shows other events, triggers, requests, and information, this is much like the ‘portal’ page of the first wave. You can adjust the settings to increase or decrease certain types of content. You can also see what your network is doing, including your friends writing on others’ walls (there was conflict about this previously). The homepage can also show updates from applications (like Twitter or Powce) centralizing communications (submitted by comments by Moksh)

Profile Page: The profile page lists your attributes, status, interests, and other metadata a user chooses to share. This is the page to share with others to add them as contacts.

Applications: The applications sections has exploded from hundreds of applications a few weeks ago to thousands. As I understand it, a PHP developer can quickly create an application for use there. In some cases, brands with loyal following have customers create applications on their behalf.

Events: Affinity groups are starting to organize, promote, and manage events from Facebook, this is disruptive to Upcoming, evite, and other event management websites.

Direct Messages: Users, and those in my community, are starting to direct message each other using Facebook’s ‘email’ type of capability. There are numerous accounts that users in Gen Y use social networking private messages before email. In fact, I’m told that “email is for old people, like you.”

Media is embedded: There’s audio, video, and live streaming video in Facebook, this is a communication and media platform. There’s many ways to embed stories using rich media.

Widgets and Applications: The most exciting feature are the widgets that let companies and groups build embedded applications on the Facebook Platform. While widgets have certainly been around for some time, they’ve never been available for an ‘identity’ platform that had rich user and network behavior. Case Study: Watch how Walmart’s Dorm Room campaign is now deploying an application for Facebook, Charlene Li predicts opportunity, and John Bell is keeping a watchful eye. If you don’t know the history, Walmart launched a MySpace clone called “Hub” which failed and was shut down after a mere 10 weeks.

Advertising: There’s embedded ads within Facebook on the right column (and other areas) which give the savvy advertiser ability to reach specific markets. Because Facebook is an Identity Platform, they’ve got full data and stats on what users are doing, how often, how much, and what they are doing. Learn more from their official advertising page.

Data and Privacy Concerns
Facebook is a black hole, a lot of data goes in, but very little comes out. I’ve posted the following:

Yet another reason why we need a single, trusted, and protected identity system

All your widgets are belong to Facebook

Getting Started

1) Understand Facebook
2) Jump in, create an account and add me as a friend
3) Explore the groups, and join the Web Strategy Group, where you’ll find other like-minded strategists
4) Applications, on the left nav, explore the applications, see how they’re used, and add a few of your own.
5) Consider your strategy, find a partner to help. Contact me to learn more.

Got a Facebook project? Leave a comment
If you are a consulting firm that has deployed in Facebook, feel free to leave a comment below and discuss your project success, learnings and ROI.

Connect to me

My Profile: Add me, I’ll add you back

Web Strategy Community: Join the Web Strategy Group in Facebook

My bio and profile

Rocky Mountaineer Vacations’ Guest Lounge Blog

New for BC Ferries in 2008

The new Super C Class vessel build for BC Ferries is on it’s way to British Columbia. BC Ferries has built a tracker to follow it’s 45 day journey. You can expect to see the first of 3 of these vessels on routes between Vancouver and Vancouver Island by Spring 2008. They are the largest double ended ferries in the world, necessary to maneuver in the tight waters of BC’s coastline.

A video highlighting the “handover” of the ship is available as well. For those of us who depend on the ferry system in BC – it is truly an extension of our highways – it is a welcome addition to the world’s largest ferry fleet. And a great bonus for tourists travelling to and from Vancouver Island on the 90 minute trip.

MA’s Comment:  It’s going to be awesome seeing these vessels sailing in front of my sundeck!  Hmmm… maybe we can hijack one for the new Bowen Island Ferry????