Ctrip CFO Jane Jie Sun presentation notes

BOOT recommended read of the week - Tom Botts of Hudson Crossing's summary of Ctrip CFO Jane Jie Sun presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco. Post is called "Ctrip and Home Inn: How Different China Really is". Includes notes like "Only 2% of travel in China is booked online today - and Ctrip has 50% of that market". Worth a read. Always worth remembering that online travel in China has a different meaning that elsewhere.

SEO rules - why have a top 7 or top 10 when you can have 59 things to do to improve your SEO

As a blogger I know that nothing drives retweets and inbound links like a good top x list of reasons why something is something. For example my post on the three lies that the travel industry keeps telling consumers was my top trafficked post for August 2009. Normally the list is kept at less than ten because the aim of the post is part informing the reader and part driving traffic. I came across a article last week that broke the rules on keeping the list at less than 10 - therefore hurting their chances at retweeting and inbound links but compensates by being a genuinely informative read and well worth being a recommended read of the week.

The post is "59 SEO Ranking Factors" from Joe's AdBlog. It contains what it says it contains - a list of the 59 factors that influence your site's organic search ratings. There is nothing flowery or engaging about the writing in this post but this lack of wordsmithyness (how's that for a made up word) does not detract from the value of this content. This is a great info source and worth you taking a look.

Thanks to Danard Vincente for the fantastic image (via flickr)

BusinessWeek on Augmented Reality - "GPS technology is not yet good enough for AR to be useful"

My first post for Tnooz was on Augmented reality and mobile. In it I have a couple of videos of some great looking AR travel apps. However since I am trapped in the Blackberry world (my company uses blackberry) I have not had a chance to try out any of these for myself. That has left open the question as to whether or not the hype of Augmented Reality matches...well.. the reality of Augmented reality.

Steve Wildstorm (personal tech columnist at BusinessWeek) believes that AR is "Not that Real Yet". There is an interesting podcast interview with him here (part of his regularly weekly series) where he says that the GPS technology that is critical for AR to work is simply not accurate enough. At its best GPS provides accuracy to 20 meters. Wildstorm argues that a 20 meter radius error margin is not good enough to give the accuracy you need for AR to work. It is worth noting that "at its best" means all the satellites are in the right place and there are no buildings in the way. In other words it is likely that accuracy will be worse than 20 meters. Also thinks that the apps that are out there are "just modified browsers" and need to be better thought through - sometimes the apps are giving too much information or a level of GPS accuracy that is not available.

If you are interested in AR for online travel then I recommend listening to the podcast (here). BOOT recommended read/listen of the week.

Adding Dennis Schaal to my Blog Roll

Travel industry journalist Dennis Schaal launched a blog (called the Dennis Schaal Blog - online riffs and notes) back in March this year. Since then he as been prolific (149 posts) and very insightful. With Kevin May leaving Travolution (and yet to announce where he has landed) Dennis has rocketed to the top of my best industry blogger list. He has been part of my feedreader for a while and is now added to my Blog Roll. I suggest you add him to the sites you review also.

While you will not hear/read me talking/writing about global OTA Orbitz or online hotel only specialist HotelClub, there are a couple of recent posts by Dennis on those companies that will give you a good introduction to his writing style and insight.

Where in the World is the Orbitz Hotel Business Model?

Does Orbitz Ratestogo.com Mean Merchant Model To Go.com?

Kayak is not that flattered by Bing imitation (Wired Mag)

Quick post for the BOOT recommended read of the week. Wired is reporting that Kayak sent Microsoft a "legal letter" along the lines of accusing Microsoft's Bing Travel of copying Kayak's look and feel and therefore misleading Kayak customers. No more details than that. Anyone out there is the Michael Jackson obsessed InterWebs know any more?

Full Article "Kayak to Bing: Stop Copying Us!"

hat tip to whodeani where I saw the story first

Tips on online audience and usage in Indonesia

BOOT recommended read of the week is a blog post from Peter Goldsworthy of Admax Network from the iMedia Connection community site. Called "Insights into Indonesia's online audience" the post has seven insights into the market that may be of interest to you.

The Dung Bettle, Funk Music and nothing at all to do with Travel

I love NPR podcasts - especially Terry Gross' interview series Fresh Air and the comedy news quiz program Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

I have just finished listening to one of the best Fresh Air podcasts ever. The great thing about Fresh Air is that you have no idea what you are going to get. It could an interview with a former White House Press Secretary on how they came the realisation that torture was wrong, it could be a straight actor on the preparations they went through before kissing another man in a movie or it could be an interview with an evangelical preacher trying to convince you that Hurricane Katrina was the wrath of God against sinners.

Last Tuesday there were two stories that had nothing in common but showed off the best of Fresh Air and its approach to the esoteric yet fascinating and entertaining. Story one - "the Fascinating World of the Dung Beetle". Story two - "Westbound Records: The Sounds of Detriot". Madame BOOT described the Westbound records story as the perfect podcast for me. This is the album lable the first brough Funkadelic (ie George Clinton) out on vinal. In other words the orginators of Funk.

The first story - the Dung Beetle one - is unambigously this years winner of the "story that is least likely to keep you entertained but you will not be able to turn off or stop yourself smiling about" award for 2009. I had no plans in my life to find out anything about dung beetles but here I am telling you that I am glad that I did.

These stories have nothing to do with travel (unless you can somehow link the OTA fee cut war with a Dung Beetle and a man with a long afro and high heel shoes) but are this week's BOOT recommended listen.