I moved between the online travel conference and the main expo hall at the Travel Indaba the entire day.
Bronwen Lee-shew (she’s changed her surname as she’s now married) was the MC - such a SMALL WORLD - I haven’t seen Bron for years but she was my boss at one of the Internet Casino’s I worked for about 7 years ago.
The speakers panel was a lot of guys I knew - Rob Stokes from Quirk (I was half joking about the “speak & maybe get a mention” comment Rob!), Diane Charton from Acceleration Media, (thanks for the lift Diane), Luisa Mazinter from theMarketingSite (I recorded Luisa’s entire presentation on my digital camera as Luisa speaks REALLY well - afterwards she told me it isn’t due to Toastmasters but from years of drama practice), and Fiona Buchner from SA Tourism.
Keynote by Fiona about the growth of online travel worldwide and how it’s expected to grow strongly in South Africa in the future.
Fiona had an interesting point about keywords used in the search engines. South African words like “cape town travel” is being bid on by many south african company’s. What is interesting is words that are competed for on the global forum - eg: words like “safari” are being competed by kenya, south africa and other african company’s, so this is where SA Tourism boards would start getting involved, as they want South African company’s to be top of the list.
Ronald, the speaker from the .Travel top level domain name mentioned there are 2 important variables for SEO - “time of how long you have had the domain” being one of them - I DISAGREE!!! - Google has nearly 200 variables in the algorithm, and each of the major engines rely on slightly different algorithms. I wouldn’t say TIME is one of ONLY 2 areas that is important in getting you to the top of the engines!!!!
I couldn’t stop laughing when someone asked a question about 3.0 and semantic indexing! Please - South Africa hasn’t embraced 2.0 yet (some in SA aren’t on the web yet, or VERY LIMITED exposure). Very few people in the audience had a clue when he asked the question - there were blank faces all around! I have a feeling he asked just to get his name out to the audience!
I spent plenty time in the expo hall speaking to company’s about TrafficSynergy.com
Oberservations:
1. Company’s are getting pitched left, right and center by “Internet Marketers” many of whom don’t know what they’re doing and are not performing for the company’s. Basically burning the clients money.
2. The level of knowledge in the travel industry on internet marketing is VERY low - surprising as it’s one of the largest areas on the net globally. Hardly anyone could have a conversation about PPC, SEO, email marketing, affiliate marketing etc - many didn’t know anything about Internet Marketing. I can excuse some as they were sales people rather than marketers, but I spoke to a number of MARKETING MANAGERS who didn’t even have a basic knowledge of Internet Marketing. VERY DISAPPOINTING!
One guy who is involved in a golf portal site, had never heard of tracking and the concept of cookies. I thought he was joking at first, but realised that he had paid developers to put his website together, but he himself didn’t understand the Internet at all!
In the evening I went to Society, (a house used for a trendy restaurant / bar in Florida road, which reminded me of Miami for some strange reason) for a drink with Shelle (who has flown down for a couple days to spend time at eSquared in Durban - we’re now onto Day 6 of the Sale - 40% off EVERYTHING), and felt like I had upped the Internet knowledge of a few people - it will take time, but we’re getting there!!!!
21 responses so far ↓
1 Stii // May 16, 2007 at 3:31 am
Geez, mate. Kudus to the guy asking about the semantic web/web 3.0! Why did you laugh? Its this exact same reason why 2.0 hasn’t been adopted. Instead of telling people about it, we “laugh” about it and think that the other person is too stupid to know about it or what it is! At least now some of the people there heard about it and the seed is planted. The more people talk about it, the more awareness is generated. They might not have a clue what it is right now, but 3 or 4 more mentions and they might start to see the picture.
2 Eric // May 16, 2007 at 8:44 am
Good point Sti, and I totally agree with what you’re saying.
There was something about the way he asked it that I found amusing, but I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was. I think it was the fact he used a buzz word “3.0″ as if it was the most natural thing to do…
…like, “when should we be adopting 3.0?” - he sounded like he didn’t have a clue, but he had heard a buzzword, and wanted to appear like he was an expert in the subject.
One of the speakers explained to the room what a “banner” is.
So it just seemed TOTALLY out of place.
But you have a GREAT point about a “seed being planted”.
It wasn’t external laughter by the way - it was more sitting there finding it incredible that quite a few people in the room, didn’t understand the a large part of what was said in the conference relating to Internet marketing, and suddenly a guy wants to “discuss” Semantic Indexing. I didn’t burst out laughing!!! I just found it “out of place” and internally amusing.
But excellent remark!!!
3 Dirk // May 16, 2007 at 9:45 am
Yeah it’s funny, but I guess our biggest job as internet marketers is education of the market. You’re dead on about fly by nights that burn client budgets. The question is how do you convince a company that’s been burned before that your SEO / SEM is the best thing since sliced bread? They’ve heard it all before. I guess hard evidence then?
4 Tresblue // May 17, 2007 at 5:10 pm
May I introduce myself, I am the person who caused you such mirth. For the record I have a South African Tourism Portal built along Web 2.0 concepts and that is allready microformated (web 3.0 enabled if wish)I asked the question because I believe it has relevance to the tourism industry in particular and we were supposed to be educating them. Perhaps that will explain why I used the word so naturally.
The question was
Web 3.0 or the Semantic web if you will, has specific relevance to tourism industry, should we not be discussing that at this seminar ?
Completely out of context ?
The reason our tourism industry is so poorly informed is made clear again by your attitude. Keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit.
5 Eric // May 17, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Tresblue - rushing off to CoffeeClub and don’t want to be late…
But please introduce yourself properly - what is your name? and what is the URL of your portal site you mentioned above?
6 Eric // May 17, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Tres / Sti - after a bit of investigation, I quickly figured out you guys are partners.
So your postings make perfect sense after this quote from Tresblue on his blog posting on the Travel Indaba:
“The fact that the seminar recognised web 2.0 and spoke about it was fantastic. It made my job so much easier and after the seminar my phone did not stop ringing. You know how it goes. If you tell someone to take note of something it is “yes, well, you are trying to get me to buy your productâ€. Should a neutral third party like Luisa (who gave the talk on Web 2.0) get up and say “take note of Web 2.0†well all of a sudden they take note, hence the phone ringing off the hook.”
Now imagine a buzzword like 3.0 was thrown into the crowd?
I use to do it as well though when I was at the international conferences - so no hard feelings - it’s a great strategy…(Tres, I even added a link to your blog on my PEOPLE page)
BUT…
An academic completing his PHD in maths is watching a maths teacher teach a class of Grade 8 Maths students. Does he ask a question at the end of the lesson when the teacher asks for questions, or go up to the teacher afterwards to have a proper discussion about his specific question?
Vincent has taught me the art of asking for apologies. I might just take his lead on this one…
7 Tresblue // May 18, 2007 at 10:47 am
As a matter of interest, Stii did not know it was me who asked the question when he responded to your post.He only found out yesterday. I did introduce myself properly you could follow the link to my Blog and read the about me page you do not have to be Sherlock Holmes ( further investigation indeed) You are also entitled to your opinion … but an apology????
8 Eric // May 18, 2007 at 10:57 am
Tresblue - guess you haven’t been following the Bullardgate affair between Numero Uno columnist Bullard, and M&G Internet Guru Maher…
…or you’d get the apology comment. Ask apology’s for EVERYTHING!!!
anyway, chatted to Stii last night briefly, and I strongly feel that we all have more important things to do than discuss this topic further.
Lets put it to bed!
9 Dirk // May 18, 2007 at 11:45 am
I find this quite entertaining, especially since I will be addressing a local contingency of tourism operators on the very subject in two weeks
10 Eric // May 18, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Almost the weekend, but i’m interested to know from all you guys, (Stii, TresBlue, Dirk and anyone else who can give an opinion)…
…(as i’m the first to admit my knowledge on 3.0 / semantic isn’t at rocket science level)…
…what these buzzwords in simple english actually are, and how they are going to be used to make travel on the internet…better, faster (whatever the standard bank slogan was)
Seriously, is it going to be very niche, or will all websites start using it (or whatever “it” actually is)?
11 Dirk // May 18, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I’m with you on that Eric. My opinion is give them something that’s current, that doesn’t break the bank (or their browsers) and something that they can easily understand from a usability point of view.
They don’t need to be experts, but they need to know why we recommend certain things, which is why we’re having to do these conferences and workshops. You know, create that paradigm shift…
I think most of it is geared towards community sites (blaring & sharing), but there is possible value if slightly tweaked to fit the industry. Value if it brings more traffic and conversion to establishments that is. Whether it’s just cool or actually does that is an open question which we’ll probably only be able to answer after spending some time in bed with it.
12 Tresblue // May 21, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Stii has blogged extensively about microformats the following blog post will give you an idea of the uses for microformats
http://stii.za.net/archives/197
This blog post neatly sums the up the problems
http://stii.za.net/archives/176
I hope this helps.
13 Eric // May 21, 2007 at 3:57 pm
heya Tresblue,
just read the link for Sti’s site you gave.
Doesn’t help me understand what the buzzword 3.0 is and whether 3.0 is the same thing or totally different to semantic indexing and microformats?
14 Dirk // May 21, 2007 at 4:37 pm
In the latest Intelligence Mag’s a whole article about Web 3.0. From what I’ve read in essence it’s standardation of microformats with semantics etc etc, but I’d still like to know where the value is to establishment owners within the tourism industry (to bring things back to the Indaba discussion). How much more effective would their websites be after they implement these ‘cool tools’?
15 Stii // May 21, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Its the same thing. There is lots of debate wether it is a good idea to call it Web3.0 or wether to call it the Semantic Web (http://stii.za.net/archives/104 and http://stii.za.net/archives/139).
16 Stii // May 21, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Dirk, lets suppose there is a microformat standard defined for accommodation establishments. Lets suppose listing sites all over the world built parsers to consume the accommodation establishment’s microformat. Now, all that the accommodation needs to do to update their information is to change it on their site, notify the listing sites where he is subscribed by means of a simple ping that their details have updated, and the details can be updated all over with minimal effort.
Our thoughts initially was that you can define within such an accommodation MF things like features as a standard. I.o.w. it will work a lot like the hReview format that allows for restaurants to be reviewed on different levels.
The problem with Microformats is the benefit lies with the establishment and the consumer (as in the site parsing the MF). The people who would eventually adopt these `cool tools` as you call them would be the establishments and their web designers. The big issue is that no one builds parsers for their sites, since it has no use currently and unless there is say a good chunk of accommodation establishments that can say with one voice “Hey, we want you to parse our microformats”, the big guys are NOT going to implement something not in use. Therefore it is imperative that we that know teach and tell those that don’t. There is really good vallue in all this. It is simply not yet adopted at all. And unless you guys can think of a better way of adopting new technologies that is kind of controversial (in that the only real beneficiary is the establishments in this case) other than by asking questions and telling people about it, we’ll keep on doing so relentlessly.
Read more what was said at the meeting here: http://stii.za.net/archives/176
17 Dirk // May 22, 2007 at 10:25 am
Aha, you have confirmed my assumptions exactly. I actually thought of the advantages that you’re talking about, just wanted confirmation :-). For instance property owners having their details on various portals and having to send update requests to all of them. I fully agree with you on that point, it would make life so much easier for them. I’ll bring up that point in my workshop… Now the question is - what is the microformat for accommodation establishments (something with descriptions of accommodation, no rooms, pricing etc etc). That’s our starting point… Eric, that should come in useful in your justin site?
18 Dirk // May 22, 2007 at 10:32 am
PS - And I’m not talking about hreview, because that just complements what I’m talking about?
19 Stii // May 22, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Dirk, I like your enthusiasm. We’re still trying to define one. There currently is not an existing one I know of. It would certainly be of great help if you could in the meeting do a quick survey of what information people would like to see/have defined. If time allows of course!
20 Dirk // May 22, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I agree, will do.
21 annette // Jun 12, 2007 at 7:18 am
It is almost a month and I only managed to write my report re the Indaba event last nite.
I am from Red Location Museum in Nelson Mandela Bay. Ever heard about us? Try the wonderful search engine! And then - do come and visit!!!
I attended the online marketing seminar and searched for more comments from other delegates. Coming across your blog is most refreshing. I specifically enjoy the input re the “cookies” guy!
‘nette
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