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Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Kudos for the Global Nomad

Mark Evans
Director, Community

One of the PlanetEye’s most exciting features is the Global Nomad blog written by Brendan Powell, who is spending a year traveling around the world with his girlfriend.

Vagablogging, one of the leading travel blogs, was kind enough to put the spotlight recently on the Global Nomad:

“His writing is revealing and fun, and he’s good with photos. A must check out!”

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Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

PlanetEye on commandN

Mark Evans
Director, Community

Given all the work going on behind the scenes here at PlanetEye, it’s really gratifying to get some media attention.

commandN’s Amber MacArthur recently interviewed our CEO, Butch Langlois, about what we’re doing and our plans to become a key player in the online travel market.

You can watch the show below - with Butch’s interview starting at the 9:06 mark.


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Friday, June 27th, 2008

The Friday Photo: El Matador Beach, California

Mark Evans
Director, Community

A pillar of PlanetEye is inspiring and beautiful travel photographs. Many of them come from PlanetEye members (you can register here), and our fast-growing Flickr group.

To put the spotlight on the terrific photographs within PlanetEye, we’re launching a new feature on the blog called “The Friday Photo”. This week’s photo comes from our Flickr group, featuring a beautiful shot of El Matador Beach taken near Trancas, California by iseemoo.

Friday Photo

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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Are You Taking a Staycation This Summer?

Mark Evans
Director, Community

With gasoline prices on the rise, many people are taking another look at their travel plans this summer.

Rather than traveling hundreds or thousands of miles, some people may be looking to travel just a few kilometers and check out the attractions and restaurants close to home. According to a survey done by Kayak.com in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of respondents plan be tourists within their home state or a three-hour drive from home.

The upside of a “staycation” is it encourages people to explore places around the corner as opposed to around the world. The iconic tourist attraction that you enthusiastically encourage visitors to see but you never actually seen yourself can be a pleasant surprise. And the best thing about being a tourist in your own city is you get to sleep in your own bed after a great day of sightseeing.

At PlanetEye, we’ve been long-time believers in the staycation (as well as farther flung adventures!) because we believe there’s no lack of hidden treasures and nice surprises wherever you are. Whether it’s a terrific restaurant the locals love or a great people-watching patio or a fun walking tour, there is always something new to discover wherever you happen to be.

Note: The term “staycation” was reportedly created by Brent Leroy, a character on a Canadian sit-com called Corner Gas. For some good tips on how to enjoy the perfect staycation, check out Hotel & Resort Insider and About.com.

More: For a look at the pros and cons of staycations, check out the Viator blog.

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Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Our Canon Rebel XTi Winner!

karen
Marketing Coordinator

Our users never cease to amaze me with how excited they are about our travel planning service. We had an absolutely fantastic response to our Canon Rebel XTi contest, and I’m proud to say it was awarded to Ben Young from Halifax!

Congratulations, Ben! We look forward to seeing your photos on PlanetEye once you’ve uploaded them!

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Thank you, Where 2.0

Juan Gonzalez
Vice President, Technology

Juan speaking at Where 2.0Thank you to the O’Reilly’s team for inviting me to speak at Where 2.0. The execution of the conference was superb and every single detail was planned in advance.

While the line-up of fellow speakers was great, I believe at these events, there is just as much value in the networking that takes place. During the conference, there were plenty of opportunities to meet new people.

At PlanetEye, there has been a long tradition of research backing up everything we do, and we wanted to share a little bit of what we’ve learned from our journey building the site.

“Crawling the web for GeoData” was a quick summary of the many techniques that we have adopted at PlanetEye to create a valuable online travel planning service. As many people commented after the talk, the core technologies that we have developed are applicable in other spaces, and we are glad to be able to contribute to the geospatial community.

As I sit down to write these lines, my voice has faded almost completely, a sign of the many valuable conversations that took place. I’m looking forward to keep them going online.

Friday, May 9th, 2008

PlanetEye maps everywhere

Juan Gonzalez
Vice President, Technology

We are so proud of the smooth integration of photography into our maps that we wanted to make sure people can take them away and publish them everywhere they want.

So, with the most recent release, we’re giving away a snippet of HTML code that you can use to embed your map into any website. The embedded map is interactive and lets users move around to discover your photos without having to visit the PlanetEye website.

For example, you can drag the map and as you do the photos at the top will be updated to include the best ranked photos in whichever area of the map is currently visible. You can also mouse over the photos and a little yellow viewfinder will hint at where that photo was taken. This feature works for your own photos or those from other people that you have collected into Travel Packs.

For the map below, I collected into a Travel Pack one photo from each city where PlanetEye has a local expert to create a cool visualization of the rich collection of our collaborators and the cities they represent. Go ahead, play with it:

Since the data is streamed from our servers, every time the embedded map is loaded elsewhere, any new photos added will automatically appear there. If for, example, you are planning a trip to France and and looking to blog about the journey, you may embed the map and as you travel, take photos and upload them to PlanetEye. This will let your readers follow your adventures through the interactive map.

These maps can be embedded in three sizes: 300×300, 425×350 and 640×480. The first one is too small to allow photos to be displayed within it, but we thought it would still be useful as a way to provide an updated map of your photos as you modify your collection.

Enjoy.

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Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Start Planning with a Travel Pack

Mark Evans
Director, Community

After a lot of hard work behind scenes, we’re excited to announce a new travel-planning feature on PlanetEye: the Travel Pack.

So, what’s a Travel Pack?

Think of it as the digital equivalent of the manila folders that many people use (particularly if you’re one of those really organized travelers!) to file travel reviews and magazine articles about destinations when they’re planning a trip or just thinking about travel ideas.

Using a Travel Pack, you can “clip” photographs on PlanetEye of all the places you may want to visit (restaurants, attractions, hotels, etc.)

Let’s say, for example, you see a photograph of the Hôtel Le Germain in downtown Toronto (A very nice boutique hotel, by the way!). If it strikes you as interesting and a place you may want to stay, you click “Add to Travel Pack” , and the hotel is added to a Travel Pack that you create.

As your Travel Pack starts to takes shape, all the “clips” that you’ve been adding will start to influence your travel choices so you can get the most out of your trip.

In the near future, we’ll be introducing some new elements to the Travel Pack that will make it even more useful and valuable so watch this space!

It goes without saying that we’re very excited about the Travel Pack and how it can help you make more insightful travel planning decisions.

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Follow Our Global Nomad

Mark Evans
Director, Community

Picture 3-14
A few months ago, I found out that Brendan Powell, a friend of brother’s, was planning an around-the-world, 10-month trip through South America, Asia and Europe.

My first reaction was envy, following by a tinge of jealousy and then some inspiration. Given Brendan’s approach to travel aligns perfectly with PlanetEye’s, it would be great to create a PlanetEye blog where he could write about his adventures and illustrate them with amazing photographs. (For the record, Brendan is a former travel guide with terrific writing and photography skills.)

This led to the creation of the Global Nomad blog, which, in my humble opinion, has become a must-read for anyone interested in travel that often falls outside what is featured in a guidebook.

Brendan’s most recent blog post on a visit to a shanty town, in Rio de Janeiro is a perfect illustration of why his insight and approach to travel is so interesting. The idea of visiting a shanty town may not appeal to every tourist but those curious enough will not be disappointed.

For more on Rocinha, check out this article from Wikipedia, as well as this photo essay by Nat Friedman.

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Friday, April 18th, 2008

Microsoft Flies Away with Farecast

Mark Evans
Director, Community

Picture-1

Microsoft has taken a bigger position within the online travel business amid news it has purchased Seattle-based Farecast for a reported $115-million.

Farecast, which has had a partnership with MSN Travel since last year, is a travel search engine that provides people with on-the-go information about airfare prices. Its investors include Madrona Venture Group, Par Capital Management and Greylock Partners.

Fore more details, check out John Cook’s Venture Blog.

Disclosure: Microsoft is an investor in PlanetEye.

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