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Monday, July 28th, 2008

Travelling Blind

Matt MacGillivray
Software Architect

Planning a vacation, and taking a vacation are very different things.

In June, we planned a vacation around a trip to Alberta for a friends wedding.  She was to get married in Okotoks Alberta, a small town I have never heard of just south of Calgary.  After much debate, we decided to fly instead of drive because it gave us more time to spend in and around Alberta.  Montana and the Dakotas, I will visit you yet.

The planning began.  After pre-planning the roadtrip, a 4 day visit to Waterton Lakes National Park was a must - first 4 days accounted for, pack the tent.  Next 2 days would be in Okotoks for the wedding, where we would splurge for a nice B&B to cleanup and enjoy the small town of Okotoks - next 2 nights accounted for at the Harmony House B&B.  We decided to leave the next 2 nights open… we have a friend in Banff that we could visit, a friend mentioned visiting Gopher Hole Museum (???), or we might decide to stay in Okotoks.  We’ll wing it.

Planning complete.  We used PlanetEye, Google for location research, Hotwire for airport hotels and a rental car, and iTravel2000.com for flights.  Done.

The trip begins..

I’m worried about the charter we booked - Sunwing, the price was too good to be true.  It ends up being the best flight I’ve had.. ever?  Sunwing had friendly staff, decent free food with a vegetarian option and complimentary wine.

We get a free upgrade from Avis, and StayBridge Suites Holiday Inn, (both booked through Hotwire).  So far so good.

We head south to Waterton Lakes National Park, stopping at Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump along the way.  After 4 days of camping at the Crandell campground, my mind was clear.

Crandell Campground in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Crandell Campground in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Day 5, driving to Okotoks, looking forward to an old farm town, and some mom-and-pop restaurants on ‘Main Street’ that go fit in with the old style B&B we booked.  As we roll into town, I see a different town than I was expecting - Boston Pizza, Starbucks, Walmart, Smitty’s, new subdivisions, 4 lane streets.  We check the map, yes, this is it.

Huh.  I pictured something small, with a little town atmosphere, but I had only imagined this because of the B&B picture.  I had no other photographs of the city to base it on.  We travelled blind.  We had no context.  Local photos would have really cleared this up.

Photos are the key.  This is what I was missing.  When planning travel, reviews of places can go either way, but what I really needed was something visual.  Photographs.  With a few pictures, I would have understood the town immediately and not been so surprised.

Blind travel no more.  Photos speak louder than words.

You can see parts of the rest of my trip in my Alberta Travel Pack.

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

PlanetEye Selected As Company to Watch

Mark Evans
Director, Community

PlanetEye is excited about its selection as one of Canada’s “10 Web 2.0 Companies to Watch” by IDC Canada.

“Being recognized by IDC as one of Canada’s leading online companies is terrific news,” said Butch Langlois, PlanetEye’s president and chief executive. “It’s another important confirmation of our online travel planning service and the exciting features we have launched such as the Travel Pack, which lets people collect and organize the photographs and places they discover on PlanetEye.”

IDC made its selections after considering a wide variety of companies it monitors that offer Web 2.0/social networking services. The selection process was based on criteria such as clarity of vision, development of a partner ecosystem, strength of customer/user base, prospects for growth, and the overall market trajectory.

The other companies selected by IDC were AdHack, dthree Inc., Octopz, Overlay.TV, Ramius, SceneCaster, Standout Jobs, Tomoye and Tungle. 

Friday, July 18th, 2008

The Friday Photo: Lago Argentino

Mark Evans
Director, Community

A few weeks ago, we launched a new feature called “The Friday Photo” in which we put the spotlight on a stunning travel photograph. Unfortunately, “The Friday Photo” disappeared for a couple of Fridays as we prepared for the official launch of PlanetEye, which happened on July 10.

The launch went well, and although things are still pretty busy, “The Friday Photo” is back!

This week’s photograph was taken by Carlos Diaz, who takes breath-taking photographs throughout South America. The photo below is of Lago Argentino, a freshwater lake located in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, Argentina. It is the largest lake in Argentina, located in Los Glaciares National Park.

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Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Completed: Project Local Expert

Mark Evans
Director, Community

One of the key pillars of PlanetEye is providing travelers with information and insight that they don’t usually get from a traditional guide book - be it great content, compelling photographs, or useful maps that put everything into context.

An important element is our Local Experts, who provide on-the-ground insight on what to do, eat and see, and where to stay in destinations around the world. Since our launch last week, it has been great to see new PlanetEye members get really excited about discovering our Local Experts.

One blogger, Felipe Coimbra, even wrote that our Local Experts are “in my opinion, the most valuable piece of information from PlanetEye….”

The process to build a team of Local Experts in 50 cities around the world has taken quite a bit of time as we focusing on getting people who were not only good writers but, as important, passionate about where they live and excited about sharing their insights with fellow travelers.

I’m pleased to announce we have filled the last holes by finding really good people to write for us in Budapest, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Prague and Mexico City. In some ways, it feels like completing a marathon but it also feels like the beginning of a new journey.

While we have no freelance Local Expert positions open right now, you can complete an application if you would like to be considered in the future.

Here’s a map that shows where are Local Experts are located around the world.


View Larger Map

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Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Movin’ On Up

Mark Evans
Director, Community

Planeteye Logo-7
Nothing like packing two big events nearly back-to-back.

First, we officially launched PlanetEye last week after a lot of hard work behind the scenes. Today, we’ve moved into a new, larger office about a five minute walk from our old place in downtown Toronto.

Aside from giving us more space, the new place now means all of PlanetEye’s employees are together. Before, we had our hard-working interns located in another office down the hall, while the rest of us crammed ourselves into an office that a diplomatic real estate would describe as “cozy”.

As well, we’ve now got a conference room. At the old place, the conference room was a 6′ x 10′ room that doubled as a kitchen and lunch room, which meant everyone had to make a mad dash for water before a conference call or meeting started.

If the new office has a theme song, it would definitely be The Jefferson’s “Movin’ On Up”.

While the office isn’t a “dee-luxe apartment in the sky” (we’re on the fifth floor), it does have a really good vibe. It feels like the right move at the right time. It feels like home already.

Here’s a photo of our new digs:

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Friday, July 11th, 2008

Thanks for the Coverage!

Mark Evans
Director, Community

As we prepared for the official launch of PlanetEye, we were hoping to get a positive reception. After all, there’s nothing worse than getting yourself dressed up for a party but have no one show up.

Fortunately, lots of people showed up for PlanetEye’s coming out party. We got some terrific coverage from blogs such as StartupNorth, Mashable, VentureBeat, Geek Sugar and ReadWriteWeb. The Twitter-sphere was chock-a-block with chatter about PlanetEye. And there was some really nice e-mails from friends and family.

All in all, it was a great day that, in many cases, set the tone for what will be an exciting ‘08 as we continue to introduce new features, more content and great partners.

Here’s a couple graphics of our official launch day (aka OLD) from Techmeme.com, which tracks the major news in the high-tech world, and Summize.com, a search engine for Twitter conversations.

Picture 5-4

Picture 6-5

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Thursday, July 10th, 2008

The New and Improved PlanetEye

Mark Evans
Director, Community

Planeteye Logo-5
Since I joined PlanetEye a year ago, it has been fascinating to watch how the company has evolved, taken new and exciting directions, and started to establish itself as a vibrant player in the online travel planning market.

In the process, PlanetEye has gone from a ultra-private beta involving friends and family to a private beta to a public beta. Today, we’re excited to announce the official launch of PlanetEye as a one-stop destination for all your travel planning needs.

The centerpiece of the launch is a feature called the Travel Pack, which lets travelers “clip” the interesting photographs, attractions, hotels and restaurants discovered on PlanetEye when they are planning a trip or simply putting together travel ideas. Everything on PlanetEye is geotagged, which means you can see everything on a map, and even create your own personalized maps.

What’s great about the Travel Pack is the more you add to it, the better feel you get for your trip because you can easily and quickly get a sense of where everything is located. It means, for example, that if you select a number of restaurants and attractions in the same area, it’s a snap to book a nearby hotel where you can walk to everything.

Another positive development is PlanetEye has entered into an affiliate agreement with Travelocity.com so you can book your hotels (airline flights and car rentals will be also be available soon) on PlanetEye. We’ve also got partnerships so you can make restaurant reservations (OpenTable), buy tickets to events and attractions (StubHub) and book a spa appointment (WaySpa) - all on PlanetEye.

PlanetEye also features extensive travel content. We now have “Local Experts” in 50 cities around the world providing a local’s perspective on what to do and eat, and where to stay. We’re also aggregating a growing number of professional sources, which you can use to seed your Travel Pack.

This is just the beginning as we’ll be introducing more features and partnerships in the coming months!

Our excitement has been building over the past month as our CEO, Butch Langlois, has given analysts, journalists and bloggers a sneak-peak of what we’ve been working on.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, had a encouraging words:

“PlanetEye pulls together advanced social networking elements, contextual mapping, and professional travel information to create the most advanced travel planning tool I have ever seen. If you are planning a trip or simply want to imagine one, PlanetEye is the first place you should go.”

So far, it has been a great adventure to watch PlanetEye develop into a valuable and useful travel planning service. A tremendous amount work has happened behind the scenes to make it all happen, and today’s launch is just the beginning of good times to come.

More: Thanks to VentureBeat and Mashable for covering our launch.

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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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