PlanetEye

Travel Beyond Words

May 29th, 2008

Chumby Contest Winner!

karen
Marketing Coordinator

I had a great time attending mesh last week. There were some great sessions, and I got a valuable lesson in how ClubPengiun works!

People always ask me what it’s like working in tech with a bunch of programmers. There is an unjust bias out there that says that technologically savvy people are not creative. I have always found them to be incredibly creative. Programming means taking a blank slate and making something magically appear, what’s more creative than that? My theory was proven correct at MESH. In a room full of highly technical people, I heard amazing stories told by very creative minds.

Thanks mesh!

And now to the part that makes Marketing so glamourous: Giving things away!

We held a MESH draw for a Chumby. The person who won was Chris Taggart from Ottawa. Congratulations! and thanks to all who entered.

May 22nd, 2008

The Nuances of Discovery

Mark Evans
Director, Community

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This a guest post by Matt MacGillivray, our lead developer:

I attended the “Does Location Matter” panel, hosted by Nora Young with special guest Bill Buxton at mesh on Tuesday. It was a different discussion than I was expecting, but in a good way. While the conversation focused on the concept of ‘telepresence‘ , it was an interesting usability discussion.

At the heart of the conversation, Bill, a usability researcher, drove home the idea of building systems that adhere to existing social protocols. What does this mean? Let’s try to understand this by way of an example Bill used.

If I wanted to speak to someone who was already having a conversation, I would approach them in a way that they could see me in their periphery. I would generally wait for a visual cue that would indicate whether they wanted to engage in a conversation, wait or to come back later.

Within the online world, we have chatting and video conferencing. When a conversation is initiated, a high contrast window generally appears on your desktop immediately. Imagine someone putting their face 6″ from yours, while waiting to engage in a conversation. It’s very distracting, and doesn’t allow you to easily ignore, acknowledge or reschedule a conversation.

Does it make sense to ignore the social protocols that have already been established? Is it easier for users to understand, or interact with a particular application if it extends or builds on existing social nuances?

What nuances exist within the discovery, planning and taking of a trip? How can we leverage these nuances to make the experience more compelling?

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.

May 12th, 2008

Where 2.0

Juan Gonzalez
Vice President, Technology

Where 2.0 ConferenceFor the next three days, companies working in the location industry are getting together in Burlingame, Ca. for the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference.

The location industry includes everyone creating, aggregating, analyzing, mapping and searching geographic data. While maps are perhaps the ultimate graphic interface for the Web, most users will only get to know a handful of them. But the ecosystem of companies required to make them happen is vast.

To create a valuable online travel planning service, PlanetEye has contributed to the field by advancing geocoding techniques, aggregating unstructured geodata, fast retrieval and analysis and a superb set of tools for visualizing the data.

In the process, we have discovered that this space has learned important lessons about openness, creating platforms instead of products, services instead of Web sites and, ultimately, fostering a new generation of tools that will propel location-aware services to the forefront of consumers’ minds.

While the full conference schedule is available online, here are some of the talks I’ll be attending:

Of course, you can expect many of these to influence how PlanetEye evolves to integrate the latest technologies in the field.

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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May 7th, 2008

Our Canon Rebel XTi Contest

karen
Marketing Coordinator

We are very excited to announce that for the month of May, anyone who signs up for our site is entered into a draw for a Canon Digital Rebel XTi Camera!

What’s more, is once you are a member, anyone who uses the new “Invite” button (located in the top-right corner of the homepage.) Is also entered into the contest. Click here to sign up or log in, and start inviting!

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.

April 30th, 2008

Follow Our Global Nomad

Mark Evans
Director, Community

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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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April 25th, 2008

Who Wants to Make a Deal?

Mark Evans
Director, Community

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The deals are coming fast and furious in the online travel market these days.

The latest transaction is CondeNet acquiring SFO Media, which owns two travel blogs: Jaunted, a “pop culture” travel guide, and HotelChatter, which provides hotel reviews.

The move into the blogosphere will provide CondeNet’s online business, Concierge.com, with not only great quality content but some serious traffic as Jaunted and HotelChatter had about 875,000 unique visitors combined last month.

“HotelChatter.com and Jaunted.com each have strong voices in the travel world, attracting a large community of passionate travelers,” said CondeNet president Sarah Chubb. “This deal increases our travel footprint and adds to our portfolio a group of sites for advertisers who target an active, passionate, and upscale consumer.”

The acquisition comes on the heels of Microsoft buying Farecast.com, which provides information about airline fares, for $115-million last week, and TripIt raising $5.1-million in venture capital.

For more coverage of the CondeNet-SFO deal, check out TechCrunch.

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April 18th, 2008

Microsoft Flies Away with Farecast

Mark Evans
Director, Community

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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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