Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Entrepreneurship (Page 52 of 60)

RealTravel Is Real (Web 2.0) Deal

November 15, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Okay, you’re not gonna believe this, but the next company that inspired me to write a blog post I learned later is also headed by a surfer! Swear I did not plan this… Hey, what can I say? Surfers are really into travel. Ken Leeder is his name, and he’s the CEO of the most Web-too-oh-ified travel company I’ve seen so far here, RealTravel. I had a chance to chat with his director of marketing, Christina Brzica yesterday. [It’s early morning Wednesday now, the last day of the conference.] RealTravel is a pretty cool site, and a very good-looking one, too — featuring travel blogs, recommendations, trip planning, forums, search by destination or tags (activities), travel deals, and more. Realtravel

Some of you may remember that RealTravel, headquartered in Los Altos, CA, actually launched at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Conference last year. They appear to have made some nice progress since then. Christina tells me they’re now approaching 2 million page views and 200,000 unique visitors per month. “Our number of contributors [as in user-generated content] is in the tens of thousands,” she said, “and we’re now measuring blog posts in the hundreds of thousands.”

The company does all this with only seven employees, which is pretty amazing. Talk about a great example of the latest Internet-startup credo, “Get big cheap,” huh? I also learned the firm’s chairman in Michael Tanne of social search site Wink.

Christina tells me that RealTravel just announced a partnership with SideStep (scroll down to see Press Releases), which will be noticeable on SideStep’s site in a couple of months. The firm has other partners as well, including Frommer’s.

In addition, last week RealTravel introduced a recommendation tool, whereby the site “interviews” you to learn about your interests and then suggests trips you’d like.

Tags: , , , ,

Turning Tourists Into Travelers

November 15, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just heard a speaker I have to blog about: Rod Cuthbert, CEO of Viator — an Aussie surfer who gave a really great talk (easily the best so far this first day). There’s a difference between the terms “tourist” and “traveler,” said Rod, who splits his time between Bondi Beach, Sydney, and his company’s US office in San Francisco. Viatorbanner “Travelers want to experience their destination, not just visit it,” he said. “They want to understand the local culture.”

Rod’s firm (the name is Latin for traveler) was actually founded in 1995, so he’s been coming to this conference for many years. It fits — Aussies are some of the world’s biggest travelers. Viator raised an additional $6 million in Series B financing a year ago, led by Carlyle Venture Partners, with participation by Technology Venture Partners, putting the total the firm has raised at $10 million.

Rod said that most important thing when people travel is what they plan to do when they get there — destination activities — not the “mechanics” that so much of the travel industry is focused on (flights, hotel rooms, rental cars). “Teach your customers the ‘Art of Travel’,” he said, referring to the title of a book he recommends.

“Getting people hooked on travel is perfectly legal,” he said. “And true travelers will travel even when prices are high. They need to! They generate more revenue for you.” In the on-stage interview following (see photo), he talked about the “power of anticipation” and how travel sites need to appreciate this mentality of the true traveler. Viatorrodcuthbert_1

Viator is a comprehensive online resource for travelers to plan “the things you do when you get there,” featuring more than 4,500 destination activities in 450 cities in 75 countries. It helps travelers with a variety of tastes and preferences to research, plan, and book their trips. The company has 3,500 affiliates, including Priceline, Travelocity, Opodo.com, SideStep, Zuji, AirFrance.com, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Sydney and London.

Tags: , , ,

Early Notes from the Travel 2.0 Conference

November 14, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Well, the sun’s not up yet in Tinsel Town [no, I haven’t been up all night!], but I thought I’d do a quick blog post before I get to the opening session. After stopping to have lunch yesterday with PureVideo Networks in El Segundo on my way up the 405, I made it to the very crowded, gleaming Renaissance Hollywood Hotel (near the Hollywood Bowl) yesterday about 2:00 for registration at PhocusWright’s annual travel-industry confab. What a mob! Close to 900 turned out, huge lines, and the hotel was sold out weeks ago. Other press in attendance includes BusinessWeek, Reuters, USA Today, The Internet Traveler, and about 16 travel-industry press. Blog coverage? Some press may be blogging live, but I appear to be the only pure blogger listed. I would have expected more at an event that’s largely about how Web 2.0 is affecting travel. Well, I’ll try to uphold my end of things…

I see sponsors of the event include Google (14 people here), Yahoo (16), and AOL (7). Also having good representation, as one would expect, are mega travel powers American Express (24), as well as Minneota’s own Carlson Companies (5), which includes folks from Carlson Leisure Travel, Carlson Hotels, and Carlson Wagonlit Travel, whose CEO is speaking this morning.

Why so much attention focused on travel? Well, I’m learning it’s one humongous space. The event’s producers call it “the world’s largest industry,” and I see Jupiter Research just released projections that would appear to back that up. It says online travel will hit $85 billion this year, and $128 billion by 2011. That big enough for ya?

Stand by for my onsite posts. The wi-fi here appears to be good.

Tags: , ,

Michael Arrington Was a ‘Surf Bum’ in Southern California

November 3, 2006 / / 1 Comment

So says a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal: TechCrunch Site Makes Arrington a Power Broker. Hey, Mike….duuuude!!!! You’re one of us! Except you probably don’t have much time to surf these days, huh?

An excerpt from the article:

Two years ago, Mr. Arrington, a onetime lawyer and Internet executive, was living the life of a surf bum in southern California. Today, the 36-year-old has become one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. Michaelarringtonwsj Like a latter-day Henry Blodget, the onetime star Wall Street analyst who helped fuel the late 1990s dot-com frenzy, Mr. Arrington uses his TechCrunch blog to determine the destinies of new start-ups and to fan the flames of the current Internet boom.

For many Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, TechCrunch has become a must read. Internet companies mentioned on the blog often report huge increases in business after they’re featured. Others get unsolicited calls from venture capitalists who want to give them money.

How much revenue is TechCrunch currently producing? The article quotes Arrington as saying $120,000 per month.

Tags: , ,

Brightcove Is No YouTube Wannabe – It’s Bigger

October 31, 2006 / / 5 Comments

My friend Jeremy Allaire busted out of the gates again today with a story that’s all over the web about his firm Brightcove, which is not just any old startup. Jeremyallaire It’s backed by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp and America Online, among others. And it boasts a management team with senior execs from Allaire, Macromedia, ATG, Comcast, Lycos, News Corp., MediaVest, and Discovery Networks. The firm just announced the launch of its Brightcove Network, which is aimed at what it calls “video prosumers” — the ranks of which are dead certain to be growing. I know for sure that will include me, but it won’t be just us tech-savvy folks.

As background, you may recall I published an interview with Jeremy earlier this year, onsite from the PC Forum conference in San Diego. And I also chatted at dinner one night there with his PR people, who had recently secured a front-page feature on Jeremy in the Wall Street Journal. Then, this morning, my buddy Mark Druskoff shot me an email on all this Brightcove attention today (he’s the former editor of Minnesota Business magazine, now working in Texas). He also pointed out that Barry Diller will likely earn the distinction of being this year’s highest paid executive. Yes, and a good guy for Jeremy to have on his board.

Here’s the latest Brightcove news as the WSJ covered it today (subscribers only), and CNet did a piece as well. For other background, here’s a TechCrunch post just out by Marshall Kirkpatrick, and a great wrapup on what it all means from Forbes.com, entitled “AnotherTube.”

Call it the revenge of the media industry. This is about professional video, or at least semi-professional — something more polished than raw crap, anyway. Brightcove1 Let’s face it, consumer-generated video is hardly what everybody wants to spend most of their time watching on the Internet going forward! Hey, this broadband video thing is just getting going. And no firm, startup or otherwise, is better positioned than Brightcove to take advantage of what will be a very, very BIG market — all kinds of video, from professional on down to user-generated. Brightcove3 Think online video marketplace, with every angle covered…and everyone makes money. Unique concept, huh? Making money. Quick, somebody get the YouTube-Google folks on the line — they’ll want to look at this!

I think Abbey Klaassen of Ad Age gets it right today in her commentary, in which she doesn’t hold back the optimism of her employer on this news: Meet the Next Media Mogul: Jeremy Allaire.

I would not bet against her being right.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Graeme Thickins on Tech

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑