This is a community web site, pulling local resources together to create a wide range of content in hope of appealing to a large cross-section of viewers. The site itself focuses 100% on a mountain in New Zealand that is home to two ski resorts run by the same company; Whakapapa and Turoa on Mt Ruapehu. The resorts are the largest in NZ, but relatively unknown overseas. A massive percentage of Ruapehu’s visitors are within 4 hours drive of the mountain and are what most would consider ‘regular customers’.

This being the case, it’s the perfect place to trial a new business model we’ve been working on. I won’t give away too much about it, but the model is aimed at adventure tourism communities with fairly captive audiences.

Take a look around and throw some feedback our way if you feel inclined to do so. It’s not quite 100% finished, but what web sites every are?

Also, if you’re interested in what we’re doing, get in touch and we’ll tell you a little bit more about it. Maybe you know of a similar community where this model could be applied?

the goal of Google’s travel division—aside from tapping into the $90+ billion global travel ad and sales market—is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos. Already, about 50% of travelers use some sort of online social media site to research their plans, says Torres. Why not give them a one-stop shop for travel information? “We are already so highly searched for travel,”

This news adds to the speculation that Google are doing a lot of work around ‘vertical search’, and the travel market could be one of the first industries to see the effects.

There are also concerns from travel operators and marketers that Google could to use their strong position and large resources to quickly dominate the online travel market. However, it is unlikely that Google would want to enter the market for online bookings or sales due to the sheer scale of that undertaking.

So for operators and tour companies this could be good news, but for the myriad of hotel booking portals and cheap-flight brokers maybe not so good. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth keeping track of this development.

Yesterday, I spotted this post from Darren Rowse (producing the goods again and again) reviewing a new reputation management tool called Trackur. Here’s a snippet of what Darren has to say about it:

“Trackur is an online reputation monitoring tool that has been developed for companies and individuals wanting to take a serious look at what is being said about them in the blogosphere. I can also see the possibilities for using this tool for higher end bloggers who want to track what’s being written about them and/or their niche topic.”

Whilst this may well be too heavy for many of our readers, I think you may find it interesting that such tools even exist. A much lighter alternative is Google Alerts - worth a look if you’re concerned with what’s being said about you across the all-mighty vortex of the World Wide Web.

I addressed the concern by discussing constructive feedback and by pointing out that complaints or negative comments made by customers are not always a bad thing. On the plus side, they provide the business with an opportunity to respond publicly and they often bring up concerns that the management may not have been previously aware of. David Alston, a guest on Lee Odden’s Top Rank Online Marketing blog summed up the social media complaint responding benefits (wow, that’s a mouthful) very nicely in his last post Top 10 Reasons for Monitoring Brands in Social Media.

“A complaint is an opportunity to demonstrate problem-solving abilities. A posted complaint may also draw out other comments from people with the same concern, which provides an opportunity to reach out to them as well. And who knows, impressing customers with great customer service may generate some positive posts about how you resolved the problems.”

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As enthusiastic purveyors of RSS here at Tactical Thinking, we were as keen to play our part in the initiative as kids were eager to stick plastic eyes and ears into potatoes in the 1950’s.

So why do we need an RSS awareness day? Well, as useful and powerful as RSS is, it has yet to become a mainstream technology in the big picture of global internet use. (more…)

What’s the purpose of RSS Awareness Day?

All blog writers want more readers. We all know there’s a thirst for knowledge around the world and many of us have something worth sharing, so this awareness day is simply about making the knowledge-sharing process much easier (and less time consuming). As the old proverb goes, ‘Time is money’.

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Nevertheless, I did find the time to edit this fun little movie about our trip and thought our readers here at Tactical Thinking might enjoy some ‘light-hearted’ viewing. Enjoy…

The trip was very successful. With most of the research done and new material currently being written, things are moving along nicely. Keep your eyes peeled for further mentions of this new publication from WSG Media - it’s completely under wraps for the time being though, so my lips are sealed.

Being ardent WordPress fans here (as it powers Tactical Thinking and is our recommended weblog solution), we’re very excited at this news. Since reading about the usability and interaction design work by Happy Cog I’ve been itching to see the end results.

The re-designed administration interface looks just as good as the new features sound. Features such as a customisable dashboard, built-in photo galleries and Gravatar support. To give you an idea of the emphasis on this major new release:

This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint — we’ve re-thought the look of WordPress, as well as how it’s organized so that you can forget about the software and focus on your own creative pursuits.

We’ll be giving this new version a whirl here in the next couple of days, as it’s reputedly very stable, and will post our early thoughts as we put it through its paces.

Update 26.03.2008: View a short screencast of the new WordPress in action.

While Japan is in peak-season and enjoying some great conditions he’s been touring various resorts updating reviews for the World Snowboard Guide, writing dispatches for various magazines and also finding time to research a new book.

Keith is joined on the trip by Steve Dowle of WSG Media, snowsports photographer Camilla Stoddart, and two female pro-riders from the UK - Posy Dixon and Vicci Miller. The journey has taken them from Nagano to Hokkaido, via Niigata; riding many new resorts along the way—and it sounds like they’re having a blast.

Regular updates and stunning photos are being posted on the WSG Japan 2008 blog. Beware - reading their adrenalin-fuelled dispatches is guaranteed to make you very jealous!

As a group of individuals we’ve been creating and applying web imagery for quite some time now and during the course of our web careers we’ve come across many different image resources. In fact, there are so many to choose from that this post was actually much harder to write than we first anticipated.

Gone are the days when you would send away for a stock photography CD and hope they had what you needed. Now it’s simply; ‘find a site that caters to your needs, sign up and start downloading’. What an easy life.

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