TripCart - the best place on the web to find things to do in the United States. Presents a religiously updated blog full of advice and tips for trip planning
We figured that if a website was serious enough to recommend TripCart,
they probably have other good links, so we decided to share them with
our readers.
Mashable
has written about us in the past, now they put us on a list of 100+
More Ways to Organize Your Life. Personally, we feel traveling is more exciting then organizing, but if you are going on a trip - a little organization can certainly help.
Thrillist gave us a real compliment by describing us as having an obsessive, type-A and a father figure type persona. We accept the compliment and agree that's what you need to plan a trip. And, yes, we are a group of obsessive developers and managers. Asylum concurs and has a few hints of their own.
Smart Honeymoon seems to have a different view of TripCart. I guess they have a different audience.
Finally, for the Google mashup crowd - Google Maps Mania likes us, too.
Compete.Com has published an article named "Group Travel Planning Websites: A Leader Emerging?" on January 14th, 2008. The article compares the traffic details of 8 websites in the field of "Travel Planning" including ours (i.e. TripCart) and focusing on an "Emerging" site called ImIn. We were surprised and amazed by the traffic growth of the somehow competitor of ours. How did these smart guys find the formula that we've been struggling to find?
It was not stressing for us, but rather challenging. It signaled us that we have to work even harder, and that's exactly what we did. For the past month, we've been putting more effort on driving traffic to our site through organic channels. We've been patiently waiting for Compete.Com to release their January data and when it did we've immediately compared our performance vs. the "Emerging Leader". See http://siteanalytics.compete.com/imin.com+tripcart.com/. Here's the a snapshot of their graph in a lower resolution:
I can tell you that in our case, the exact numbers are much higher, but the trend is quite the same. Unfortunately, the exact numbers of both sites is considered confidential. To summarize, I'm bound to rely on the public data at Compete.Com. It claims there, that our monthly growth on Jan was 38.3% and that we had a yearly growth of 680.8%. We can proudly say we're on the right track. let's wait and see what February brings...
Our management had decided that our site should include "good original content on the most important ski resorts in the States". In our meetings we tried to figure out what does it mean "The most important", and came to the understanding that for us (being a website) it means the one and only Google would be the judge. It came to me, that in many ways Google is "The Lord" of the internet. It decides which site would flourish and which would be forgotten. It has a set of 10 commandments of what is considered "Positive White Karma" / "Kosher" ways to promote your site in terms of SEO and on the other hand the classification of "Black hat SEO magicians". It has its secret knowledge and many seekers and followers who perform various kinds of meditations and prayers in order to collect hints on that knowledge, and predict their future. And of course the gurus and priests...
After a healthy few weeks on vacation we're back in action and one of the first things we noticed was that Google has upgraded their street views with four new cities - San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando. Click on one of the cameras to explore any of the cities currently available.
While we were doing research on our next startup venture - a website that lets you rate review sites - we came across this nifty little number where you can get ratings on different airports around the world. We guess this is useful if you want to know what to expect, but we suspect you're going to fly into JFK as opposed to LaGuardia if the tickets are $100 cheaper, regardless of the rating. The site, with a super-snazzy name, will also clue you in to what the WiFi situation is like, as well as what to expect in the lounges and whether you're likely to find somewhere to plug in your laptop.
If you live around San Francisco and you're lucky enough to have a Mac you should definitely think about downloading this nifty little widget. The BART Widget is a trip planning tool for those taking public transportation around the Bay Area. It'll let you know how long it is until your next train, and because it's self-contained it doesn't require a WiFi connection in order to work. Pretty cool.
Never sure how much that cab's going to cost you? The Taxi Fare Finder can help give you an idea of how much your next cab will run you. Just plug in an address or pick a major landmark around the city and this little mashup will give you an approximate price for your trip. It appears that at the moment the going rate from Fisherman's Wharf to the Presidio is about $15. The Taxi Fare Finder is available in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Wired has a great article about mileage runners, people who game the system by finding the cheapest possible flight with the maximum number of connections in order to gain the maximum number of miles for the least amount of money. For most of the hardcore mileage runners, the fun is simply gaming the system, it's like a very elaborate problem-solving puzzle with hints from the forums over at FlyerTalk. Head to Wired to read the full article.
BBQ sure tastes good and it's such a shame that you can't BBQ all the time, but the Grilliput will make it a little easier. This little grill claims to be the smallest on the planet, it's about a foot long and less than an inch in diameter. The Grilliput even comes with a notched groove to help you clean it off after each use. Now if they can figure out a way to make the world's smallest 6-pack to enjoy the grilled fish with.
We always love a good story about the TSA, because whatever they do seems to be moronic. Over at ZUG, John Hargrave explains his latest encounter with the TSA when he was busted trying to smuggle 12 ounces of extremely dangerous salad dressing on to a flight. Here's a taste-
Ah, yes. The "three ounces or less" rule. According to the TSA Web site,
all liquids must be in "three-ounce or smaller containers," placed in a
"single, quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag." I had a 12-ounce bottle of salad dressing, wrapped in suspicious brown paper. I felt this was close enough.
The TSA agent thought differently. "Sorry, we can't allow this on," she told me, unwrapping the bottle.
"It's
only salad dressing," I told her, hoping to get her sympathy. "For my
wife." Chicks love it when you talk about your wife. Unless they're
your second wife.
"Sorry," she said. "I'll have to confiscate it."
"I'm pretty sure it doesn't contain explosives," I said, trying to win her over. "Unless we're talking about an explosion of flavor."
It seems that whenever we travel around there's a general dearth of public bathrooms available. MizPee hopes to garner the "wizzdom" of the crowds by helping you find an appropriate place to potty. The service can be accessed by either sending your city and state in a text message to 415-350-2290 or by using your mobile phone to navigate to their website: www.mizpee.com - just give them your whereabouts and they'll help you find a place to make a wee: "MizPee finds the closest, cleanest toilet and gives you entertaining reading material once you get there. Since the service is cell phone-based, it's always with you, when you really need it." Awesome.
The T-List was started a while back as a way to aggregate all of the travel blogs out there (and to help boost their presence). This list is probably the best run-down you will find for travel related blogs, some of these focus on the travel industry, others on hotels, and still others are just blogs about traveling in general. This should keep you busy for a few days-
After you rent a car, you throw on the bluetooth headset, plug in the iPod and hit the road. But driving is so boring, it would be so much more entertaining if you could surf the web while you were driving instead of having to stare at the stupid road the whole time. Avis has decided to bring the internet to the road with their new service that started a few weeks ago in San Francisco, Oakland and LA and is set to spread to Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, New York and Seattle by the end of the year. The Avis Connect service costs $11 a day and will be available until enough people crash their rental cars trying to merge between lanes and look at porn at the same time.
Google's at it again, they've just made a major upgrade to their Google Map software for San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver. Now there's a nifty new feature called "Street View" which lets you get a pretty sweet 360-view of the area. This is a good way to kill an hour. Below is a moderately goofy video explaining how the street view works.
You know when you get all psyched to buy a plane ticket and then you get stuck on hold for 20 minutes before some nice man from India helps you? Well, Bringo aims to save you that time you waste on hold by calling the airline for you and then calling you as soon as you're finally connected to a real live person. Here's how it works-
Find the company you'd like to call by category (credit cards, mortgages, loans, health care)
Enter your phone # (we will never disclose your phone number to anyone, not even your mother!).
Wait a few seconds while we navigate the phone tree.
When we call you back, pick up your phone and you're done. No more phone trees.
Sounds pretty cool to us, currently they have 25 airlines and 14 hotels they can call for you.
We are going to be changing our look in the next few weeks and we want your advice. Please click on one of the logos above so we'll know which one you hate and which one you love. If you have any comments for us we'd love to hear them.
New York City taxis are getting an upgrade. Soon all 13,000 yellow cabs in NYC will be equipped with PIM's (Personal Information Monitors). The machines will show local information, entertainment, the taxi's current location and advertising, it will also accept credit cards. For some reason, the machine runs an astounding $7,400 and there are rumors of a possible strike. The Taxi & Limousine Commission says the system is better for everyone because it will allow for cashless transactions. Expect to see these systems in yellow cabs throughout the city by the end of the summer.
As we're sure you're aware, airlines aren't getting any better about mishandling bags. Add to that the fact that the number of people flying should double by 2010 and you can pretty much assume something you own will get misplaced sometime in the near future. FlyLite is a new service that ships you your clothes so you don't have to pack, wash or check them in at the airport. They claim this will save you about 3 hours per trip. Initially you ship your things to one of their warehouses in Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Washington - then they send them to the concierge of your hotel before you arrive, when you leave FlyLite picks your stuff up, dry-cleans it and stores it away until your next trip. The service runs a $100 for each delivery and requires a 12-hour heads-up. They plan to have over a dozen locations by the end of the year.
We've been waiting ages to annoy the hell out of you by talking incessantly through a whole flight as loud as possible on our cell phones. But as of yet, it still hasn't come to pass and there are 3 reasons why: the airlines, the cell phone companies and the government. Officially cell phones are banned for two main reasons; because they could mess with the planes' electronics or because they could mess with cell towers on the ground. Even though the potential problems stemming from cell phones could be tested the FAA and FCC have refused to come up with any definitive answers over the past 20 years.
Airlines want the ban because they don't want to deal with aggravated flyers who are tired of hearing phones ring or loud conversations. They also don't want passengers to be able to communicate with the ground in case of a terror attack or plane crash.
Cell phone carriers want the ban so they don't have to upgrade their towers to communicate more effectively with flyers in the air.
The Man refuses to allow cell phone use on planes out of incompetence and a lack of accountability - no official from the FAA or the FCC wants to be the guy who said cell phones were OK and then have a plane go down.
In the end, all of this posturing is absurd - about 2 million people a day fly in the U.S., if just 1 in 1000 people forget to turn off their cell phones then there are still over 2000 instances everyday of cell phones being on during flights and yet no crash has ever been determined to have been caused by a wayward cell phone. The ban will most likely stay in place for the foreseeable future as it cheaper and more convenient for all parties involved, save the passengers.
HotelChatter has recently released their annual report on the state of WiFi in hotels around the country and the consensus is that it's getting worse. It appears WiFi access, especially free WiFi access, is as inconsistent as ever - sometimes you have it in the lobby but not in your room, sometimes you have to be a part of the hotel's loyalty program to plug in, sometimes you just have to pay 10 bucks a day. HotelChatter did find a few hotels worth praising though-
Andre Balazs Properties - these chic hotels will give you some of the best WiFi around after you get a code from the good people at the front desk
Jeff Klein Hotels - they have only two locations, LA and NYC, but both offer great fast and free wireless connections
JDV Hospitality - they operate 25 hotels throughout California that will let you logon without a password or a fee, painless WiFi at its best but sadly available only in the Golden State
Omni Hotels - it's free in the lobby, free in your room if you become a "Select Guest" and 10 bucks a day otherwise
Holiday Inn Express - consistently good WiFi year in and year out
New Mexico done went and got themselves a sense of humor and their new tourism advertisements playing up their association with Area 51 are pretty hilarious. Unfortunately we couldn't embed the video of their ads here but hop on over to their New Mexico, Earth web site and check out their new ad campaign.
Bank of America is using our nation's finest museums to lure you into banking with them and it's not a bad deal. If you happen to be a Bank of America customer you and a friend will receive free admission into one of more than 95 museums across the US. The program is in its 10th year and celebrates the National Museum Month of May. You can check their goofy flash site for available museums in New York, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont.
Flexpetz just recently launched in Southern California and is set to spread all over the country in the coming months. The idea is that some of us want canine companionship but don't have lifestyles accommodating to ownership because of travel, living arrangements, etc. With Flexpetz you can rent a dog for just a few hours or for up to a week at a time. Most of their dogs are rescues, they've all gone through a full training program and they live in a cage-free environment. Expect to pony up $40 a month for membership plus a daily fee for your pooch of choice. Soon Flexpetz will be cropping up all over the country including three locations in New York and also locations in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix, and Washington D.C. So the next time you're away on business you can rent out Fido to keep you happy.
The AIA has been going all out this year to celebrate their 150th anniversary, we told you about their new website a few weeks ago. Now they've gotten together with Google Earth and rendered the top 150 architectural wonders in 3D using Google's Sketchup program. You can download the KML feed here so that they all pop-up in your Google Earth.
Hate the annoying hassle of reading when you're on vacation? Wouldn't you rather just listen? Well, AudioSnacks aims to give travelers all of the info they need via a handy podcast. By the looks of it they're still in the preliminary stages of filling out the number of tours available but if your headed to one of the more popular vacation destinations in the US, you might just find what you're looking for - if not, you could always submit your own. It looks like the podcasts range in price from free to about $12.
In an effort to woo more business travelers as well as move into the 21st century, Marriott Hotels and Resorts has started to upgrade their rooms (Warning: Plays music without asking). They are now becoming "ultra-adaptable," your "room is now fully compatible with the way you work and play. Just check in, then plug-in and watch as the room adapts to your needs." It doesn't look like things are quite that modular but their new 32" widescreen LCDs do make life a little easier. A wall mount allows you to easily plug-in up to four appliances including your digital camera, PSP, iPod and laptop. This is definitely a move in the right direction that hopefully other hotels will be following in the near future. Let us know if they throw in free WiFi.
Looking for an interesting way to figure out where to eat lunch? This silly little website, takes data from Yahoo Local and throws it on to a roulette wheel. Type in a zip code and some other info (like "Chinese" or "Cheap"), give the wheel a spin, and it'll find somewhere different for you to eat. Let us know if it works on mobiles.
Everybody likes airbags, you can throw your trash in them, you can puke in them, some of them you can even use to keep score while you play gin-rummy. If you're into air bags, and want to see some examples of airlines from around the world, head over to bagophily.com - they have a gallery of air sickness bags from U.S. and international carriers, including a section of their personal favorites.
