freeTravel247

2010 has closed. Welcome and all the best for 2011. In time for the end of 2010 I have completed another milestone here at the BOOT.

The rate per month may be slowing but another 100 posts are live on the BOOT. In my regular "not out series" recap I post a few reminders and highlights form the last 100 posts. It started with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, 701, 801 and 901 not out. Here we go....

I examined search, looked at the future of recommendations and made up a lot of new words:

• Introduced the Tastegraph via an interview with LikeCube. Also talked Tastegraph with TripAdvisor's Adam Medros;
  
• On Tnooz published five tips for launching a social media strategy;
• Discussed the future of Page rank and authority also on Tnooz (with new words like memegraph, expertgraph and genomegraph);
• Introduced some new (made up concepts) of search becoming multi-destinational and multi-destinational (more Tnooz goodness)
• Introduced the concept of the Twelevator pitch - if you cant describe your business in 140 characters then something is wrong
  

Focused on Australia I looked into:

• How Groupon took over the world and the business model hit Australia with a bang (Jump on it raised millions);
• How interesting and competitive the online vacation rental/short let marketing was getting in Australia via a conversation with the boss of Occupancy.com and estimated the size of the online vacation rentail/short let market in Australia at $450-$500mm per year.
  

Some handy tools:

• Summarised all of the TripAdvisor acquisitions in a (hopefully) useful table; and
• Posted the BOOT's guide to researching the world
  

From various conference presentations and attendences I:

• Took you through how social media "hijacked" Eyefortravel asia - in a good way;
  
• Shared some Stories from TravelTech;
  
• Presented at WebInTravel and posted two follow up stories on Tnooz (part 1, part 2); and
• Attended PhoCusWright and posted reviews and comments on Everbread, Movitas, HomeAway, SilverRail and Revinate vs TrustYou
  

Speaking of reviews, the BOOT covered another 200,000kms or so and wrote reviews of

• Air NZ economy class;
• Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy;
  
• Qantas Premium Economy
  

Ultimately I ranked Cathay Pacific as my airline of the year after a close pitched battle between the Cathay Pacific and Virgin Atlantic Herringbone seats

On the quirky front:

• I shared Best looking cappuccino in the world care of the Observatory Hotel
• Qantas killed Virgin in a on-board movie; and
  
• I wrote and published on Customer Underground my biggest post ever. 5,500 words on Dell Hell.

Three more business traveller tips were published on

• Surviving 5 star hotels
• Travelling in China; and
  
• Surviving business travel in economy class

Finally - the BOOT received mentions in

• The Guardian;
  
• USA today; and
  
• The Australian

If you are still reading, I will keep writing. All the best for 2011 - see you on the road.

Thanks to Dustin Ling for the photo of the BOOT in action at ATEC