Posts Tagged ‘flickr’
4.1: when dorks come to play »
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
If you’re connected to the interwebs (via USB, dial-up or bio-microchip), you’ve likely seen the geektastic offerings for this first of April. I could do the same, but that it’s snowing is joke enough for me.
Instead, here’s a rundown of a few choice celebratory items:
- Google puts Gmail on autopilot
For some reason the dorks at Goog go nuts for 4.1 and this is no different. It comes with entertaining copy and is a funny idea. The bit under “match your personal style” is top notch. (Bravo Goog-ites.) - Woot makes a vague statement about consumerism (maybe)
I like the idea of this more than I like it. (If you no what I mean.*) - And then they fail miserably with CADIE
What in the hell are you thinking? I couldn’t tell you because I can’t make it two paragraphs in without my neurons collapsing at the side of the track vomiting blood. - Identi.ca acquires Twitter
In a too-many-won’t-care move, Control Yourself reports their micro-blogging platform has purchased Twitter. The quote from “unnamed exec” at the end is priceless. (Literally?) - Reddit looks like Digg
And the three of you laugh… and laugh… and laugh… - “It’s like Flickr but for your nose.”
For those that double over in laughter at the dorkness of irony or over-the-top boring, this is for you. The fragrances and “icons” shown are obscure to 98% of the population. (The joke of the frangrance/icon combonations make that about 99.27%.) - Kodak releases eyeCamera 4.1
Kodak still makes cameras? - Flights to Mars from Expedia
The idea is… ish but the math is hilarious. Parts of the rest of the copy are entertaining too. (More than I can say for CADIE, that bastard panda.) - Finally a search engine built exclusively for Fox News anchors and viewers
“Tired of being inundated with the contradictory and offensive beliefs of others? Today, the scientists at Yahoo! are releasing a groundbreaking new search filter…” (Priceless.) - Top Gear comes to Hulu
This one is so close to my heart it actually feels like a vice grip on my aorta. (Lift my spirits and then crush them like so many PBR cans.)
There are many more examples of nerds making barely-known references to arcane at TechCrunch. (They’re updating their list as more come in, unlike me.) Enjoy.
* You don’t. Because it doesn’t make any sense.
open letter: tourism bureaus »
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
I know what you’re thinking: Another open letter? Really? Yes. Really. I had a couple conversations this morning along these lines.
Dear Most of You,
There you are. You’re the be-all, end-all for your destination. You’re where people turn to book their trips, learn about your locale and plan their travel. Except for one thing: you’re not.
Don’t get me wrong, your sites are pretty, filled to brimming with helpful. Some find a lot of value in that but more find value in TripAdvisor (and ilk) with hands-on visitor feedback. Many travelers are going to Travelocity, Priceline, etc. to book their trips.
You’re letting your expertise be siphoned off. There are thousands of sites more specifically pertinent and millions of travelers looking for more.
We’re in an age of conversation, not broadcast. If you’re not talking with us you’re talking at us. We’re ignoring you. Your audience will dwindle as more become internet-savvy.
How large is your staff? 20? 40? 200? Even a small destination’s site could have hundreds of visitors per month. Put them to use; who doesn’t like talking about their travel?
Use Twitter, Facebook, etc. to relay useful tips and articles about your destination to followers. Ask visitors where they like to shop, eat and be entertained. Allow for comments and discussions.
Soon, creating a blog, loading Flickr images and sending tweets to both won’t be enough.
There are political obstacles. Keep your booking engines and link exchanges. If you’re funded through membership, even partially, have your users to mention your name when out and about. (Deals? Incentives?)
Your voice, while important, is not what travelers want to hear. They want to hear the voices of others or to be able to share theirs. Facilitate that conversation, adding your wisdom where appropriate, and your credibility will rise.
Or, you could keep on keepin’ on. You’ll weather the downturn only to be overshadowed. With so many free or cheap options out there to increase your status as a premium source of information, it’s on you.
Good luck.
Draynd
Sidenote: How many of you knew tourism bureaus existed or that you could book travel through many of them? Yeah… exactly my point.
OZ fest, ’09 »
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
Well… I’m back. Unfortunately. The snaps are in the usual place and I have some up on Flickr too. I’m groggy, ill-tempered and hating being at work right now. More on that in a minute. First, some finer points from the land down under, in no particular order. (Gets a bit long but I try to be brief.)
- Flight there… was great. It had all the amenities of home. (As long as you live in a small-seated movie theater with too-few-for-the-crowd portable toilets with used diapers and pools of urine.)
- Convenience stores… are surprisingly common. (Three within two blocks of where we stayed.) This may be because, despite being a massive metropolis, interweb is hard to come by. Most shops had computer kiosks for pay-per-minute use. (Culture shock!)
- Weather… was decent. It was cloudy the first few days but became sunny and hot the rest. Up to nearly 40°C (104°F) actually. (Honestly, down right uncomfortable.)
- Opera House and Harbour Bridge… are gorgeous. The House is oddly yellow but still stunning. We walked along the bridge and that was… um… exhausting. (Gorgeous views, though.)
- Sydney Tower… is nice. The views aren’t spectacular in the scenic tourist sense but they’re great nonetheless. They force you into a nauseating simulation ride afterward, touring the various parts of Australia via giant screen and hilariously bad effects, so that’s ridiculous.
- Tangora Zoo… is pretty standard. If it weren’t for the views of the harbor from a bunch of places, it’d be sort of mediocre. Tons of local animals and cool others but nothing super extraordinary.
- Sydney Aquarium… is unreal. Most of the animals are staples but they have two tanks that make it tops on my list. Both have tunnels that look into the tanks, allowing fish to swim over them. One held dugongs (hideous, endangered beasts of disgusting). The other was a sweet shark tank with manta rays, sea turtles and varied sharks and other fish. (Twas awesome.)
- Arena television… is tremendously vacuous. It’s branded the same as Bravo but has a strange mix of too much American television. (Reba, Ellen, Sex and the City, etc.) It also has a show where people are brought on and then vote off the ugliest existing cast member. (This, I imagine, goes on perpetually or until there’s a suicide.)
- Liquor pricing… is absurd. A liter of Bacardi cost almost $AU60 (≈ $38) or close to twice what it’d cost here. Also, the anti-binge-drinking ads are rough. Here’s one. (PDF)
- Obesity… is epidemic. I thought my sister was lying when she said Aussies passed us on the scale last year but it’s true. It’s probably because they’ve started to drive everywhere, watch more television and are more sedentary. (Glad that never happened in the US.)
- Oz-let… is my name for a bizarre hairstyle too many men have. In various forms, it’s basically a mullet with spikes and cropped, matted-down “bangs.” (Horrid, yet popular. Trying to understand it makes my eyes faint.) Some even buzz most their head, leaving just the partying-hard rear hair flap.
- Public transit… is fairly reliable (if not on time). But for one point where a bus, labeled as the one we wanted, took us through a couple neighborhoods west of where we wanted. The buses run on natural gas. So that’s… um… something.
- Bondi Beach, Coogee Beach… are great beaches with a path between that has more beaches and great views. Both are probably packed on weekends but we caught them on Wednesday. (Aside: Australia goes by the “topless optional” standard. Which, I assume, is one of many reasons they’re such a violent, war-hungry people, spreading their way of life across the globe through force.)
- “O’Shea”… is what I’ve named a pint of Kilkenny, topped off with a splash of Guinness. (Bonus: it was a screw up at the bar so it was free on top of being better than a standard Kilkenny.)
- Darling Harbour… is good times. It’s full of restaurants and attractions (Aquarium).
- Blue Mountains… are blue because of evaporating eucalyptus oil reflecting certain light frequencies. There are so many trees. Unbelievable really. I’d tell you how far we hiked but we’re stubbornly holding onto our useless in/ft/yd/mi system so even I don’t know.
- The Rocks… is a cool neighborhood under the Bridge. The buildings and feel seem from a different time. Because they are, probably.
- Kangaroo… is great for the environment, good for you and has a… livery? texture. Not bad but nothing I’m going to import. May be better in a steak or as a burger but the sausages went well enough with eggs and cheese.
- Flight back… was excruciating. Between 1p and 8p Saturday, we were on a plane or in an airport for twenty-five hours. We landed in LAX six hours before we left. That’s basically time travel and is havoc on the slumber system. (Still, it was better than the return from Cabo.)
All in all, there was a lot of flying, a lot of walking, a lot of fun and a lot of flying. Big thanks to the parents for their generous financial donation that made it possible. And thanks to our hosts (including my new self-appointed BFF) who tolerated double occupancy without complaint (to me).
As you may suspect after that last point, I’m exhausted and my nocturnals are tweaked. I slept eleven hours yesterday, waking at noon. Then I was awake until two-thirty before a short nap and back up again for an hour or so. Apparently, this is jet-lag.
friday free for all »
Friday, November 28th, 2008
… Yesterday, after a fairly substantial lunch, I had a substantial dinner. I am now very much wallowing in my own glut.
… This morning, somewhere in New York, a thirty-four year old man was trampled to death outside a Wal-Mart (some photos). Fucking bullshit. Everyone says I need to be more positive. Fuck that.
If a mob of assholes can kill someone and continue to walk past, blindly trying to find discounts on severely discounted items, I can think the world’s going to shit. I think I’m more than justified. Prove me wrong.
… There were terrorist attacks on India. Major networks couldn’t get their inflated heads out of their ample asses. Instead (to give the impression they knew what they were doing) they started using an unknown man’s photos that they’d seen on blogs.
Vinu Ranganathan’s photos are intense. This is a positive moment for “citizen journalism” after a series of hilarious missteps. (Steve Jobs had a heart attack? Where’s my iPhone? Must. Tell. Everyone.) He has become overnight famous, in the right place at the wrong time.
If our media insists on reporting uninteresting nothing, emphasizing monuments and waiting for intriguing, trite human interest stories to react, we’ll need more like Vinu. We need perspective and context but the media ignores that too, so knee-jerk, quick response images and tweets will have to do.