Archive: 2011 November

In a previous roundup we wrote that if you were planning on traveling for the holidays, your friends on Facebook likely knew where you were headed. Thanks to Facebook’s Open Graph, users are now going beyond simple “likes” with “hire,” “book,” “stay,” and other relevant actions for planning travel. As Tnooz’s Kevin May points out, almost all trip planning sites have integrated the sharing elements of social media. But travel sites – especially those that have just launched – might soon face competitive pressure from Facebook, the very site that...

In my last blog post I discussed some common traits of innovators and opportunities for innovation in travel. This week, as we head into the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit, I want to look at the other side of innovation – what’s holding it back. I’ll examine some of the common inhibitors of innovation and, conversely, how to truly commit to innovation. In is his iconic book “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Christensen captures one of the most common inhibitors to innovation: the existing business.  A current business model is often threatened by...

Last Friday, Groupon joined the public markets with a $700 million initial public offering, the largest for a U.S. Internet company since Google’s in 2004. Initially priced at $20, share price surged to a high of $31 before closing the day at $26.11. The much hyped IPO was met with varied reactions in the media, ranging from enthusiasm to skepticism. A number of media outlets viewed the success of the IPO as an indicator of more good things to come for tech startups, especially as big ticket companies such as Zynga and Facebook get closer to entering the markets....

I recently read a piece by Chip Bayers that has had me thinking ever since. The author discussed the difficulty of trying to create a brand for the next generation of the Internet. I couldn’t agree more with the author’s assertion that Web 2.0 is “dead” and that the future will involve a shift toward a completely personalized and real-time transactional experience. The data-driven ‘Net is here, but the overall industry has not yet fully evolved to leverage the capabilities of big data, statistical modeling and semantic science to help consumers navigate the Web...

Today’s an exciting day for the daily deal industry.  This morning, Andrew Mason rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq Stock Market and Groupon officially became a publicly-traded company. In just a few short years daily deals have transformed commerce and the concept of coupons as we know them. While there has been criticism of daily deals (mainly questioning  merchant  ROI), Groupon’s $700M IPO shows there are plenty of believers in the future of the offers space. It is within this context that a new infographic from BuySellAds is especially interesting. As posted...

One of this country’s greatest strengths has always been technological innovation, and that’s why we at Deem are so honored to be a finalist in a coveted travel industry award for innovation. The 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit will honor global companies innovating to forever change travel planning, purchasing and memorializing. We will be competing on November 15th with 29 other companies for the DEMO Award for the Most Game-Changing Travel Innovation. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be contributing a series of posts exploring innovation. Today I want to...