Tag: new media

Categories
Blog Philosophy

Got a passport? I have a purpose for it….

I want to call your attention to a worthy project that four of my travel blogging colleagues are spearheading this holiday season.

Passports with Purpose seeks to raise awareness of the travel blogging community and its generosity towards the places we travel.

You might know some of the organizers:

Over coffee (in their home base of coffee-crazed Seattle, the lucky dogs!) they decided that this would be a great time of year to harness connections and make a difference.

To that end, they’ve started Passports with Purpose, a travelblogger-driven fundraiser for Heifer International, a worthy micro-funding organization that improves people’s lives worldwide.

What’s the scoop, you say?

Starting Monday, 1 December 2008, you’ll be able to buy raffle tickets to support the cause (they’re only US$10 a pop, and keep in mind that US$20 buys a flock of baby chicks to provide eggs and income to a family.)

Pam said a few days ago that the prizes are super-fab, and they’ll all be listed here starting 1 December.

We believe in in the power of travel. Help us harness it. Thank you!

Categories
Blog Texas USA

We’re talking travel blogging at South by Southwest

//sxsw.com) Well, hurray for success the second time around….

Last year, I sent in a proposal for a travel blogging panel at SXSWi (the South by Southwest Interactive tech/online media conference) here in Austin, Texas, but it was not selected.

I only pouted for about a week, really.

Always bull-headed, I tried again this year and re-submitted my proposal, since I figured that it was a good idea that deserved another try.

The conference organizers apparently agreed; I just got an email telling me that Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer is on the docket for the next SXSWi, to be held in downtown Austin March 13-17, 2009.

My outstanding co-presenter will be writer/photographer Pam Mandel —  she is the BlogHer Travel Editor, writes and takes photos on Nerd’s Eye View and corrals a lively crew of bloggers on the Travelblogger’s Forum.

There will be a gaggle of experts in the audience as well to lend their insights and advice; I hear that Condé Nast Traveler‘s Wendy Perrin may attend, and Leif Pettersen of Killing Batteries unless he’s stuck in Italy during March updating the Lonely Planet Guide to Tuscany (let’s see….Austin or Tuscany? Hmmm, tough call.)

Thanks to all who have supported this idea and left wonderfully supportive comments through two Panel Picker iterations, and I look forward to seeing all of you in person at “South by.”

Categories
Blog

Live, from New York, it’s Condé Nast Traveler!

CNTraveler Readers\' Choice AwardsYes, the annual Condé Nast Traveler 2008 Readers’ Choice Awards will be coming to you live from their big awards ceremony on the evening of October 15, because I’m going to be there to “live-tweet” the event on my Twitter stream.

That woman in evening attire at the New York Public Library XYZ swanky Manhattan venue (details to follow on ceremony location) who is supersonically typing on her laptop? That will be me.

Hopefully my Merlot and crudités won’t get dumped onto the keyboard.   🙂

I’ll be sending up-to-the-minute accounts of who won which award for hotels, cruise lines, airlines, islands and cities across the globe. I’ll tell you how the crowd is reacting, what the award winners say and any other fun tidbits that come across my radar.

Over 30,000 people vote in this survey, and I also plan to write a blog post about the woman behind the questions and the methodology used to determine the winners.  This isn’t that guy who won a fake wine award; this is a carefully vetted process with input from savvy readers.

Last year, for example, the readers of the magazine and Web site chose Sydney, Australia as their favorite city worldwide, and San Francisco as their favorite US city. Here’s some more of the 2007 list on BootsnAll’s Business Travel Logue.

I plan to do as many on-the-fly interviews as I can, with a focus on two areas:

  • The magazine is pretty upscale, and you know that’s not how I travel. How can a budget-minded person, especially with kids, take advantage of the companies and properties that are chosen as winners?  Is there room for us at the Gucci table?  I think there is, Wendy has convinced me that there is, and I’m going to find out how for you.
  • I’d like to know what the high-scoring companies are doing to establish a presence on the Web in social media. Do they blog? Are they on Twitter? Facebook?  Are their personnel on LinkedIn? How do they reach out to customers in a Web 2.0 manner?

I’m actually not the first to live-tweet for Traveler — that honor goes to my friend and fellow travel blogger Pam Mandel of Nerd’s Eye View, who did a fabulous job of live-tweeting the recent World Savers Congress (here are most of the posts that everyone tweeted to cover that event, so you can see what it looks like.)

See you in New York in October….