Jesse Pickard

Thoughts on technology and (off the beaten path) traveling

Floating on the Mekong river glued to Netbook and Nintendo DS

I’ve been lucky enough to do some traveling in the last month through Southeast Asia, most of which has been far off the beaten path. When you’re deep in the jungle miles away from steady electricity and proper plumbing, you really don’t expect technology to play a big part in your day. I quickly discovered how untrue this has become. I did a similar trip through South America four years ago and I was surprised to see how much technology has changed this brand of traveling in such a short period of time.

Here are some things that I’ve noticed:

1. Lonely Planet has become a joke. 90% of the content in guidebooks is useless to me. Here’s the situation I run into over and over: I see a good-looking restaurant or guest house in the guidebook, I go and come to discover that the place is double the price that is listed and/or too busy too accommodate me. I’ve also found that businesses featured in guidebooks have no incentive to keep providing great service. They’ve received a golden ticket by the likes of Lonely Planet or Frommers and they know they’ve got it made. This really didn’t happen 4 years ago (in the case of LP, at least). Instead of relying on a guidebook, I much prefer something like Travelfish.com, where user reviews exist, editorial is continuously updated and there are far more listings. If I were a traditional guidebook, I’d be spending a lot of time beefing up my website, mobile apps and online community.

2. The iPhone is the most essential travel tool out there. It’s my newspaper (NYT, NetNewsWire, Instapaper), currency converter (Converter), foreign language translator (Translator, LingoSoft Phrasebook), journal (Notes), boombox (iPod on stereo) and connection to home (Skype, Google Voice). For better or worse, I have my hands on my iPhone for hours each day, even when I’m deep in a Cambodian jungle or crammed in some tiny boat on the Mekong.

3. Once-transient travel buddies are now friends for life. On my last big trip in 2006, I’d meet people who I’d talk with for hours on a bus or in a hotel only to part ways and never see them again. Facebook changed that completely. Now any meaningful conversation ends with an exchange of names, which in a matter of hours turns into a friend request. Because of Facebook, I have real chance of maintaining and growing a relationship with someone. I consider this to be nothing short of awesome.Sure you could have exchanged emails or something four years ago, but we all know how well that usually works out.

4. Free Wi-Fi is essential and increasingly available from local businesses. Because of #1, having an Internet connection on my iPhone is required each day. I’ve gone on long walks holding my iPhone out waiting to pick up a free signal so I can get quality information. Sounds pathetic, but in places where you’re being fed misinformation by locals who want to make some cash by getting a referral fee or something, the iPhone is the only honest source of information out there. It’s interesting to see how many businesses loudly tout their free wi-fi on their signs, posters and the like.

5. Traveling alone has never been easier. The prevalence of online communities for foreigners is staggering. In every part of the world you’ll find a forum, Facebook group, or Ning site that will help you get oriented and meet fellow travelers. Sites like HostelWorld allow you to discover who is traveling on the same route as you and staying at the same hostels. On a semi-related note, The Economist just posted an interesting piece on being a foreigner. Check it out here - http://bit.ly/8AwGB9.


6. Successful guest house managers are often social media savvy. Here are some cool things I’ve seen guest houses do: 
   1. Direct their computer’s start-pages to their Facebook or Twitter page
   2. Friend me on Facebook after I check out
   3. Coax me into reviewing their business before I checkout

   4. Monitor online conversations and make improvements to their guest house based on complaints/suggestions that they find.
      
      Impressive when you consider that a lot of these places are basically shacks in the woods with no hot water and miles away from civilization.

7. Google Voice + Skype app + iPhone is a killer communication tool for a traveler. I can send and receive texts, get all my voicemails (transcribed and emailed to me), make unlimited calls l to the US for a few bucks a month, and IM to my hearts content… all from my iPhone.

8. Travelers love their Netbooks. Seriously, I can’t go 5 minutes without seeing one of these little things.

Ford gives out Fiesta hover carts on OMGPOP

While perusing the virtual good store on gaming site OMGPOP, I found a Ford Fiesta hover cart for sale. Once purchased, the item can be driven within the Hover Kart game.  It’s nice to see OMGPOP forgo banner ads and pursue more interesting monitzation strategies.

How Facebook Connect and Other Technologies Are Weaving the Social Graph Throughout the Web

Here’s a piece I wrote up a little while back that I neglected to share on this blog. It’s a tad dated, but I think the implementations below are still some of the most interesting out there.

Most of us have heard, read and experienced the phenomenon of the social graph, which can be defined as the network of personal connections through which people communicate and share information online.

When used correctly, the social graph is an immensely powerful data set that can provide significant competitive advantages for a wide range of products. Only three years ago, leveraging the social graph was nearly impossible because accurate social graphs were the domain of leading social networks; they could not be influenced by products and services, which made failed attempts to build out their own. This resulted in widespread social network fatigue, as consumers and advertisers tired of building out already existing social networks.

Then, Facebook famously created its application platform in June 2007. This allowed developers to build applications that could leverage the social graph on Facebook, but it was limited because these apps couldn’t live outside Facebook’s walls. Today, developers are more fortunate — through technologies like Facebook Connect, MySpace ID and Google Friend Connect, social graphs are available on any platform — Web, desktop and mobile, and more and more sites are leveraging them for better engagement and traffic. CNN’s collaboration with Facebook Connect for the inauguration, for instance, resulted in 136 million page views and 21.3 million live video streams by mid-afternoon on the day of the event.

Tens of thousands of other Web sites have integrated social graphs into their interactive experiences and the initial results are quite positive. According to Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti, in the four months the site has been testing Facebook Connect, 94 percent of reviewers have published reviews to Facebook, where an average of 40 people see them and 70 percent click back to Citysearch, all translating to a tripling of daily registrations. Gawker Media has also reported positive numbers; three weeks after implementing Facebook Connect, user registrations were up 45 percent and comments were up 16 percent.

Despite these successes, we still feel that most of today’s implementations are scratching the surface of what’s possible. Here are five examples that showcase some innovative uses of Facebook Connect.

Rethinking registrations

Example: HerHotSpot, an online community for female 20-somethings

How it uses Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is the one and only registration system for HerHotSpot, allowing the site to guarantee that all members are indeed female by checking the gender listed in their Facebook profile. Previously, HerHotSpot had difficulty convincing its users that the site was a safe place for women to talk amongst themselves.

Personalized entertainment experiences

Example: Prototype game trailer, a promotional movie for a video game

How it uses Facebook Connect:

Prototype, a video game for PS3 and Xbox 360, uses Facebook Connect to create personalized game trailers for each visitor of their promotional website. Once connected, the Prototype trailer seamlessly integrates photos and basic profile information from Facebook into the movie being shown, creating a highly compelling and personal experience.

Promoting brand content

Example: Joost, an Internet TV service

How it uses Facebook Connect: Joost knows that content from a user’s social graph shouldn’t be hidden deep within the site. It aggregates the most recent Joost-related actions of user’s friends and displays them prominently on the homepage in the familiar news feed format.

Providing a cross-platform gaming experience

Example: Scrabble, the popular word game

How it uses Facebook Connect: The Scrabble iPhone app allows users to find their Facebook friends and play live Scrabble games with them — no matter how they are connecting to the game. It offers a perfect cross-platform experience, allowing friends to participate both through the iPhone or on their computers using traditional Facebook applications.

Collaborative shopping with friends

Example: Fluid Social, a provider of social shopping software

How it uses Facebook Connect: Fluid Social users are treated to the following social enhancements while they shop:

·      The ability to automatically see reviews or comments from friends on product pages.

·      The opportunity to easily solicit opinions by posting a public request or personally messaging select friends.

·      The chance to chat about the product in real time with any friends currently logged into Facebook — without leaving the product page.

Tapping into the social graph from the desktop

Example: iPhoto, Apple’s photo management tool

How it uses Facebook Connect: iPhoto ‘09 uses Facebook Connect so users can easily publish photos to Facebook without ever leaving iPhoto’s desktop application. Users of iPhoto can even tag their photos with their Facebook friends and apply privacy settings, allowing only certain groups to access the pictures.