Feb 2007

Ahila came up with the idea recently to allow members to send other members online postcards (aka e-cards) using just their usernames, instead of the existing system where a name and email address is needed.

The idea proved too good for us to resist and has now been implemented.

Here's a quick overview of how this works.

First, you select the photo you want to send. You can send any photo on Travellerspoint as a postcard, and with (currently) 80000+ photos uploaded, you should have plenty of choice If you'd like to just look at some of the featured photos, check out the featured galleries per country on the photography or the postcards pages.

I'm going to select one I've uploaded to my own gallery:

On the postcard creation page, you select 'Travellerspoint Username', like so:

The form will change (provided your browser supports this which 99% should!) and you will see the name/email boxes replaced with a single box where you enter the username (type or copy/paste it).

Naturally, you should be careful you type the correct username (!), because if you type a username that exists, but isn't the one you intended, you will have a mistified recipient on the other end

Hit the preview button and see if you like the look of your postcard:

I do, so I hit the 'Send Card' button and voila, the member I have selected will now receive an email (yes, this goes via email, not the PM system!) notifying them of the postcard waiting for them on Travellerspoint. You can also choose to edit the card at this stage which will take you back to the last page.

Hope you enjoy!

According to some mysterious calculations, Travellerspoint has been ranked a 7.5 out of 10 for site strength. Here's what that means:

You're running with the big brands and sites, making content that engines and visitors can't help but gobble up. All that's left now is to leverage your power and push ever onwards, towards utter ubiquity.

You would think that Travellerspoint blogs are all about, well, travel...

Not quite.

There's a good old handful of spammers who decide to start a blog every week, promoting everything from hotels in Dubai, World of Warcraft gold and once even a steel cutting business in the US.

Being the anti-spam warriors that we are, these don't survive for a particularly long time.

But once in a while, we'll discover a blog that just makes us say HUH?

Like this one, about computational chemistry...

Or this one, supposedly run by a penguin from Florida...

Huh?

1. For covering long distances travel is a must.

2. Destinations are ideal places to head for.

3. By the time you get there abroad will have moved on.

4. To avoid jet lag travel the day before.

5. If you cross the equator go back and apologise.

6. If you meet an explorer you are lost.

From Roger McGough, The State of Poetry.

Take a look at today's featured blog by TulstaTrot and you'll find a great example of a blog that has it all: pictures galore (nicely captioned as well), two videos, a zoomed-in map, and of course some excellent and interesting text to bring it all together. There's even a prize-winning competition!

No, I wasn't paid by TulstaTrot to point all this attention to his blog, but I wanted to highlight it because I think it perfectly illustrates the tools that are available to Travellerspoint bloggers. It also shows how a blog can be much more than just a day-to-day diary of your trip... It can be an interesting and engaging story, and an enjoyable read for whoever the world wide web happens to bring to your digital doorstep.