By this Author: Sam I Am

I try and keep abreast of interesting news in the tech industry via a blog called techcrunch (currently looks like it's offline - hmmmm). Every now and then an interesting new travel site will pop up and I'll check it out. Today, as part of an event called Techcrunch40 which introduces a bunch of new startups, there was a bit of information on a new travel site called TripIt.

To be quite honest, the coverage was of the type that made me think; hmmm, is that it? But it was short and the write up messy, so it was interesting to find an email in my inbox from their PR people (some companies really know how to launch in style ) about 10 minutes later with a bit more information.

I consider myself quite plugged in to the world that is online travel websites and I spend a good deal of time checking out new sites that offer something different. This looked like it fitted the bill and would be useful (something most aren't unfortunately...). It could of course just be because we've had similar ideas ourselves of course

Anyway, in short this is what they do:

• User signs up with TripIt
  
• User emails booking confirmation to a fixed email address
  
• TripIt automatically reads the email(s) and creates a master itinerary for you online. Useful services (Google maps, weather, SeatGuru seat advice, flickr pics etc) that you might need and that are relevant to your destination are added.
  
• You can then share this with friends etc. through some social networking tools, print out an itinerary (which if you've combined several bookings is neat) or download to your calendar/mobile.
  

This (in theory) sounds like a pretty good idea to me! Okay, so I'm a little peeved why they wouldn't add in Travellerspoint blogs and pics as one of the useful services, but that might just be because they haven't gotten around to contacting me yet

Essentially the service revolves around what their PR person puts like this

A traveler simply forwards their travel confirmation emails – no matter where they booked - and the TripIt “Itinerator” instantly incorporates them into their master itinerary

That does sound cool, especially when several emails can all be parsed into one big itinerary automatically with me just having to foward some emails. So I signed up and created an account. I even went the rare extra mile of using my Travellerspoint email address. Seeing as I'm a bit of a nutter, I keep copies of old flight booking confirmations so I dug out one of the most recent ones and sent it off. I was very curious to see how long exactly this process would take. 5 minutes later I was disappointed. There was absolutely no sign of my confirmation anywhere! ARGH! But then I thought, hmmm, how would they know that a confirmation is linked to my account and it hit me that the senders email should probably match the one you used to set up the account. I guess for a lot of people this is not something they'd think about but I have about 15 email addresses and they all end up in one big inbox so sometimes I forget which is sending what. Sure enough, not long after I thought of this an email returned telling me there was a problem with my submission. Well, actually there were 2.

1. Email address was not registered so a new account had been created (note that you actually can add multiple email addresses to one account, I just hadn't thought this all the way through yet)
2. The confirmation couldn't be parsed.

But hang on, what happened to "no matter where they booked"? That's basically the PR company pulling it from somewhere dark because the TripIt site (and the returned email) states that about 40 or so booking confirmation formats are supported at this time. Typical PR company; that's why they charge the big bucks...

Drat. That's the most useful part of this service, otherwise I could just create my own itinerary somewhere by copying and pasting (sites like Virtually There actually do offer this kind of automated things, but your booking would have to be through a company linked with them). Like I said though, I keep copies of booking confirmations so I tried a few more, including 2 KLM bookings (they support Air France which has basically become the same thing) an Expedia and a Lufthansa booking (allowed according to their site).

None of these 6 attempts worked!

That is not cool. Especially because my hotel booking and the Lufthansa one were from sites they claim to allow. What's going on? My guess is that the fact that there's about a million and one variables in these emails (affiliates? html or plain text? pdf attachments? does user type text in the forwarded email or not? etc.) is what makes this so tricky. I appreciate it's tricky developing this, but that's kind of why I thought it would be a nifty tool!

From a personal point of view, I'm also annoyed with a few things like

• Why are the allowed sites focusing primarily on the US. This is annoying even if that is where most startups originate and where a lot of the investors are. Europeans travel a lot more!
  
• Make the links to 'Cool Web Info' and 'Allowed Sites' clickable; a pet peeve of mine.
  
• Drop the zip code from the signup form or call it postal code; another pet peeve
  

In theory, this could be quite a useful website but to get it to work the development team is going to do a much better job than they have so far in parsing out the information from booking confirmations sent in. Yes it only launched officially today, but it's been in testing mode for quite a while so I would have expected a little better results (50% minimum). Most users won't try twice, let alone 6 times like I did. And there are definitely sites out there where you can add in your own details into an itinerary format so going manual is not really going to make them stand out. Some will even map it out in a really cool format like Travellerspoint's maps. Sure it might be old fashioned and require manual input and all, but at least it works

Anyway, it needs work, but could end up being useful for US travellers and others if it manages to handle more confirmation types.

Update 19 November 2009 As this article was becoming quite out of date, I've moved it into the wiki where it will be easier to update if/when Facebook make design changes on their end.

Go to the new How to Display your Travel Blog on Facebook article.

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As I've quickly noticed after signing up on Facebook, it's addictive. I've also bumped into (read: poked and been poked by) quite a few Travellerspoint members and if that isn't enough, there's now even an 'official' Travellerspoint group on Facebook (hint hint, join us ). So, imagine my surprise when with just a tiny bit of playing around I found you can quite easily have your blog automatically added within your profile every time you make an entry! That's pretty cool, because let's face it, you might have some friends on Facebook that don't visit Travellerspoint (although of course you have many more the other way around, right?!) but you'd still would like them to see what you're up to and be able to leave comments.

Here's the break down:

1. After you've logged in to Facebook, head over to your "Notes" area. This can be accessed through the Applications list on the left side of the page, or you can get there using the drop down box at the top right hand side of your profile page:

Once there, click on the "Import a Blog" link:

That will bring up the page in the image below, where you need to enter the domain name you wish to import notes from. For my personal blog, I entered http://sam-i-am.travellerspoint.com/ (you can also add /rss.xml to the end of this, but it shouldn't be necessary). Accept the Facebook conditions by ticking the box and hit Start Importing.

Facebook will do its thing and give you the following preview notice:

Hit the "Confirm Import" button on the right and your latest blog entries are all imported!

So, what does this mean really? This should mean your friends see your notes as they are entered/imported. Not just on your profile, but on their own pages (if you haven't blocked this) as part of what their friends are doing on Facebook. Here's a few random screenshots of places where my notes displayed on my own page:

within the minifeed

within the minifeed - the first time you import it will bring in the last ten entries

in the notes section of your profile (go figure! )

See how in the last image some of my friends have actually left a comment on the entry, directly within Facebook. Pretty cool and as you can see, easy to do.

Okay, so now for some current (temporary) issues. Because you are uploading your feed, it is limited to the last 10 entries only, although of course all future entries will be included automatically (Facebook checks every now and then for new entries). Also, the entries are currently not imported in their entirety, again because this is the default in the feeds. This means friends have to click on the link in your notes to take them to your blog and view the entry there (not a disaster, since it looks better that way too!). Fixing up how much of an entry is included in the feed has been on our 'to do' list to fix and I am pretty sure has just jumped up the list quite a bit with this post

UPDATE: This has now been fixed and if you have set your blog to generate a full feed, the entire blog entry will show in Facebook, including photos. For some reason Facebook seems to be blocking out the videos and maps at this time but they are included in the feed, so this is a Facebook thing.

All in all, it's very easy to do and once you've done it once, you don't have to do it again. If you have a lot of Facebook friends and don't want to keep them all guessing what you are blogging about or send them an email asking them to check out your blog, set up your profile to import your blog posts and you're sure to get a lot more readers in one go!

As anyone that knows us a little will realize, we love working on Apple computers! In fact, ever since Peter converted me over to a Powerbook in 2004, I've been 'evangelizing' myself. My wife now owns a 12" Powerbook (that's an Apple laptop for the unknowing) as do two of her friends based on our advice.

Another thing that Peter has convinced me of (believe it or not, I do also take on ideas from other sources ) is to start challenging the status quo when it comes to the environment and what we are doing to it and about it.

So, when Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, makes a public announcement about how green Apple is, it's a great read for someone like me. Especially when good ol' Steve takes the time to put a few of the biggest PC makers in the world in their place with quotes like this:

Quoting "Steve Jobs"

Apple completely eliminated the use of CRTs in mid-2006.

A note of comparison — Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo still ship CRT displays today.

Quoting "Steve Jobs"

Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of PVC and BFRs in its products by the end of 2008.

A note of comparison — In 2007 HP stated that they will remove PVC from all their packaging. Apple did this 12 years ago. Last year, Dell began the process of phasing out large quantities of brominated flame retardants in large plastic enclosure parts. Apple’s plastic enclosure parts have been bromine-free since 2002.

All I can say is "ouch, that's cruel of you Steve!".... but definitely a great read and yet another reason to buy an Apple (besides the known things like ease of use, safer browsing, and let's face it, they blow the looks off any PC by at least a factor 100!!!).

I guess now all we need is for the original apple to also turn a little greener

Image used from botany.org

Quoting "Tim Hayes"

Travel destroys the monotony of everyday life.

It removes the security of familiar surroundings and challenges you to struggle with strange customs, exotic people and new ways of looking at the world.

It can make you feel vulnerable and helpless.

Yet ultimately, travel invigorates your soul and leaves you feeling more alive than ever.

Okay, this is just plain nuts.... Gadling has a post up on the fact that BA has decided to cut/airbrush out parts of the new James Bond flick, Casino Royale, that show Richard Branson and a logo of his airline Virgin.

Someone at BA should take a long hard look at the negative publicity they are going to generate on such a tiny detail, undoubtedly lost on 99.9% of their travellers anyway! Okay, so you obviously don't like the competition you are getting from Virgin. Suck it up and drop the movie from your entertainment altogether if you have a problem with it....

And to Sir Richard, if you are reading this, can I now also get a free flight in return for the promo? Come on, 007 got one!!