2009-11-17

PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Live Reviews, round 2

Innovation. Here are the second set of presenters at PhoCusWright’s Innovation Summit. This is after seeing the presentations at the innovation summit with +/- on the ratings. Here is my original overview. The ranking is not a measure of how successful their business is, but rather what I fell their impact will be on the travel industry as a whole. 0 would be no change, 10 would be the industry will never be the same, exciting stuff:

Time Presenting

My Overview

Product Name Twitter Tag, Presenter and Company name

Out of 10

12:42 pm – 12:47 pm

(5 min)

Missed most of the presentation, but Planetism seems to focus on value deals for travel products with filtering capabilities. This is a busy space, and I am not sure Planetism will make an impact, but this is an alpha release, so this will be interesting to see moving forward.

2.1 Planetism (ALPHA)

#pcplanetism

Yameen Salahuddin, Founder, Planetism

12:47 pm – 12:59 pm

(12 min)

Looks promising, the system allows for regular marketing staff to generate dynamic ads that are scrapped from advertisers sites. Unique and great, but not as intuitive as it could be. May need to have some tech help for integration.

2.2 Dapper

Product Name: Dapper Ads

#pcdapper

Paul Knegten, Head of Marketing, Dapper

7 (-1)

12:59 pm – 1:11 pm

(12 min)

Seems like another substantial social media moderating and brand monitoring system. This is a very competitive space, and as Milestone already has a large customer base, they may gain penetration with their product.

2.3 Milestone Internet Marketing Inc.

Product Name: eBuzz Connect – Social Media Management and Monitoring for the Lodging Industry

#pcmilestone

Anil D. Aggarwal, CEO, Milestone Internet Marketing Inc.

6 (same)

1:11 pm – 1:23 pm

(12 min)

The focus is on group planning professionals. Qualified information with community elements. They have a number of itineraries that planners can access to help simplify their plans. Connects group suppliers with planners. They are looking to generate a social community element to connect travel planners. I am not sure if their technology is as up to date as possible, down loadable documents are definitely a “phase one” resource.

2.4 http://ZipSetGo.com

#pczipsetgo

Bob Miller, President and CEO, ZipSetGo.com

5 (same)

1:23 pm – 1:35 pm

(12 min)

Globallink One Link is a 100% outsource system. In about 30 days they will provide a turn key translation service. They will also dynamically track changes to your site, and will update all of the content for you. This is a “proxy based” solution with minimal IT involvement. They store all of your web content in the various languages. Looks powerful, their live demo was powerful.

2.5 Translations.com

Product Name: GlobalLink OneLink

#pctranslations

Matt Hauser, Director, Technology Sales, Translations.com

7 (+1)

1:35 pm – 1:47 pm

(12 min)

Ancillary revenue for travel insurance is a “hot” category due to the large margins in insurance. The focus from margins and money to segmentation and categories. They are looking to qualify the consumer with more targeted products. Their segmentation seems to be effective with an 87% growth in their test case.

2.6 Mondial Interactive Company, a subsidiary of Mondial Assistance USA

Product Name: Travel Insurance 2.0

#pcmondial

Bob Dufour, President and CEO, Mondial Interactive Company

7 (+1)

1:47 pm – 1:59 pm

(12 min)

Facebook innovation finalist. Traxo pools information automatically. Supports 40 sites. Their set and forget model would really help with adaption. I can see the value in this, there is a reward for investing time setting up your accounts. Also connects with your social networks to pull information together. Gives you permission based info on your network. Pretty slick!

2.7 Traxo LLC

Product Name: Traxo

#pctraxo

Andy Chen, Co-Founder and President, Traxo LLC

9 (+1)

1:59 pm – 2:11 pm

(12 min)

Their fight against commoditization is fought with great weapons. HD video from properties and destination products. Users are spending 7 minutes on their site. If they could have a video overlay with booking technology, they may have a powerful product. Looks good but may need to improve the UI.

2.8 Voyage.tv

#pcvoyagetv

Tedd Evers, Chief Revenue Officer, Voyage.tv

7 (same)

2:11 pm – 2:23 pm

(12 min)

TravelTainment is a fuzzy logic (always gives results) online booking dynamic packinging tool for OTAs, as well as Travel agencies. That about says it all ;)

Tour operators can have their products added to the distribution mix through an XML feed. Not a bad concept for packaging products.

2.9 TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group

Product Name: The new TravelTainment Internet Booking Engine

#pctraveltainment

Andy Owen-Jones, CEO, TravelTainment – The Amadeus Leisure Group

7 (same)

2:23 pm – 2:35 pm

(12 min)

Competing on a lower margin than other OTAs. Why customers book with them is that they receive a decent rate as well as an incentive for the booker. Free flowers and pick-up? Why not.

They make money from positioning where hotels show-up in the search ranking. Low overhead, and decent connections with hotels makes for a pretty unique offer. Not bad.

2.10 AboutAnywhere.com

#pcaboutanywhere

Ashwin Kamlani, CEO, AboutAnywhere.com

8 (+2)

2:35 pm – 2:47 pm

(12 min)

Enables conversation to go beyond the trip. This means that you get targeted info when its relevant to you. Suppliers and affiliates can issue messages to each customer. The scalability of this feature is in question.

Seems like a decent platform and I will attempt to use it.

2.11 TripCase

#pctripcase

Toby Cunningham, Vice President, Business Development and Product Strategy, TripCase

8 (same)

2:47 pm – 2:59 pm

(12 min)

Look to connect online RFP forms to hotel CRM functionality. They are looking to avoid data reentry, and there is no standard.

SpeedRFP aims to simplify the group bookings process for travel planners and venues. They standardize the platfor to expedite the process for both parties. Seems like there is a need for this, and they may be on to something. Interested to see what their revenue model is.

2.12 SpeedRFP

#pcspeedrfp

Bradley Pirman, CIO, SpeedRFP

7 (same)

Were my adjustments fair?