2010 March | Blog xyzt, s.a.

Online Travel Strategy to 2010

No commentsNews, Sector TrendsMarch 12th, 2010

Innovation has been stable in the online and mobile channels.

Despite the tourism sector dos not grow as desired, it has evolved intensely.

Online Travel Strategy

According to EyeForTravel’s managing director, Tim Gunstone, there are six areas where travel companies should focus on:

1) Online sales and channel management – the companies need to be exploiting this distribution channel and must understand how to sell online and across multiple channels;

2) Social Media – travel companies should embrace social media, but the social media strategy has to be well planned, at the risk of losing credibility in the market;

3) Mobile – companies need to know how to sell over mobile, a channel that offers a host of new opportunities and challenges;

4) Search and online marketing – travel companies must adapt their search strategies to take into account real time and multi-lingual search, as well as more complex search terms;

5) Ancillary and merchandising revenue – if companies have a large customer base, the opportunity to cross-sell products will grow. But they need to take into account the brand’s preservation;

6) Online payments and fraud prevention – online payments and security must adapt to products and target market in the online channel, as it has been changing and enlarging constantly.

Source: http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/6_ways_to_drive_more_online_travel_sales_in_2010/

Consulting, Digital Marketing, e-Business

Mar

What is Pivot? (Microsoft Live Labs)

No commentsMedia, News, WebdevelopmentMarch 8th, 2010

At Microsoft Live Labs they are all about experiments, and Pivot is one of the most ambitious to date.

“Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web.

Why We Think This Is Exciting
When we use the Web today we treat the most fundamental scenarios as separate activities. Search takes us from many things to one, browsing moves us from one thing to another, and recommendations expose affinities that enable us to explore related topics. Can we do better by combining these scenarios into a more unified experience?
Pivot focuses on this intersection, enabling us to learn key lessons while attempting to broadly apply this philosophy to the Web. We hope that Pivot will inspire and fuel transformative experiences across the Web.

At the heart of Pivot are “Collections.” They combine large groups of similar items on the Internet, so we can begin viewing the relationships between individual pieces of information in a new way. By visualizing hidden patterns, Pivot enables users to discover new insights while interacting with thousands of things at once.”

To learn more about Pivot and the vision for this project, check out this video:

1 st. Gary Flake discusses Pivot @ TED2010

For more detailed information read please this article Making Sense of Mountains of Data.

Go to www.getpivot.com and try it yourself…

collections, gary flake, interaction model, many things, more detailed information, pivot, web today

Mar

Web Design Trends 2010

2 CommentsSector Trends, WebdevelopmentMarch 8th, 2010

Although trends don’t start and stop on January 1st, there is a definite change from what we had seen in the last year (2009) and what we will see this year (2010). Most of the time, this shift is subtle. It’s a perfection or re-interpretation of a currently hot trend, a new esthetic or a way too look at old designs and give them a new twist. As designers master the skills of design aesthetic, web design continues to push forward to what’s next or what needs to be fully discovered and experienced.

“With the new CSS3 and HTML5, designers and developers are trying to utilize the new features to create impressive designs. Sketchy and large background styles are fading out. Serif fonts and texturized background will be popular. Thanks to CSS3, we are going to see a lot of rounded corners, RGBA transparency, and drop shadows. With the rise of smart phones, mobile web design is going to pick up this year.”
@: www.webdesignerwall.com

Let´s know see some of the trends to 2010:

Big Headings

Big headings in header (as part of design interface) will gain more popularity in 2010, giving the top of the web-pages more importance.

Example: www.blackestate.co.nz

Serif Fonts

Most of the web sites that we see today were designed in either “Verdana, Arial or Tahoma” (sans-serif fonts), but that is going to change in this new decade. Serif fonts will get more attention. Not to difficult our reading but to bring new context to word’s and their true meaning, used very often in titles, phrases our citations.

Example: www.legistyles.com

Texturized Background

The big background trend is going to be gradually out-of-date and be replaced with subtle and texturized (particularly the light noise) background, that confers to the web-page elegance and also less visual noise.

Example: www.siblingrivalrywine.ca

Minimalism

This trend comes and goes every once in a while but it seems that during the 2010 minimalism is going to be one of the more prominent trends regarding the web design.

Elegance and simplicity is one of the trends that are more appreciated in web designs.

Example: www.informationarchitects.jp

Text Shadow

Lots of web sites are using text shadow to add more depth to text, and give highlight to certain menus or buttons.

Example: www.adiirockstar.com

Mobile Design

With the release of iPhone in 2007, web designers face a new challenge. With the increase of the users and the numbers of smart phones that support full CSS and Javascript, mobile design is definitely going to be the future of web design.

Lots of companyes are allready offering a mobile version of their web site.