Company Blog

Highlights from PhoCusWright

fiona — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:29:26 GMT

Earlier this week we presented at The Travel Innovation Summit at the PhoCusWright conference in Hollywood, Calif. Along with 31 other innovative companies, we gave a 10-minute demonstration of our product, which you can see here. Some of the other innovations we found interesting include:

Dealbase.com—launching at the conference and run by Sam Shank, DealBase provides the largest hotel deal Web site and clearly presented its easy to use search and filter tools. In this economy, who’s not after a deal?

Rezgo.com—run by Tips from the T-list publisher Stephen Joyce, Rezgo also launched at the conference and provides an online distribution platform for tour and activity suppliers, as well as managing payment and fulfillment. It’s a winning idea and reminds me of WorldRes when it provided a platform for the long-tail bed and breakfast market.

UpTake —Yen Lee clearly explained the semantic search capabilities that UpTake provides to simplify the travel research process through creating a comprehensive database, analyzing travelers feedback and filtering preferences. Sounds like you’d need a Ph.D. to work at UpTake—impressive!

Yapta—Tom Romary launched its frequent-flier award seat alert service, enabling travelers to be notified when they can use their frequent-flier miles to book an award seat that becomes available on a specific flight. Again, in this economy, who doesn’t want to leverage their air miles—smart move.

Of the innovators who made it through to the five minutes of fame on center stage (Home & Abroad, Wandrian, Yapta, TripIt, Triporati and IM@), it was IM@ who grabbed the attention of the judging panel. You can watch the demo featuring its mobile content management platform and mobile applications here.

In addition to presenting, we seemed to talk non-stop—to our peers at the innovation summit, interested potential partners, and press and bloggers. In the pavilion, we enjoyed the company of newly launched TravelBeen.com and particularly enjoyed Technorati’s supply of Charles Chocolates. Also, it was fun to catch up with BootsnAll, OffBeat Guides and to compare notes with our friendly Austrian competitors Tripwolf.

At the Bloggers Summit, the panel of seasoned bloggers discussed a number of topical areas relating to blogging and business—some useful tips and pit falls to avoid. It was interesting to meet up with some of the industries most respected bloggers, including The Boot, Jen Leo (Los Angeles Times), Travolution and the Cranky Flier to name a few. If you’re not following these guys, then you should be!

It’s great to see so much innovation in the travel industry up close and to be a part of it. We’re back home with many more new ideas, now it’s just a case of implementation!

Vote for TravelMuse in Mashable’s Open Web Awards

fiona — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:53:25 GMT

TravelMuse is excited to be nominated in Mashable’s second Annual Open Web Awards.

Thank you for nominating us; now that we are a Top 10 finalist in the Travel category, please support us with your votes. You can vote for one company in each category per day until midnight on Nov. 30—just add your e-mail to the widget on the right and “Vote Now”!

Winners of the first Annual Open Web Awards included Facebook, Digg, Google, Meetup, Twitter, Netvibes, woot!, Last.fm and Mahalo.

The first and final voting rounds will be held from Nov. 19 until Dec. 15.

Thanks for your support!

TravelMuse Releases First Trip Planning Widget for Bloggers; Introduces Crowd Sourcing

fiona — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:38:59 GMT

At the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit, Hollywood, Calif. We’re excited to be making a couple of new announcements.

1. Plan-It! Widget for Bloggers
Bloggers can add the Plan-It! widget to individual blog posts, enabling their followers to save and share relevant content within the TravelMuse Planner.

The Plan-It! widget provides a solution to help travelers easily collect and centralize their research—while also increasing visibility for bloggers. Blogs that feature the Plan-It! social bookmarking widget allow visitors to quickly save content from the blog by simply clicking the Plan-It! button on any page. The content is then stored directly into the TravelMuse Planner—a centralized place to collect, organize and share travel research. Within the Planner, individuals can easily create trip plans and share the research they’ve collected with friends, family and fellow travelers—driving more traffic back to the blog postings they’ve saved. Bloggers can visits Plan-It! for Bloggers to find out more and easily add the Plan-It! button.

Sites using Plan-It include: UpTake, Ciao Bambino, Compulsive Traveler and TravelingMamas.

2. Crowd Sourcing
This new feature provides insights into the hottest travel destinations and topics on the Web. As individuals save content into their TravelMuse Planner from TravelMuse.com and from around the Web, lists of most popular destinations and topics are generated and dynamically updated based on trip-planning behavior—view this example destination page for Barcelona to see popular bookmarks. By capturing the actions of crowds, TravelMuse can provide valuable insight reflecting the interests of travelers in real time.

See TravelMuse at the PhoCusWright Conference on stage at 10:16 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 17, or visit us at our table on Monday or Tuesday in the Laurel-Doheny rooms.

For full details click here.

TravelMuse Selected For PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit

kevin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:58:15 GMT

We’re excited to announce that TravelMuse has been selected to present at the Travel Innovation Summit taking place at the 2008 PhoCusWright Conference on Nov. 17 in Hollywood, Calif.

Approximately 20 of the leading travel start-ups will have 10 minutes each to showcase their solutions on stage in front of members of the press, investors and leaders from around the travel industry. If you’re in Los Angeles and would like to meet with us, grab a pass and head on over to the conference! It should be a great show.

TravelMuse Teams With Junior League

fiona — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:29:34 GMT

We’re excited to work with the local Junior League Chapter, the Junior League of Oakland-East Bay, Inc. (JLOEB), on their annual fundraiser. The Junior League was founded in 1935 and is an organization of women, who to this day are committed to building better communities and making a difference in the lives of children and families served by the League.

TravelMuse is delighted to have this opportunity, and as we continue to effect change in building our travel planning community, we hope we can help other groups like Junior League. Starting now and running through November 30th, the team here at TravelMuse will donate $1 per each League-generated visitor who signs up and starts planning a trip using the TravelMuse Planner—a centralized place to collect, organize and share travel research. There is no cost to participate and no obligation to book a trip. (The total donation is capped at $1,000.)

Whether League members are looking for destination ideas on where to take their next family vacation, organizing a girls’ getaway, embarking on a romantic trip for two or meeting other League members at the 2009 Association of Junior Leagues International (AJLI) Convention, TravelMuse.com now makes the entire process easy for anyone to plan a trip. TravelMuse.com is also the JLOEB 2008-2009 exclusive travel partner and a silver-level sponsor of the Fifth Annual Artful Living Home Tour, Nov. 7- to 8, 2008, in Alamo and Diablo, Calif.

“Oftentimes, all it takes is a simple action to result in something truly impactful,” saya Tricia Stenger, president, JLOEB. “The League produces tangible benefits for children and their families throughout the Bay Area, and I am ecstatic that our philanthropic efforts through TravelMuse will further expand our combined impact in the community.”

At TravelMuse, effecting change is one of our core values, and we believe companies should not only invest in their employees and partners, but in the community at large. The Junior League is well known for building better communities, and we’re thrilled to work with their members on this program to further inspire others to make a difference.
For full details, read our press release.

News Round Up for September ‘08

fiona — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:43:23 GMT

TravelMuse kicked off September with our appearance at DEMOfall 08 on Sept. 8, where we launched Social Trip Planning. Thanks to all the press and bloggers who covered us, we were excited to meet you and share our story so far.

Edward N. Albro from PC World said, “It looks valuable as a way to come up with initial travel ideas and plans” and included TravelMuse in the “12 Promising New Web Sites and Services” out of all DEMOfall 08 and TechCrunch50.

Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat listed TravelMuse in his top ten company picks of DEMOfall 08 and also wrote specifically about how TravelMuse plans to simplify travel planning.

Business Week’s Carmine Gallo took a look at the DEMO presentations from a slightly different angle and wrote about how to deliver a presentation under pressure, highlighting TravelMuse’s presentation and comparing it to advice from Moore—the need to create a new place in my brain to hold the information you’re about to deliver.

Troy Wolverton of San Jose Mercury News listed TravelMuse in his Top 5 picks from DEMOfall 08 and referenced the pain he feels when planning his own vacation with his wife … and how TravelMuse aims to solve that problem by providing a work space where multiple people can swap travel ideas and research.

Michael J. Miller from PC Magazine listed TravelMuse in his “My favorite DEMOfall 08 Products” saying, “I very much like the look and features of TravelMuse. I like the idea of gathering and collecting information on the trip from any Website in one place, and letting multiple people work together to plan a trip.”

Rolf Potts of Vagabonding said, “TravelMuse makes a nice way to bookmark and store your research, and it’s definitely a must-have for groups planning to travel together” , adding ”you’d be hard pressed to find a travel site that looks as slick and is as easy to use as TravelMuse”.

PLing of TripHow said, “TravelMuse is the best thing on the market right now.”

Thrillest said, “Organizing a killer trip with friends can be a serious pain--open up the planning to everyone and prepare for a parliamentary stalemate, but leave one person in charge and risk visiting MimeFest, again. Make group trip planning frighteningly easy, with TravelMuse.”

To read more, visit our press page.

Now while most of our attention was on DEMO, our Interns, Hannah and Marissa, managed to score free passes at TechCrunch50, by volunteering—here’s what they had to say:

“Our volunteer duties included everything from building a bunker of backpacks on Sunday, to manning the registration tables—in between we managed to listen to company presentations and check out the booths in the Pit. Our favorite companies included Swype, which we had a lot of fun trying out, and GoodGuide – we’re glad to know what’s in our shampoo! Marissa also learned a lot from the lunchtime panel about Venture Capital firms and loved hearing Mark Cuban’s keynote discussion.

We managed to do a little TravelMuse guerrilla marketing on the side, before heading to the after-party, where we ate our weight in canapés and watched TechCrunch attendees network up a storm. Hannah returned to TechCrunch on Wednesday to see Joss Whedon and loved handing him his name badge as he checked into the conference."

Russ Lemelin Appointed CFO of TravelMuse

kevin — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:19:20 GMT

Russ Lemelin has been an advisor to TravelMuse for more than six months. As CFO, he brings a wealth of experience in the online travel space to the company. He was one of the earliest employees at SideStep, Inc., where he held the role of CFO and interim CEO. Russ spent six years at SideStep, during which time he oversaw the company’s revenue grow from $0 to $30 million per year. SideStep was acquired by Kayak in December 2007 for approximately $200 million. Prior to SideStep, Russ led corporate development at Komag, Inc.

Russ lives with his wife and three girls in Danville, Calif. He enjoys traveling to Hawaii, spending time with the family and watching classic western movies. Russ is a self-proclaimed, die-hard Oakland Raiders fan and was born and raised in Northern California.

Uptake Takes $10+ Million in New Funding

fiona — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:01:12 GMT

We were pleased to learn that one of our partners, UpTake successfully closed its second round of funding, raising more than $10 million. Congratulations to Yen, Elliott and the rest of the UpTake team!

UpTake has so far focused mainly on hotels and activities and has cleverly indexed more than 20 million online reviews and opinions from travelers across the Web, personalizing results to match user preferences. Compared to TripAdvisor, which claims 15 million online reviews in its company fact sheet, that’s 33 percent more reviews!

UpTake includes content from thousands of trusted Web sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Fodors, goCityKids, Virtual Tourist and Yahoo Travel. I put its site to the test with Puerto Vallarta, a destination I’m visiting in a couple of weeks on my own family vacation, and found some great sites for activities, including canopytours-vallarta.com, which offers zip line tours through the jungle.

I was able to save the research I’d found on UpTake into my Mexico Trip plan on the TravelMuse Planner using the TravelMuse Plan-It! Widget that UpTake has placed on all of its content pages. I simply clicked on the TravelMuse Plan-It Widget at the bottom of the UpTake page, and just like on Del.ic.ous.com, I bookmarked the information. So now, my family and I can refer to that information as we collaboratively plan our trip and can revisit the relevant page on UpTake.

UpTake has done a truly remarkable job to grow traffic to 150,000 unique visitors per month over the past five months, and as research shows, 73 percent of people use the Web to find information for their trips. The SEO investment Uptake has made is paying dividends with Google’s search results, where its content is highly discoverable. If I type “Santa Barbara family hotels” in the Google search box, UpTake shows up as the first result, beating TripAdvisor (which, let’s face it, has been around for a lot longer and has a much larger budget than UpTake).

So what’s next? Having built a solid search offering in Hotels, it sounds like UpTake is heading off to champion new categories such as UpTake Lodging, UpTake Things to Do, UpTake Restaurants and UpTake Beaches. This makes a lot of sense, given how it has excelled in aggregating information so far.

It’s also not surprising that UpTake seems to be investing further in business intelligence and analysis—after all it’s a data driven business! However, on a lighter note, I really do think the key lever for UpTake will be the Facebook Secretary. Elliott, do you not have this covered already with all those Twitter connections ?

UpTake has brought order to the mass of fragmented travel data that exists on the Web today. I’m excited to see what it rolls out next to help people find relevant travel information even more quickly.

TravelMuse Cleans up the Coast

fiona — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:32:09 GMT

Coastal Cleanup Day is this Saturday, Sept 20th. People across the country will volunteer to pick up trash along coastal waterways from 9 a.m.-noon.

Here at TravelMuse, we all love to travel and know you do too. The Beach Vacations tag on our Inspiration Finder is constantly the top selection that our customers click. To that end, we feel it’s our responsibility to help keep our beaches and waterways clean and encourage you to do so too!

Team TravelMuse will be helping on a project to clean up Permanente Creek, at Rock Street Bridge in Mountain View, Calif. Come and join us, or find a project near you.

This will be the 24th Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day, and it’s the premier volunteer event focused on the marine environment in the country. In 2007, more than 60,000 volunteers worked together to collect more than 900,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways. To find out more visit: www.coastal.ca.gov.

Be part of the solution to marine pollution!

DEMO Delivers!

kevin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:39:09 GMT

It was a whirlwind two days for TravelMuse at Fall DEMO'08 in San Diego on Sept. 8 and 9!

The experience was amazing and even surpassed the high expectations we had going in. Let’s be clear about this. DEMO is the real deal. I recommend it for any start-up.

The DEMO team is an A+ outfit. They make sure that everything goes smoothly, and as one demonstrator said, they make you feel like the only company at DEMO. The organization is meticulous from pre-event planning to the ongoing relationship management with DEMO alumni.

TravelMuse got great coverage by the press in attendance, and the show definitely stirred the interest of the investor and partner community as well.

I’d like to thank the TravelMuse team and the families of the team for enduring some very long days and nights over the past few months. You rose to the occasion time and again, and the results speak for themselves! Gracias!

Here are a few pictures from the show. We were honored to be a part of it!

Taking the stage....

Fiona does her best roadie impersonation...

Eric goes vertical on the monitors...

Announcing TravelMuse Social Trip Planning: Get Going With a Little Help From Your Friends

KevinandEric — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:38:25 GMT

Did you know that 20 percent of travelers report spending more than 10 hours to plan a trip? (source: TIA.org)

Think about the last time you planned a big vacation. How was the planning experience for you, and how long did it take?

Since we started thinking about what we’d like TravelMuse to be, we consistently came back to the amount of pain involved in planning trips and how we wanted to enable people to easily research, plan and book a trip, regardless of how complex the itinerary is.

Today, we’re excited and proud to announce Social Trip Planning within the TravelMuse Planner. Planning is really at the heart of what we do, so we are just thrilled to share it with you. Read full release

With Social Trip Planning you can plan trips with friends and family, and reuse the travel research of people you trust. Let’s face it, who would you rather get advice from—your best friend whom you’ve known all your life, or “crazy4cabo” whose comments you read on advice sites.

Here’s a list of just some of the many new things that this release enables you to now do on TravelMuse.com:

Create a day-by-day schedule of your planned activities,, restaurants you’re eating at and places you’re staying from our repository of more than 100,000 points of interest and 90,000 hotels spanning hundreds of destinations globally. Or you can add any page you find on the Web.
Invite people you’re traveling with to collaborate on the plans. Everyone can add research and modify the schedule, and everyone gets notified immediately of changes to the itinerary.
Network with people whose travel advice you trust. View your friends’ trip plans and repurpose their research.
Keep apprised of the trips your friends are planning (if they choose to let you see them) and give them the benefit of your experiences.
Combine research you find on the Web with reference information and travel articles on TravelMuse, and easily drag and drop these items into a scheduler. You can even move entire days around when the need arises!

The net result: You can now plan trips the way you’ve always wanted to, with great content and easy-to-use tools, plus with a little help from your friends.

So stop e-mailing links back and forth and abandon the manila folder—try the new TravelMuse Planner for yourself today!

Finally, we have to extend our deepest thanks to the entire TravelMuse team and their understanding families who pulled out all the stops to make this release possible.

Happy planning!
Kevin and Eric

TravelMuse One of 72 New Technologies to Launch at DEMOfall 08

fiona — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:25:46 GMT

DEMO just announced the list of companies participating in this year’s DEMOfall 08, expected to have the largest attendance ever. Travelmuse is looking forward to participating alongside these other companies in San Diego and telling press, bloggers and analysts all about our new release.

Kevin, Eric and I are bound for San Diego tomorrow on Southwest Airlines. Stop by and see us at booth #24 if you’re also heading to DEMO, or follow us on our blog here and on Twitter @TravelMuse.

In the meantime, here’s more from DEMO’s press release earlier today and the list of companies participating at DEMOfall 08:

Leading Technology Conference Continues to Highlight the Best in Entrepreneurship from Around the World

The DEMO conferences, known for launching some the world’s biggest technology products, will kickoff this Sunday with 72 new products poised to launch onstage in just 72 hours. Beginning its nineteenth year of supporting innovation, DEMOfall 08 will highlight products from more than 11 countries and 19 states. Known as the conference that launched products from Google, Apple, Palm, Intel, Yahoo!, and TiVo, the fall conference will host one of its largest attendances of journalists, investors and business professionals in its history. DEMOfall 08 is being held from Sept. 7 - 9 at the Sheraton San Diego. To learn more about the event and register to attend visit http://www.demo.com.

“Every DEMO we strive to identify the companies that will defy all the odds and have significant impact in the technology markets. Ours is a year-long process that culminates in seventy-two hours of products that are more than disruptive; they change the rules of the game as we know it,” said Chris Shipley, product analyst and executive producer of the DEMO conferences. “I am very excited to unveil the class of DEMOfall 08. They are innovative, they are important, they are fun, and they represent the future products and solutions we all will be using soon.”

The DEMO conferences are held twice a year requiring the DEMO team to hold in-depth interviews with more than 1,000 companies ready to launch new products at the event. This rigorous process ensures that DEMOfall 08 attendees will, for the first time, see new products from around the globe including Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Taiwan. Some of the products launching at DEMOfall 08 include:

products that help you manage, deliver, and socialize your mobile phone and content.
tools that enable you to personalize, navigate and deliver multi-media, rich-media presentations and television content over the Web.
a solution that brings RFID right to the consumer.
an application that promises to keep spam out of your inbox for good.
a tool that takes the mystery out of eating healthy wherever you are.
services that take personal finance management to a new level.
a solution that makes everyone a game developer.
tools to make you fall in love with your photos again.
products focused on reducing our impact on the planet from energy consumption to traffic congestion.

Videos of each live onstage demonstration will be available on http://www.demo.com beginning Monday afternoon Sept. 8.

DEMOfall 08 Demonstrators

Accordia Group, LLC; New Rochelle, NY; http://www.accordia-group.com
Adapx, Inc.; Seattle, WA; http://www.adapx.com
Alerts.com, Inc.; Bellvue, WA; http://www.alerts.com
Arsenal Interactive, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; http://www.heycosmo.com
Asyncast Corp; Campbell, CA; http://www.rocketron.com
Awind Inc.; Junghe, Taiwan; http://www.awindinc.com
beeTV; Milano, Italy; http://www.bee.tv
Best Buy; Minneapolis, MN; http://www.giftag.com
BizEquity Corp.; Spring House, PA; http://www.bizequity.com
Blue Lava Technologies, Inc.; Honolulu, HI; http://www.bluelavatech.com
Cerego; Tokyo, Japan; http://www.usa.iknow.co.jp
Cinergix, Pty Ltd.; Melbourne, Australia; http://www.creately.com
Clintworld; Boenningstedt, Germany; http://www.clintworld.de
CoreTrace Corp.; Austin, TX; http://www.coretrace.com
crowdSPRING, LLC; Chicago, IL; http://www.crowdspring.com
DesignIn, Inc.; Marblehead, MA; http://www.mydesignin.com
Dial Directions, Inc.; Alameda, CA; http://www.dialdirections.com
DOCCENTER; Omaha, NE; http://www.doccenterinc.com
Enterprise Informatics, Inc.; San Diego, CA;
http://www.enterpriseinfomatics.com
Familybuilder; New York, NY; http://www.familybuilder.com
ffwd.com, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; http://www.ffwd.com
Fortressware, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; http://www.fortressw.com
Fusion-io; Salt Lake City, UT; http://www.fusionio.com
G.ho.st; Ramallah & Modin, Palestine and Israel; http://g.ho.st
Green Sherpa; Santa Barbara, CA; http://www.greensherpa.com
Infovell, Inc.; Menlo Park, CA; http://www.infovell.com
Intelius, Inc.; Bellevue, WA; http://www.zumende.com
Invision TV, LLC; Bethesda, MD; http://www.invision.tv
iWidgets, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; http://www.iwidgets.com
Kadoo Inc.; Washington, DC; http://www.kadoo.com
Koollage, Inc.; San Jose, CA; http://www.koollage.com
Mapflow, Ltd.; Cork, Ireland; http://www.eirlift.com
Maverick Mobile Solutions, Pvt. Ltd.; Maharashtra, India;
http://www.maverickmobile.in
MeDeploy; Hamden, CT; http://www.medeploy.com
Message Sling; Worcester, MA; http://www.messagesling.com
MeWorks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; http://www.meworks.net
Microstaq, Inc.; Austin, TX; http://www.microstaq.com
MixMatchMusic, Ltd.; Burlingame, CA; http://www.mixmatchmusic.com
Momindum; Paris, France; http://www.momindum.com
OpenACircle.com; Dallas, TX; http://www.openacircle.com
Paidinterviews, LLC; McLean, VA; http://www.paidinterviews.com
Paragent, LLC; Muncie, IN; http://www.paragent.com
Photrade, LLC; Cincinnati, OH; http://www.photrade.com
PlanDone, Inc.; Petaluma, CA; http://www.plandone.com
Plastic Logic, Ltd.; Mountain View, CA; http://www.plasticlogic.com
Qtask, Inc.; Burbank, CA; http://www.Qtask.com
Quantivo Corp.; San Mateo, CA; http://www.quantivo.com
Radiant Logic, Inc.; Novato, CA; http://www.radiantlogic.com
RealNetworks, Inc.; Seattle, WA; http://www.real.com
Rebus Technology, Inc.; Cupertino, CA; http://www.rebustechnology.net
RemoTV, Inc.; New Haven, CT; http://www.remotv.com
Rudder, Inc.; Houston, TX; http://www.rudder.com
Semanti Corp.; Alberta, Canada; http://www.semantifind.com
Sim Ops Studios, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; http://www.wildpockets.com
SitScape, Inc.; Vienna, VA; http://www.sitscape.com
SkyData Systems, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; http://www.skydata.com
SpinSpotter; Seattle, WA; http://www.spinspotter.com
Telnic, Ltd.; London, England; http://www.telnic.org
TetraBase, LLC; Boothwyn, PA; http://www.tetrabase.com
The Echo Nest Corp.; Somerville, MA; http://echonest.com
tikitag, an Alcatel-Lucent Venture; Antwerp, Belgium;
http://www.tikitag.com
Toolgether; San Mateo, CA; http://www.toolgether.com
TravelMuse, Inc.; Los Altos, CA; http://www.travelmuse.com
Trinity Convergence, Inc.; Durham, NC; http://www.trinityconvergence.com
TurnTo Networks, Inc.; New York, NY; http://www.turnto.com
UbiEst S.p.A.; Treviso, Italy; http://www.ubiest.com
UGA Digital, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; http://www.ugadigital.com
Unity Solutions, LLC; Clearwater, FL; http://www.unitysolutions.com
Usable Security Systems, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; http://www.usable.com
WebDiet, Inc.; Henderson, NV; http://www.webdiet.com
Xumii, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; http://www.xumii.com
Zazengo, Inc.; Santa Cruz, CA; http://www.zazengo.com

Preparing for DEMO

fiona — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:42:07 GMT

In just under two weeks, Team TravelMuse (Kevin, Eric and I) will head to San Diego to take part in our version of the Olympics—DEMOfall '08, a launchpad for emerging technology. Although we haven’t been working on this for four years, it’s certainly taken a huge amount of planning and practice to get ready for this prestigious event.

At DEMO we will launch our latest product, the most complex release our product and engineering teams have tackled so far. With no challenge too small, they have worked diligently towards the deadline of Sept. 7. As we approach the final lock-down stage, Bugzilla has certainly been getting quite a workout! We’re really excited to show off our new product and let you try it out for yourself.

Kevin and Eric (TravelMuse Co-Founders) are our demonstrators at DEMO. We joke with our PR team about how many times we can get the word DEMO into a sentence. We’re going to give you a demo of our demo for DEMO. Anyway, Kevin and Eric are doing well with learning their scripts and can be seen listening to iPods (are they getting in the Michael Phelps zone?), clutching cue cards and muttering away to themselves. Coach Nathan has them on a regular practice schedule, and Eric, every now and again, gives me impromptu recitals.

I think we have compared this experience to a mix of memorizing your lines for a school play, to practicing the tricky sections of your piano recital, to being in a competitive race. Basically, you have to know your game plan and practice, practice, practice.

Meanwhile, I’ve been taking care of the logistics with the DEMO team, writing product marketing copy and finalizing press kits and give-aways.

Later this week Kevin and Eric will have a live audience with our company—definitely the toughest crowd yet! Everyone has been working hard to produce their piece of the puzzle and is counting on them to show it off at its best—which I’m confident they will.

Team TravelMuse DEMO schedule:
Saturday, Sept. 6: Arrive in San Diego and rehearse in the evening.
Sunday, Sept. 7: Demonstrators’ meeting and set up booth #24.
Monday, Sept. 8: Watch other demos and give demos at booth #24.
Tuesday, Sept. 9: Team TravelMuse presents at 8:52 a.m. and gives demos at booth #24.

If you’re attending DEMO, we’ll see you there, otherwise you can follow us on Twitter @TravelMuse, and we’ll post more to the TravelMuse Company Blog soon.

TravelMuse Chosen for DEMOfall 08

fiona — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:37:47 GMT

We’ve been bursting to tell everyone that we’ve been chosen to present our latest technological innovation! On September 7th, Kevin, Eric and I will head down to San Diego to showcase the great work of the TravelMuse team, along with 70 other companies.

In the meantime, we’re fine tuning the six-minute script and working through all the logistics from AV forms to hotel reservations. Thank goodness the DEMO handbook is so well put together! We’re working with DEMO coach Nathan Gold—he’s great and is keeping us on track. Left to our own devices, I know we’d be blowing off meetings with each other.

DEMOfall 08 is the launchpad for emerging technology. During two exciting days of rapid-fire, six-minute presentations, DEMO attendees will be the first to see the most innovative, market-defining products unveiled for the very first time.

With more than 20,000 technologies reviewed and 1,500 companies selected to launch on the DEMO stage over the past 18 years, DEMO has an incredible track record of success.

From the first launch of Palm, Java, TiVo , E*TRADE in the mid/late ‘90s to Salesforce.com, VMware, Six Apart, OddPost, IronPort, GrandCentral and Glam Media in more recent years, DEMO delivers real products ready for market.

The results have been astounding. Past participants such as WebEx, VMware, iRobot, Linden Labs, Six Apart, and Roku have single-handedly defined or redefined their industries. Companies who have launched products at DEMO over the past four years have gone on to raise over $2.5 billion. Plus, more than 40 of these companies have been acquired by tech giants, such as Adobe, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Symantec, Viacom, Yahoo, and more.

We invite you to join us at DEMOfall 08 to see and hear about our incredible breakthrough—before anyone else does. Take advantage of the $600 registration discount and register today for only $2,395 at www.demo.com/DF8PTR.

Stay tuned as we update you on our progress here at TravelMuse and get ready for our six minutes of fame!

Plan Travel with Plan-It!

kevin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:44:27 GMT

Most travelers visit numerous Web sites when planning a trip, but they lack a simple way to organize their findings or share research efficiently. TravelMuse can help solve that problem. Today we released the TravelMuse Plan-It! widget for site publishers. (Click to read the full press release.)

Visitors to sites that feature the Plan-It! social bookmarking widget can simply click the Plan-It! button on any page and save content directly into the TravelMuse Planner—a centralized place to collect, organize and share travel research. Content publishers can download and install Plan-It! by visiting the Plan-It! page on TravelMuse.com.

This widget is perfect for travel content Web sites such as CVBs, DMOs, B&Bs, travel blogs— any quality travel site that wants to empower its readers with the ability to more easily plan trips.

Three TravelMuse partners—which all provide great trip planning content—have already deployed Plan-It!: Uptake.com, CiaoBambino.com and CompulsiveTraveler.tv.

Uptake aggregates and organizes reviews from thousands of different sites so that you can get a complete picture of a hotel, restaurant or attraction before you arrive. (You can read about how UpTake is using Plan-It! on the UpTake blog.)
CiaoBambino provides very rich and detailed reviews of high-end family travel destinations and properties.
CompulsiveTraveler has beautiful, engrossing travel videos organized by activity and destination.

If you’re a traveler, explore these sites and try out the Plan-It! widget. Click on a page featuring the widget, and that content is automatically stored inside of a TravelMuse trip plan.

If you’re a publisher, visit our partner page to learn more. Plan-It! is free to download and use, and gives your site visitors the power to more efficiently plan trips. We hope you find this tool as cool and useful as we do.

http://www.travelmuse.com/about/plan-it.htm