Rob Torres is a man who easily wears a smile. As head of Google’s travel advertising sector, he handles the lion’s share of the world’s search marketing funds and yet to him it’s still simply text ads, not algorithms and gobbletigook. We spoke about the business and his background at […]
Herb Kelleher is the beloved chairman of Southwest Airlines. He has as many fans here at Travelcom as his great airline does. He accepted an award named for aviation pioneer Steve Fosset, but gave more credit to his people than he took for himself. His talk was preceded by a […]
Last night I took the MARTA subway/light rail all the way from Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport to my hotel at CNN Center downtown. The total cost was just $2.25. We passed by factories and graffiti-scared warehouses, and nearly everyone on the train was black. I wondered though, why the hosts of […]
I am finally in my hotel at the Omni Hotel, high above CNN’s world headquarters in Atlanta. I walked a few blocks to a party sponsored by Google and quickly fell into a fascinating conversation with an industry big wig. Roger Dow, President of the U.S. Travel Association, chief lobbyist […]
Last night I came home late and plugged in a new gadget that we’re testing out in the GoNOMAD labs. It’s called the Myine Wi-Fi Internet radio, by Ira, and it’s a blast. I have been a big fan of streaming music on sites like Pandora and Last.fm, so I […]
We drove down to the Flea Market on Rte 5 in Holyoke today. What a depressing scene. The reason it depresses me is that so many of the vendors seem downtrodden, and they look like life has gotten the better of them. We passed by one booth and a guy […]
I sent out emails to my friends the editors at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I thought that they would want to know about the Podcamp, and either send a reporter or join us. To me, this event and the vibrant group of people who showed up, are the future of […]
Foley has an attraction that fascinated me during our visit this week. It’s a complex and detailed array of O gauge model trains that is located inside a former train station downtown. The set up is a model train lover’s fantasy–sixty feet long, twenty-two feet wide, multilayered and full of […]
The town of Foley Alabama is truly a little engine that could. Kathy Danielson joined us on our bus and introduced us to this vibrant and creative town about 30 miles south of Mobile. She runs the visitor’s bureau for the town of about 10,000 and talked about some of […]
In Alabama you’ve got to make your choice at a very early age. Unless you’re bound by your family tradition, it’s never too early to decide whether you love Auburn or The University of Alabama. Here, there is no doubt about which camp anyone is in. It’s refreshingly unambiguous. I […]
It looks like rain for the next three days. That’s always a bummer on a press trip to a beach community that likes to brag about the great weather. Oh well. Tonight we’ll stay at some condos in Gulf Shores, the beach community where you can walk down the beach […]
We drove south toward the Gulf of Mexico and on the bus we met Alex Robinson, the pretty and young chamber of commerce representative from the town of Fairport, population 16,000. She said that when she was young she used to come to Fairport to visit her grandparents, now she […]