This week the developer of Trackur asked their users to suggest new functions and features for the on-line buzz monitoring service and their has been various cool ideas put forward including “Manual Sentiment Tracking” and an “Unseen Filter” to make viewing of many buzz lines easier to manage your on-line reputation. See what the buzz is about here

There’s a change in the way more and more people decide to holiday!

Its no surprise that the big package holiday firms are playing down the importance of this new trend and keeping quiet whilst they try to evolve themselves as they see their traditional package holidays losing favour with customers !! Even Premier Inns is moving over to self catering apartments within cities and Coastal resorts.

How many times has Thomson Holidays, Thomas Cook and First Choice been featured on the BBC’s Watchdog for poor hotel standards? and dumping holiday makers in airports for hours due to plane delays even though they knew well before of the delays but choose not to tell their customers !!!

It is no surprise to see a rising tide of holiday makers choosing to rent private accommodation. The quality of many apartments and villas available to rent through websites such as RentInNerja.com, Meon Villas and VillasPlus are the equivalent of 5 star luxury on a self catering basis. The properties are essentially home from home, I recently booked a villa with one of them on the northern end of Corfu for the same price as a 3 star package holiday for two. The villa even came with an introduction food hamper in the fridge plus detergent for the dishwasher !! The book collection and DVD’s in the lounge were a treat too, as was the private pool where I was able to strip off completely and get an all over tan

I was teaching the core skills of good Search Engine Optimisation to my new apprentice when I coined a phrase which in my experience perfectly explains the two halves of SEO:
  ”Half of SEO is understanding what is possible and
  how things work…
  ….The other half is investigative out maneuvering”
    ©2008 Martin Sansone

The UK sold off its family silver long ago!
Now it seems, they are happy to sell the rug from beneath their feet too .  Talk of globalisation is great when we are all happy with each other.. take Russia over the past 6 years for instance, yet when things get tricky nations think inwardly and look after themselves.  Great Britain, like Egypt - was once a great nation in the world yet look at Egypt in the world arena now !!  Selling British Energy to the French government is just another short sighted nail in the UK’s coffin.

I question the panic and sensationalist headlines spread around the world as XL Leisure Group’s grasp for short term lending fails and the third largest UK airline stops its services at the drop of a hat. I am sad for the thousands of travellers caught up in the latest of travel companies to close their doors.
   What did impress me is the integrity of XL’s chief executive in his admission and visible dismay/remorse in announcing the XL collapse. An humbling example to all those CEO’s who put their own interests before that of the company and its customers ! I didn’t see any openness when Farepak’s chief William Rollason knowingly wrecked Christmas for thousands. No, in the case of XL travellers the Civil Aviation Authority have the responsibility of ensuring all package holiday travellers get repatriated, and as expected - those with a tiny bit of patience and calm will all be only slightly delayed by a day or so for those actually stuck in an airport or not affected at all if they are due to fly home next week for example.
   There’s always some who over react and clamber for any return flight vacancies complaining of profiteering on flight tickets..rush rush !! A $100 hotel room for a day whilst things are smoothed out sounds more like it… the jobs etc will still be there when they finally get home.