Plane Conversations

Investment in travel applications continues. Social Flights continues to track the convergence of these technologies and demonstrate where we fit into the new travel paradigm. This article features Gidsy.com, the “activity-booker-meets-social-networking” site - claimed to be the AirBnB of travel. Notably they are location in Berlin (not the Valley), and their lead investor is none other than @AplusK.

Venture capitalist tend to invest in businesses that they understand and businesses that they can influence.  Ashton Kutcher is well known for his influence in both old media and new media – but where is the connection between that and travel?…except that Ashton needs to travel to get to Berlin.  Perhaps herein lies the answer.

From  VentureVillage.

“What I love about Gidsy is that they are creating a movement and a strong, credible community of likeminded people,” said supporter Felix Petersen in an interview with VentureVillage. “It’s important that like-minded businesses and individuals in Berlin cross-invest and help each other out.”

On the other hand (from the same article)

Kutcher has invested in over 40 tech companies to date, some of which remain unnamed out of fear that his own publicity would overshadow the product itself. 

How important is access to information?

Access to locations and access to information about location is critical to both the success of the people who live there as well as the people who go there.  In this light, products like Gidsy take on new meaning and impact for communities and travelers.

Gidsy.com allows users to offer paid-for activities and courses to other members of the community, as well as full social networking integration. Initially launched for the Berlin area, Gidsy now covers Amsterdam, New York and San Francisco, with London to follow soon.  Gidsy’s business model (charging 10% of each transaction) differs from similar US services like SideTour in NY (which charges a higher 20%) and Vayable (available in six cities, charging a 15% fee).  How they will hold up against American competition is yet to be seen.

The Virtuous Circle

Basically, Gidsy allows people to book activities provided by real people.  After listening to a recent program of TrendPOV by Dr. Amy Vanderbilt and her guest Reinhold Behringer about Augmented Reality, Gidsy.com seems to create the underlying dataset to this next level of travel technology.  The ability to point your smartphone down a street and see what activities are happening is only an iPhone revision away. Proximity is a play on “location” and inherently invokes transportation. So it is easy to see that many applications and technologies are converging.

Back to Ashton Kutcher and travel

Airlines and airplanes are increasingly confined to major hub airports.  Because everything is scheduled and booked far in advance, there is relatively little richness to the data that would drive an augmented reality experience in an airport.  However, where schedules are fluid, and activities are localized, and people are being creative, new markets will inevitably emerge.

Not Trivial:

Social Flights provides the dataset and certification to publish flights out of smaller local airports with the flexibility of flying non-stop to other small airports.  Combined applications such as Gidsy, augmented reality, and Social Flights can open up a new world of travel opportunities.  Maybe the “Hollywood Augmented Reality” is not so far off the mark after all.

 

Every time someone posts something online the context of their content reveals an intent. Intentions have become transparent and discernment of intent is becoming the wisdom of crowds.

The aggregation of consumer conversations enabled by technology has fueled awareness of market methods and intents. Consumers have found influence and have begun to “opt out” of the old methods created by old market methods of intent to capture and sell.

Social technology has created a transparency of intent. Intent is a relational attribute that reveals motive. The “markets of conversations” are no longer motivated by old methods used by the markets over the last 40 years. Doc Searls says “The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just “branded” by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.”

A Brands Letter of Intent

A letter of intent or LOI is a document outlining an agreement between two or more parties before the agreement is finalized. Such agreements may be for employment, acquisitions, mergers, purchases of services or products. Agreements which aim to specify the intents of parties engaged in a relationship for specific purposes.

The purposes of a LOI may be:

• to clarify the key points of a complex or simple transaction for the convenience of the parties
• to declare officially that the parties are now engaged with an intent implied or specifically spelled out
• to offer safeguards for when the relationship collapses during an engagement with intent

A LOI may also be referred to as a memorandum of understanding (MOU), term sheet or discussion sheet. The different terms show different styles, but do not show any difference under law. Social letters of intent exist when and where buyers and sellers engage on-line through the exchange of information and later a transaction which has certain expectations of delivery.

Social Agreements Represent LOI’s

When people engage with other people or entire organizations on-line there is an implied social agreement represented within the communications. The social agreement may be in response to an inquiry, a comment on posted content or an intent to investigate or take action from an ad or marketing message. The social agreement may also simply be a response to a need or an exchange of communications centric to topical discussions.

Given the reach of social technology and the engagement of markets, buyers and sellers, the underlying social agreement is similar to the traditional letter of intent. While social agreements are not legal instruments the expectations of fulfillment by both parties remain the same as if they were legally agreements.

The very nature of social technology and the emerging dynamics are raising people’s expectation to fulfill implied intents contained in context with the content (communications). It is clear that traditional marketing and advertising methods are being rejected because the intent of such methods are not what buyers expect. Today’s buyers expect honesty, integrity, responsiveness, performance and respect for their time, attention and intentions.

Cluttering buyers time, attention and relevant intentions with irrelevant ads and slick marketing messages does not show respect. Treating buyers like cattle waiting to be herded does not show respect. The currency of communications represents the value of ones intent to fulfill or fail to fulfill the intent of a social agreement. Failure to fulfill a social agreement means the buyers currency, both in the form of money and communications, will not follow you rather both will be spent and shared elsewhere.

Social letters of intent are not created by or from the supplier rather from the buyer. To ignore or not fulfill these intents means you lose the buyers currency and that of their “friends”. That represents a return, or lack thereof, from this thing called social media.

Suppliers push products and services to market. People represent the pull for products and services through demand.

In economics, supply and demand describe market relations between prospective sellers and buyers of goods and services. The supply and demand model determines price and quantity sold in the market. The model is fundamental in macroeconomic analysis of buyers and sellers and of their interactions in a market.

Suppliers, manufacturers, service providers and distributors that have realized efficiencies in their supply chains – but that have struggled to gain similar returns from classic customer relationship management (CRM) solutions – are now increasingly embracing demand chain management (DCM) technologies to cut costs and optimize sales processes.

Demand Chain Management is the management of upstream and downstream relationships between suppliers and customers to deliver the best value to the customer at the least cost to the demand chain as a whole. The term demand chain management is used to denote the concept commonly called supply chain management, however with special regard to the customer pull.

The more widespread adoption of social technologies, combined with the challenging sales environment stemming from the conversational rivers enabled by the social web will cause selling organizations to heighten their focus on the demand side of the value chain.

What is The Demand?

Fundamentally the social web has enabled people to have a voice about anything and everything. When the lowest expectations about a product or service are not met the conversations swell like rivers and spread one to one to a million at the click of a mouse.

Tomorrows leading companies will have to engage people through the social web if they hope to fulfill the pull created by conversations. In doing so, they help themselves by acting on the conversations centric to speeding up cycle times, eliminating redundant activities, extending market reach, and most importantly, enabling buyers of all shapes and sizes with more choices and with greater input into, and control over, relevant business processes.

Many people are tired of companies controlling the conversations about their products and services. The old tricks of the trade are no longer tricks but obvious ploys for people’s attention and the people aren’t buying the tricks anymore.

The old theories of supply and demand have been centric to microeconomics. The new theories will become centric to conversations and the impact said conversations have on markets and the subsequent economics of those markets. The people are now in control of the conversations they want to have, the questions they want answered, the products they want made, the services they want to have and most of all the quality they need. If existing markets aren’t listening and participating they will likely be replaced by those that do.

As the social web becomes more “open” with less walls created by silos the conversational rivers created by the people will become more connected and more influential over markets. The demand on businesses will be for higher quality of service and performance and hiding behind slick marketing messages will become more and more transparent and irrelevant. The shift from supply to demand will have profound effects across every business segment and demographic imaginable.

Demand side economics is a chain controlled by the customer. The larger the chain the greater economic influence over markets. Doc Searls’ VRM vision is to enable more power and influence from the demand side of the supply chain.

Lets admit it. Everyone is in pursuit of fame. Whether it is being adored by your family, friends, associates or main stream media, fame makes us feel good. Some know how to create fame and some simply don’t. As more and more people engage with social media feedback from friends, retweets of blog post, comments, connections and traffic illustrate a degree of fame. Whether we admit or not all these things fuel our own perception of “being famous”. It is simply the dynamics of predictable human behavior. We read how others have leveraged social media to gain attention, attraction and an audience. We hear about success stories from people previously unknown but have become known because of what they did with social media. The lessons learned is that fundamentally the more people whom you attract, the larger the audience of readers and viewers then the higher the likelihood that your fame will grow. That is if you are giving something of value to your audience. What Does An Audience Value? There are all kinds of different audiences seeking information, knowledge, relations and opportunities. However ever audience has a common thread of connectivity which is relational. Relational in the sense that someone has something of interest to somebody looking for something. Audiences look for all kinds of things and traditionally fame was achieved by those that attracted the largest audiences to their personality, content, product, service or message. Said attractions received attention from main stream media which just fueled the fame with exposure to larger audiences. This process is changing given the power of social technology.  Technology has enabled individuals and organizations to create their own audiences using content in context with an audiences interest.  The small are learning to create their own fame while the BIG are trying to hang on to fame. Fame creates a draw but the qualities of fame are shifting. The word fame implies the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed as well as favorable public reputation. Historically fame was achieved by movie stars, music artist, politicians, CEO's of major corporations and on-profit causes and initiatives. The fame achieved by these individuals was propagated by the media which not only created their fame but enhanced their stature to the masses of consumers who idolized the accomplishments, the adoration and money that seemed to follow fame. Today things have changed and fame is no longer limited to the few rather the many. Fame is now gained from originality.  Fame comes from character and affinity to an audience of people who are drawn by the characteristics of a person or crowd. Audiences are people and the shift in media sentiments is tapping into the basic human fabric, trust. Trust is shifting because influence is shifting. The old days of tricking people with messages, spin and trapping them into a transaction is dieing a slow death. Old media tricks and methods are being rejected by the masses.  The biggest change which impacts the traditional means of achieving fame is that of public trust and confidence. Trust and confidence has traditionally been created by mass media which historically has been contained by the few. Today "new media" is now engaging and enabling the many to create and influence market sentiment about anything, everyone and everything. This "new media, or social media", has empowered the many to create their own stories, publish their own opinions and create their own on-line videos. Fame is no longer limited to the few but open to the masses to achieve. Fame is now achieved by what you do and the value it creates for others. It is no longer limited by your economic status or coverage by main street media. If he word fame implies the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed as well as favorable public reputation then what is happening on-line is a road to fame for many rather than the few. This new form of fame doesn’t require millions of followers rather just a small crowd. The small crowd now has reach and  is becoming the major influence over market sentiment about everything. The few are in fact becoming the many and fame follows them at the click of a mouse. Got fame? Use it wisely. Related posts:

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