I have written about the Opodo EscapeMap system a couple of times before - both times positively. In essence it is a Google map based system for geographically navigating special offers. It is actually quite nice and I expect is working fairly well for them.

Previous posts: Comparing the Travelocity ExperienceFinder, Opodo EscapeMap and various solutions from Expedia and back in August when they first launched.

Special offer API
In my last coverage I mentioned that Opodo, one of Europe’s largest online travel agencies, managed to leave a nice API open letting anyone come and “collect” Opodo’s special offer data - all nicely formatted in XML. Not a major sin - but I would have made the API a little more secure from simple viewing using a combination of JavaScript obfuscation and XML encryption (and a daily changing key). This wouldn’t be foolproof, but it would stop people like me from messing around.

Example XML response (works best in Firefox, but go view source in IE if you get an error page)

Why is this data exposure wrong?
A competitor could take advantage of this data freely given by Opodo - by incorporating that data into their own revenue management system - so competitors can see how their offers compare to Opodo’s and adjust their own offers in response. This kind of data is gold dust. You could easily look out for the latest change in Opodo special offers and immediately react with your own offers to the destinations they are pushing that week….

As I know that various people from Opodo have read that post I am surprised that they have not changed their system yet (they have had 4 months). Maybe they don’t realise what competitors get up to with this kind of data! Maybe it was just PR people who read the post!

What now?
I was searching for Opodo EscapeMap via Google and I noticed something a little odd:

Yep - if you search as above - what you get is now a nice error message coming up in the Google results.

A couple of points about this:

1. There should be a robots.txt file on http://escapemap.opodo.co.uk -  that would sort Google out within a few days
2. The PHP server(s) running Escape Map should have their error messages turned off. At the moment the messages are going to the end user - which is really bad (it is a simple configuration switch on the web server!)
3. One reason exposing PHP errors is bad is because you can see where the error line is. It is in a file called getMapSearch.php - which is an incorrectly located include file. Include files really need to be out of the webserver public space - otherwise, if you accidentally misconfigure your server (like Facebook did in August this year), you can expose your core, proprietary, code (or things like database passwords etc). Opodo could also try using pre-compiled (encoded) PHP…. which absolutely stops code leaks in situations like server mis-configurations
4. This is really not very good for search engine optimisation - knowing how much companies like Opodo spend on SEO and online marketing - I am amazed that no one is picking up on this.

I am not trying to pick on Opodo specifically however these kinds of examples can really show us all how important good quality control is. People in marketing and web development teams need to understand each others jobs - and what kind of things to look out for when putting new functionality live.

These kinds of problems didn’t happen in the “old days” (I am a bit young to reminisce) - when a site of this size would be run be a small team of people - all with good all round experience. Now when you have hundreds of people responsible for a website - everyone only works in their own section - and never gets the full picture - and may never have actually worked in other areas.

For example, the person responsible for revenue management within Opodo is probably really happy that users can now navigate special offers easily. However they are probably scratching their heads wondering how competitors are reacting so quickly to their new offers!

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Very interesting and informative article in The Register today about the European Union (EU) Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (going live in the UK in April 08, but rest of Europe from January 08). (Yes I really did just say “Very interesting” and law in the same sentence!). Read the full article

From a web perspective, areas that it will cover are:

• “Astroturfing” - for example paying bloggers to write positive statements about your company or product on their blogs (or negative about a competitor). This will now be illegal within Europe.
• Competitors writing reviews on product review websites while pretending to be a consumer. This will now be illegal within Europe
• Perhaps also writing anonymous comments on blogs - where there is some form of commercial impact. This may help Travolution who seem to be having fun and games with anonymous comments at the moment.
• Anywhere that a company falsely claims to be a consumer
• Perhaps also the couple of travel industry blogs - written semi-anonymously. If these are commercial blogs (they take advertising) then do they have to state who is writing them?

This won’t just cover companies but also individuals (who are technically “sole traders” when they add advertising to their websites)

I have once placed advertising with 3rd party bloggers as a form of astroturfing. I used the PayPerPost marketplace. I believe that in order to form an opinion on something it helps to try things first hand. Anyway, looks like that may be illegal now (when done without stating that the reason the blogger mentioned your product is because they were paid and the post is actually an advert). PayPerPost are a marmite company - you either love it or hate it.

The factor that will be used to determine whether a commercial practice is unfair will be based on the effect on the average consumer’s decision to buy. I assume this covers both a positive and negative effect.

Yeah yeah yeah - I am not a lawyer. If I was, I wouldn’t be giving advice via a blog.

Go and read the article on The Register - that really is written by a lawyer!

Lets say you run a website on behalf of a tour operator - and this website - much like most tour operator websites - focuses on describing, promoting and selling that operator’s travel products. This is what I call a “product website“.

However one aspect of running a product website is that you are constantly having to promote your website in order to ensure that people travelling to that part of the world appreciate that your website exists.

The alternative is to produce what I call a “research website“.

A research website is one where users come to first….. in order to understand more about the destination that they are travelling to. Once they have undertaken their research they will then enter “product evaluation and buying” mode - and your products, along with other products from other websites, will be considered.

Key points about research focussed websites:

• Users tend to share knowledge about the existence of websites that are informative (rather more than websites that sell product). For example - oh you are going to Greenland - have you seen this website? It is really good.
• Journalists, guide books and non-commercial websites like to link to (or mention) websites that don’t have a 100% commercial feel (people link to this blog for example, but we do commercial things on this website as well - but people still link because hopefully these blog postings have some value)
• Not every tour operator can have a leading “research website”. We know that users go from site to site during the product evaluation phase of their purchase - but they won’t go from research website to research website - unless the first ones they go to are not very informative. (FYI - I normally like to back these kinds of statements up with facts - but I don’t have any on this one - this is an intuition and judgement call). Incidentally, because not every tour operator can have a “best research website” title - there is a long term competitive advantage to getting a website into this state - as it is uneconomic for a competitor to replicate in the future.
• You will be better trusted as a destination expert.
• You may learn about products that you are not currently selling. For example many small tour operators who run guided tours don’t sell hotel only reservations for hotels in their area. This though is the market that many larger tour operators are only in - therefore there is demand for these products from consumers.
• Users will come back to your website again and again….. without you even having to remind them. Your website will become “bookmarkable”.
• Your website will rank better within search engines!
• Your user booking conversion percentages will go down. The question you will have to ask is would you prefer 4% conversion on 10,000 visitors or 2% on 30,000. I would go for the 2% on 30,000 - because I know I can monetise the other new visitors anyway. Besides 2% of 30,000 is a larger number of bookings! (OK - you have to be careful with conversion numbers if you are doing Pay Per Click - but apart from that - who really cares about this number anyway? I just care whether a user, on every visit, achieved what they came to the website for - if they came to find your telephone number - and they found the telephone number - that is a success)

I will cover what makes a good research website at some future time - this is a slightly tricky subject as it is destination specific although there are some good general ideas out there.

I also have to be fairly careful to not give away too many new ideas - unless someone else has done it first in which case I can report on what people are doing. (I give my good new ideas to clients in return for money!)

Today I thought I would try to get out my crystal ball and divine what the future of online travel may be in 5-10 years time. Scary thought….. and I will probably be wrong - but, hey, being wrong has never put me off in the past.

To start I thought that I needed to find some guidance on how to read my crystal ball - or crystallomancy as it is actually called. The best advice I found was:

• The images may not be very clear, especially at first. You may see shapes and silhouettes rather than sharp pictures.
• The most important thing to emphasise for a beginner is not to expect immediate results. It is not a TV.

Further information on how to read crystal balls

5 years ago

• Airline websites sold flights.
• Hotel chain websites sold hotel reservations.
• Tour operators sold holidays.
• Newspapers / magazines reviewed destinations and sometimes products. They had a strong revenue source from travel product advertising.
• Review websites published reviews (although there were only a few around)

Now

• Airline websites sell flights, hotels & car hire.
• Hotel chain websites sell hotels.
• Tour operators sell flights, hotels & car hire.
• Newspapers / magazines sell flights, hotels & car hire and have “reviews”. Much reduced income from travel product advertising due to falling subscriber numbers.
• Review websites sell flights, hotels & car hire

+2 years

Websites will be difficult to differentiate - they will all be the same and have the same product. It will be difficult to tell if a company started as an airline, a tour operator or even a newspaper. At this point the least profitable websites (and hence companies) will close down / merge because they won’t be able to keep up with the web design arms race.

• Airline websites sell flights, hotels & car hire - and have “reviews”
• Hotel chain websites….. er not sure
• Tour operators sell flights, hotels & car hire - and have “reviews”
• Newspapers / magazines will have reduced their travel website investments because they will get squeezed out (or maybe they could win because they have less overheads than traditional travel companies who will struggle to get rid of their excess staff quickly enough to compete effectively)
• Review websites (and destination information sites) will have all been purchased by suppliers or big travel companies (as a step to try to retain competitive advantage)

Tim Hughes suggests we are almost there already….. with the TripAdvisor recent launch looking just like an OTA.

+ 10 years

The industry will be moving away from HTML / page based web design towards rich websites that can be experienced fully from within your own home (rather than within your computer) - such as the successor to flash / flex or whatever turns out to win the technology battle a generation after that. Hence older HTML / page based websites that have been “hanging on” will suddenly require massive investment in order to retain position…… and it will be an investment that few companies will be in a position to make. This change in technology will force the change in the travel industry. Remember travel is about experiences…. so will need to stay at the forefront of this technology shift.

Large online travel agents will be the worst hit….. They will be “Amazonafied” - meaning that just one or two will remain. Who needs to find another book ordering website when you already have an account with Amazon and they deliver an acceptable service?

Second worst hit will be large tour operators that are mainly just reselling other people’s products. They will struggle to find sufficient “valued added” to differentiate themselves. The suppliers they have been working with for years will be moving to direct sell (companies that currently work as ground handlers or incoming tour operators will compete directly)

Airlines will go back to being airlines (however there will be little money in flights - as the money will be made on selling extras - which these airlines won’t be selling when sold via the OTAs). Hard times ahead financially although consumer demand will continue to increase so someone will solve this. (Probably one of the handful of vertically integrated online travel agents will own their own airline - and make that work profitably)

Meta search websites - this will be the next big area. In the world where you have a very small number of large travel websites (OTAs) (2-5) the meta search websites will be powerful (like Google is powerful for search today, without actually selling you the product). These metasearch websites will list hotels (who won’t need to be in chains because they can be found through these metasearch websites without having to be part of a larger group), tours (from tour operators who don’t need distribution now, except to these meta search companies), flights, car hire etc. They will form a single shopping experience which, when coupled with a “single industry payment service” such as that launched by Amadeus recently, may compete with the remaining OTAs. However I expect there will be a number of niche meta search websites….. focused around industry segment, destination, activity etc…. Meta search companies will be what replaces medium sized tour operators with their product specialisations. Don’t rely on the fact that there will be thousands of these companies. The technology will be too expensive…. I expect 20-100 of these companies to exist in the world….

Small tour operators - will continue as usual. Will thrive as through removal of marketing issues they will be able to focus on providing great products and services. Metasearch companies will assist small tour operators. Look out for more entrepreneurs here.

Travel technology - collapsed as an industry. In an industry with less large travel companies - who is going to support the required research & development to remain competitive? If there are only 5 companies that need systems, then will there need to be 50 system providers?

Did I miss out travel agents? Yes. I get grief each time I mention that they are doomed….. and I thought I would save myself the bother this time. If you are an agent - jump onto the meta search bandwagon. This is pretty much what you do already right now - except you need to throw technology at the problem not people. Meta search companies will be just like agents - except legally they won’t be selling product - so they will be more like today’s affiliates than today’s agents.

Lastly
One of the problems with projections like this is that they can become self fulfilling. By that I mean that because we think something is going to happen - we make plans for our own companies taking into account the eventuality that it will take place as expected. Once all these plans are in action in multiple companies the initial proposal occurs naturally. Therefore I would suggest you question my projections very carefully. I am not an industry expert by any means. I just do web design & development!

Its not often that I read articles on travel industry news websites where I disagree as strongly as I have done today.

Mind you, its not often that anyone publishes anything vaguely interesting about travel ecommerce on any travel industry news website (it is all technology company product news - or news about travel products - which frankly I don’t need to fill my brain with) - so I don’t get much opportunity to agree or disagree with anything. (oh gawd, I see this post is going the wrong way already) (on a side note - if you talk to the web or system teams within large travel companies -  none of them read either the physical trade press nor online travel industry news sites - and Travolution doesn’t even penetrate very well - none of these media are relevant to their jobs - although Travolution would be a good read if they knew about it….)

Today TravelMole have published a report by Jeremy Skidmore, a well respected UK / Australia / US travel industry journalist that I have shared a stage with at a conference a while back. He normally talks a lot of sense. The title of their article - “Learn how to sell or fail” (registration required).

In the article Jeremy is reporting from the Elite travel group conference in Jerez (Elite are a consortium of UK travel agents). Most of what he has written is in quotes.

Lets get to the beef.

Travel agents are in a sales industry and if they do not learn how to sell, they will be left behind, delegates were told.

In an entertaining presentation, Beachcomber Tours UK sales manager Sarah Archer used videos to portray how life had changed for agents and warned they needed to move with the times.

“Direct sell tour operators are a big threat to traditional travel agents and tour operators because they are offering the same product for a lower price, so how do you beat them?,” she asked.

“You face up to the challenge. You must sell and get sales training for your staff. Use your experience and high level of customer service. Learn how to judge your clients’ body language and what to say to make a sale.  

Why do I consider this to be so wrong? It is like going into a candlestick factory and doing a “time and motion” study. Yes - you may end up designing a more efficient candlestick factory…. but what you ought to be doing is moving to selling lightbulbs!

My theory (that I have been pushing for a few years) is that there is a core difference between a travel agent and a tour operator.

In essence a travel agent (especially a high street one, or one working with a selected list of customers) has the full attention of one customer at any one time. Their challenge is to find an appropriate product for that individual customer. Hence travel agent systems are about “search” and “sales”. They need to have access, via technology, to multiple product providers - so if someone comes in wanting a villa in Turkey or a trip to Las Vegas they can sell it…. if that is what that individual customer wants.

In reverse, a tour operator has a shortlist of product. Maybe they only sell trips to Las Vegas. They have a marketing challenge…. because the challenge is to find customers who want to go to Las Vegas. They have to find customers that match their product. This is the reverse mentality to travel agents. Its a marketing problem.

So, yes, travel agents can survive (maybe) - but not by getting better at selling (and it is patronising to agents to tell them that to survive they need to get better at selling - because normally they are pretty damm good already). What they need to be focussing on is creating environments where customers can buy from them and getting the right customers to visit these environments (it could be a website, a shop, a call centre etc). They need to learn to market not learn to sell.

Oh well, I guess I won’t be asked to speak at any travel agent conferences in the near future….

Any more rants like this - and I will probably have to go and write for Travel Rants!

Online travel has evolved to be significant within the industry and has evened up the marketplace for consumers - you can now find large and small travel companies willing to sell to customers direct - some based in a customer’s own country, some based in their destination country.

However I was asked a travel related question by a client a couple of days ago and I couldn’t think where on the web I would go to ask it…..

The question I was asked was:

We currently run minibus trips based in the UK - but travelling around Europe. We are a small company and we use a supplier with a couple of minibuses. We are looking into growing our operations beyond what our current supplier can handle - do you know anyone with Europe based minibuses that can provide drivers / leaders?

To me this looks like the classic case of needing a wide network of travel industry contacts that can be used to ask, and hopefully find, an answer. This is exactly the kind of contact book that small tour operators (meaning those with less than 20 staff) don’t naturally have but should be possible to find on the web….

A couple of thoughts:

• The question could be asked via Linkedin - would that work?
• There may be an existing forum, website or email group that supports this kind of discussion (but if there is, it hasn’t come across my radar)
• Do industry bodies keep track of what products / services companies offer - and what are needed - and therefore who could be “matched” (a bit like a dating service)?

So - do you know where someone could go to get this question answered?

This may be a business opportunity as there is a potential business need to match small tour operators with potential suppliers. The ideal solution would be web based in order to reach out to all the small companies it would need to in order to reach critical mass.

In recent times much travel technology investment (including websites) has tended to be in the large travel company sector. This is probably because there is a defined business need - and the number of clients to reach critical mass remains fairly low. In the small tour operator world you need many small clients in order to have sustainable business whereas for larger travel technology companies you just need a few, but high booking volume, clients.

However, for someone willing to give this a go - you could build a solution around this business problem as highlighted above…. unless someone has got there first…. (in which case comment below!)

I have managed a number of projects recently (both web and reservation system) for various travel company clients. They all tend to have something in common - one of the business objectives is to “become more efficient”.

The outcome of “becoming more efficient” is that either the same staff can handle more bookings (such as in the case of call centre staff) - or the staff can be reassigned to other needy departments in the company.

Therefore IT projects can get off to a “sticky start” as people around a company become aware that although they are to be heavily involved in the project (after all they currently run that business process and associated team) - they won’t have such a large team in the future….. IT people have never really judged themselves in terms of seniority in terms of what staff they have reporting to them…. so we can misjudge how negative this can make people feel who are having their departments downsized or pushed for extra performance.

Anyway, the rules are changing now.

Now IT and web people are talking about adding features to websites. Do you want your customers to rate your products? What about putting some social networking style functionality on your site? Wonderful. Lets get on with it……

Except - who is going to moderate this user feedback? Who is going to “ignite” a conversation on a forum - ensuring that users keep keen to come back and get involved in conversations?

So IT departments are now in the job generation exercise. This is something we are not very accustomed to…. and therefore probably not very good at - especially when it is job generation for someone else’s department. It goes against all that IT managers have been doing for the last 30 years.

Now, when you see your IT manager come to talk to you about “a project they have in mind for your department” - don’t immediately think that they want to make you more efficient or replace some of your team with some software or other….. they could just be coming to talk to you about making your team larger.

Pricing errors tend to fall into distinct categories:

• Product but no price
• Loading error (human)
• Code logic error (developer)
• User trying to fool the system

Product but no price
On many systems the product (such as a tour, hotel, flight etc) is loaded and configured into a system at a different time (and maybe by a different person) than the dates & prices. Some (and I am going to have to be fairly general here not to give away too much NDA’d detail!) systems will ensure that a zero priced product can’t be sold…..but this then causes problems for product that really is zero priced (extras that are not sold - or where the cost price is not passed on to customers).

On systems that don’t stop zero priced products from being sold the plan can sometimes be to add all product in at £99999….. then, before that product is put on sale, it is just a matter of searching for the £99999 products - and ensure that a correct price is loaded….. but this doesn’t always happen - and the assumption is that a customer really wouldn’t buy a holiday for that amount should they see one of these large numbers…. At the web end of the system, the developer can double check that they are not showing the “magic” 999999 number on the screen - and alert back to the product team….. All of this is quite nasty from an IT perspective and is best avoided if possible.

Loading error (human)
Moving information from a “product contracting” system into the reservation system can be, in many companies, a human process. Humans are never 100%. These errors are very difficult to pickup.

Code logic error (developer)
With many different types of product that can be put “in a basket” on a travel website it is difficult (but not impossible) to test all the likely combinations. Sometimes the “business logic” layer of the code can have a hiccup…. and create an incorrect end price…. (or it could be a succession of rounding errors for example). Really you shouldn’t get any of these type errors….

User trying to fool the system
There are now a number of extensions you can add to web browsers (such as Firebug for Firefox) which let users “adjust” values in web forms before the are submitted…. I have seen websites where you can tweak values and get different prices on subsequent online booking screens. Never trust your users or their input.

How can pricing errors be found and resolved?
Two distinct routes to resolve these problems:

• Sales tracking - including margin analysis
• Legal solutions

If you have a good “yield or revenue management” system it should tell you when either a product is selling too quickly (priced too low) or not at all (priced too high) vs where you need to be with the specific time prior to product “expiring”. This can sometimes pickup pricing issues.

Margin analysis - if you know that you are always looking for a 30% margin (sales price vs cost price) - then you can check this at point of booking - and ensure that the margins are all OK…. this can either be done by human intervention - or by your computer system.

Legal solutions (UK law)
(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice….!)

Out-law.com have a great article on legal solutions for pricing errors. They are lawyers so it is best to ask them…. however, here is a quick precis:

On the “order now” button within an online booking process, ensure that you are saying “you are making an offer to purchase goods, which, if accepted by us, will result in a binding contract”…. Then you don’t have to accept the offer if the price is wrong.

Make it clear that just because you have taken the customers money doesn’t mean you have accepted their offer. “Your card will be debited with the sum of £200 when you click the order button. This will be refunded if your offer is refused”.

Ensure that in your “confirmation email” that you use language like “your order has been received and is being processed” (which doesn’t suggest you have agreed to the customer’s offer) - rather than (in the case for physical ecommerce) - “your goods will be dispatched within 24 hours”.

Further reading
Read the story about how one customer got £8000 worth of hotel reservations from Opodo for £1.50 (3 USD). Apparently this is as as result of the hotel loading their own rates & availability…..

So far travel agents have been worst hit by the move to Internet based reservations - but other companies, like tour operators, could struggle soon. It won’t be about getting sales (which was the problem travel agents are getting - lack of sales) but it will be about profit margins. The new middlemen will be meta-search websites, price comparison sites, destination based portals etc - all wanting their share of the pie.

The cause of this problem? Technology and the pace it changes.

Currently, to create a web page, you “just” need some text and a few images. With this you can make a website that is really very good. You don’t need complex technology. Clever marketing folks can promote these “Web 1.0″ websites and deliver good sales volumes. The tour operators with the best product, the best customer service and the best marketing got the most sales. Technology came last in the list.

However, new players are joining the sector and they are technology focussed. See this review from Steve E / 23 Musings about how traditional operators are progressing too slowing with new technology.

If this is right, the competition of the future will be played out with technology playing a more important role than it does currently. Historically, technology was a bit like your accounts department - do it badly and you are in trouble and everyone knows about it - but do it brilliantly and no one really notices. Not so in the future.

Can’t technology providers give us technology to compete? Isn’t that what they are for?

No - reservation system providers are moving towards providing “commodity” software. This means all their customers get exactly the same software - the same code base - and all changes are made by configuration rather than development.

Ed Spiers, Anite Travel Systems, stated that Anite are moving towards configuration rather than development model while speaking at the TTI conference in London last June. Their competitors are mainly all taking the configuration model already. This isn’t news.

Technology companies have turned into product companies not service companies.

How about marketing agencies?

One problem with marketing agencies is that they really struggle to work with more than one company in any one sector or with competing products.

For example in search engine optimisation, an agency can’t get more than one of their clients to the top of a keyword search for “Spain holiday”. If they have a brainwave - which client do they give it to?

Be especially wary of marketing agencies who also have their own websites “on the side”…. as you know you won’t get the best ideas……

How about inhouse staff?

The skills shortage in experienced ecommerce folk will soon start to bite. People with the right skills are short on the ground - and even if you have one or two experienced people who can come up with the good ideas - can in house teams really “execute” the idea effectively? Normally not as the technology is becoming too large and too complex - and can’t be purchased off the shelf.

Maybe Ed Spiers from Anite was right when he suggested that small tour operators are not commercially viable.

Travolution have asked the question - How do you know when you’ve read a fake hotel review on a travel website? (see their full post)

In response, one comment says “When you read it on an online travel agency website”.

Yikes - have user generated reviews got that bad a reputation? Have companies been so manipulative of it in the past that it no longer holds any weight?

It was only last January (7 months ago) that Nielsen//Netratings published research that said that sites posting user reviews are considered the most trustworthy (see reference)

When asked which online source do you trust to give you ‘the most reliable information of all’ user generated content sites like TripAdvisor were cited by 21% of respondents ahead of 15% each for review sites like TimeOut.com and official local information sites such as Visit Scotland.com. Travel agents’ own sites such as ThomasCook.com were considered the most reliable by 12% of Britons online compared with just 11% who selected search engines.

Personally I have always been a little wary of trusting user generated reviews as I don’t know whether it is really a customer or a hotelier / tour operator / airline in disguise. However, I write as someone who once booked a hotel in London and then checked TripAdvisor. All the reviews said to stay well clear of the hotel….. but I had booked by then…. when I got to the hotel - there was no cold water (let alone hot water!). Lesson learnt.

Do I have any ideas to help with reducing “gaming” by travel companies?

Firstly there is a difference between two categories of user data - and therefore two styles of gaming:

• Attention or use data - what the user does - such as user navigation paths on a website, items put on a shopping basket, time spent on a page etc
• Action data - such as posting a review or “buying” something

Both can be gamed - by which I mean changed or used to a individual or companies advantage. However, mostly attention or use data will only impact the experience of that individual user so the incentive to do so is minimal.

An example of gaming an ecommerce website in this way would be:

1. Go to a website selling mobile phones
2. Go straight to a page with an expensive phone on
3. Add the expensive mobile phone to your shopping basket
4. Remove the expensive mobile phone from your shopping basket
5. Navigate to a web page with a less expensive phone
6. Add the less expensive phone to your shopping basket

The chances are that, on the website, a special offer for the expensive phone you first added to your shopping card could be shown to you - perhaps with some money off or similar. This is because the website will have identified that you are interested in buying - but has evaluated that you are buying on price - so could be upsold to with a product you have previously expressed an interest in….. You also need to find a website powered by an expensive ecommerce platform such as Broadvision - as very few sites actually do this at the moment!

That is gaming for personal benefit - but the problem with user generated review sites is that the gaming is mainly for commercial benefit - i.e. getting good reviews of your product infront of potential customers

The real problem is one of identity. How do you know the user is who they say they are? 

An answer to this is to ensure that the incentive to provide a correct identity is driven by something other than having access to the system - perhaps by an ongoing relationship where you have to provide correct information for other purposes.

Here is an example of what I mean - do you recognise the question format?

This question came up in Linkedin.com’s business social network - not the first place I would go to ask a travel question.

However, what interests me about this question is:

• I can see who asked it - it is not a travel company from Limerick “trolling” a question - in order to answer it later with a good response pushing their product - but a supply chain manager from Dell in the USA.
• I can see who has answered it - a law professor from Houston, a bank employee and assorted others

I know exactly who these people are - I don’t know them personally - but I trust that they are who they say they are - because LinkedIn has solid profiles of all users. I know they are not travel companies.

This is something that Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and all the other travel social networks DONT have.

So to summarise - user generated review sites are only as good as the identity mechanism they have. The identity mechanism doesn’t just have to convince the website that the user is who they say they are - but also must be able to convince the websites’s users….. this, without making all sorts of personal information very public, is not something that many user generated review sites will find very easy to achieve.

Now if I were Linkedin - I would be looking to utilise this solid profile information to create something bigger and better than what they already have……….. they are one of the few sites that people actually give their real information to (although it only really attracts those of working age)

Ummmm…….. something to ponder