Expedia Launches New iPhone App For Travelers

Expedia has launched a new free iPhone application, TripAssist, that links to its mobile website to allow users to mange their travel itineraries.

TripAssist allows users to research flights, destinations, hotels, cars and activities. Once they make a reservation, they can manage and update their itineraries, find an alternative flight, research their seats and access real-time flight information.  The app also offers real-time SMS and email updates for free.

"Travel, by definition, is a mobile endeavor - you get up and go. Now, Expedia can travel with you," said Tim MacDonald, senior vice president and general manager, Expedia.com.

"TripAssist is the latest example of how Expedia.com is the easiest place to book your travel."

TripAssist allows users to view and update travel plans no matter where they were booked. Users can automatically sync an itinerary from their Expedia account or create a new itinerary. When travelers land at their destination, the app will automatically provide access to their hotel information.

Expedia says it has optimized its site for most mobile phone browsers, including BlackBerry, Android and Windows phones. The company says 55,000 trips were booked on smartphone browsers on its site in 2009, and it expects that number to increase.
 

 

UK’s Department Of Health Reveals $4.25m AdWords Tab

Google users in the UK may be unusually well-informed with regards to their government's healthcare policies.  The Department of Health revealed this week that it spent about 2.72 million (or $4.25 million at the current exchange rate) on AdWords over the past year.

To be exact: the department spent 2,720,457.11 between February 1 of last year and January 31 of this one, according to official records.  And a whopping 21,939 keywords (including ones like "health information" and "stop smoking") were covered by its campaign.

As reported in a Smart Healthcare article, a Department of Health spokesperson explained this huge endeavor by stating, "The Department of Health's campaigns are designed to deliver better health, whether they be to help people change their behaviours to protect their long term health, to signpost people to NHS services, or to encourage healthier lifestyles."

The spokesperson then further justified the AdWords campaign by adding, "The campaigns are evaluated using a combination of robust techniques that help us identify exactly what works, so we know that these campaigns are saving lives."

That acts as a nice sort of pat on the back for Google.  The search giant no doubt appreciates the UK government's money, too.

Have You Read This?

> Google Narrows Down Mobile Ad Targeting

> Report Suggests More Revenue, But Fewer Advertisers For Google

> Google Now Rejecting AdWords Ads Without Proper Display

Record Label Launched for YouTube Stars

A couple of guys have gotten together and started a record label for musicians who became popular on YouTube. The label is called DFTBA Records.

The label was started by Alan Lastufka, author of YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts and Hank Green of VlogBrothers. Now they have caught the attention of YouTube itself, which is promoting the duo's endeavor on the company blog.

The label runs as an independent distribution network, which presses CDs, and gets them onto iTunes to "put the music where the fans are." They manage digital sales, CD production and will soon also handle artists' merchandise. In the following clip, the two talk about their label.

The label has so far released 10 CDs. Artists on the label include Dave Days, Alex Day, Dr. Noise, Venetian Princess, Rhett & Link, and Michael Buckley. The founders have their own projects as well.

"Our artists all made a name for themselves on YouTube, cultivating huge audiences based not on marketing or saturated radio play, but on talent," say Green and Lastufka. "We've taken these YouTube stars, and helped them reach a dedicated and large audience. Our debut album, So Jokes, landed the #22 spot on Billboard's "Hits of the Web" chart... and we're just getting started."

DFTBA is a good example of how the web is really changing the music industry. The web has been turning the recording industry on its ear for years now, but projects like this give lesser-known artists new ways of getting discovered and increasing exposure.

Mapping Your Way to a Good HTML Site Map

Ever wondered what site maps are for?

In any internet marketing endeavor, the best thing to do is to maintain a good linkage and to always stay indexed. There many ways available to you online to have your web site indexed and spidered. Using HTML site maps is a way you can utilize to make sure that your site is up to date in the internet and search engine database.

What is a site map?

A site map basically is a page that features or lists the links you have on your web site. This will make it easier for search engines to proceed and spider your web site. It is usually found near the bottom page of a web site.

Why are site maps important?

An HTML site map is important. It should contain the top level pages. In one page, there should be just about the right amount of links in it. The link should not exceed 100 for more favorable views.

There are certain benefits in having a good HTML sitemap. This generally would assure any potential customer to easily navigate the site, find exactly what they came to look for. The site map page will serve as a tool for your visitors. This way they will opt to visit your site more if they can easily browse and find their way in your web site. It can also ensure that your visitors can very well stay in your web site.

Good links will also ensure you that spiders will locate your web site easily each week. This will make your site indexed by the important search engines online. This will also avoid your site from being dropped.

However, HTML site maps may serve more important purpose than merely as another link to click on. The specific purpose you should consider in having a site map is to make it easier for search engine robots to ‘crawl’ in your web site. Pages are located by search engines through ‘crawling.’ It is a process that goes through the index of a page, following the links and adding the pages to the database.

The problem would come in when search engines fail to locate the page because links are not that accessible. It is the site map that will address this dilemma. Search engines will be given access to the different links in your web site simply by following the site map in your home page.

Here are some important pointers in creating your HTML site map.
1. Get tutorials on how to make your site map. There are available pages online that can give you a step-by-step guide in coming up with a good website.

2. You can also ensure that your site map looks good, to make it more pleasing to the eye of your visitor and to make navigation easier. You can get ideas for a properly designed site map online too.

3. Make sure that your site map will provide also the links to the important pages in your web site. This way your visitors will not get lost. At the same time you can ensure that your guests will still be able to get the general idea of your web site structure. It is advisable that you make links as simple as possible.

4. Make the link to your site map as visible and obvious as possible in your homepage. Visitors should not spend too much time in locating it or else you might end up losing them.

5. A site map serves more like a table of contents of your website. It should provide all of the different sections of your internet site with all the information and data that may be found in each section.

6. Each of the contents in your site map must have a hyperlink to its respective URL.

7. If you will have to give way to numerous links, you can make use of several pages. You could numbers each site-map page or you could also make use of the contents in naming each site-map.

Having an HTML site map will furthermore help you in maximizing traffic to your web site. Just make sure that your homepage as well all the internal pages are properly indexed. Creating a site map will definitely make things more efficient for you. The links to all the pages in your website will be directly connected to your homepage.

Aim high for your internet marketing endeavors. The more links you have to your site, the higher is the possibility of getting a good rank among the major search engines, so don’t hesitate to learn the rules of the game and make yourself a sure winner.

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