The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) holds back a passenger carrying the new MacBook Air laptop….not able to believe that it has ‘no hard-drive’.

A Freshman trying to use Facebook for homework study group is facing expulsion.

All these students are scared ….about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it’s no different than any study group working together on homework in a library….students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.

But you can interact with a system using touch and gestures on a tabletop rather than keyboard and clicks. Microsoft’s new Surface Technology is coming to Harrah’s Rio Casino in Las Vegas this Spring.

You can also control your iPod with your eyelids now.

Bat an eyelid to replay your favorite iPod tune with a new Japanese remote control that works in the blink of an eye. When a user winks, movement in their skin is detected by sensors clipped to their glasses or headphones…

You can get high-tech from vending machines now. Doug Amath stuck at Dallas Airport ended up taking pictures of vending machines for iPods, Sony, Proactiv and Rent-a-Laptop that dot the airport terminal. We have come a long way from the soda and the chips….

Walking down the aisles of a super store like Walmart or browsing the categories of an on-line super store like Amazon, I take for granted the choices in products that are laid out for me. Isn’t that these guys’ job? Go out and get the best possible products in terms of price and quality….get them in front of an amazingly large population…see what sells and make adjustments to the product lines that are carried. These are the big Sellers – the aggregators – Pure Sellers, not Creators.

Then, there are the not-so-big Sellers – either very ‘home-made’ and low-volume products from the neighborhood bakery and the art gallery; or the high-end, life-style products with exclusive branding that just cannot be placed next to any other product. Usually these Sellers are the Creators themselves, and need to excel in both areas to sustain themselves and grow.

So if I am a Creator, I need to decide how I get my customers – vie for attention from the big aggregators or sell myself – depending on my production-volume and/ or the perceived exclusivity of my product.

As with all other products, consumers are gravitating towards ’super-stores’ for travel purchases. The big Seller’s list in travel products is now getting a shake-out and will be interesting to watch. The usual places to look for travel were Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline and Orbitz – but all of them have ‘deals’ with Creators and influence the product lines they carry – similar to the Walmarts and Amazons of the world.

The new deal is the Search Engine. Google has finally convinced everyone that if something is out there, they can find it by googling (a bona-fide English language verb now!). There are the top three or four ’search engines’ for jobs, cars, housing, books, music….and travel. If you are any good as a Creator, you are expected to  pop-up on all the searches done at any Seller’s online store or main-street store. 

The new “Sellers/Shoppers” are Kayak – stronger with their acquisition of Sidestep, and Yahoo! Travel – deeper now with their showcasing of Farechase technology. Both Kayak and Yahoo! emphasize that they are not stores, but your personal search agents that go out and do your shopping across multiple Superstores and smaller stores. There have been rumors of the venerable Google getting into the Travel Personal Shopper business, although Google has pooh-poohed any immediate plans in the past. But the latest excitement in this space may be catching……

So if I am a Creator aiming at the big league, not only do I need attention from the big Seller-Aggregators, but I need to do my best to show up in the Personal Search Agent searches.

This online world has made the third layer in distribution – the Personal Shopper  – affordable and attractive for all consumers. The Creators now have a shot at bypassing the Aggregator-Sellers.

While declaring that  “Content is King” is dead, the UK based Travolution Magazine is recommending a stiff dose of “User Experience Redesign” for Online Travel Agencies in the US as the way out of the current industry-wide stagnation in online travel sales. 

The editor, Kevin May has this to say

Research from Forrester a few months back indicated that online bookings in the US are falling despite an increase in the number of visitors to corresponding website. This is a disturbing trend.

[Consumers]  are also asking for more from the providers of services during their time on the web.

This is a problem for the travel industry because, until very recently, it has been focused primarily on the transactional elements.

So-called ‘user experience’ has invariably been left to ensuring accessibility guidelines are complied with (or not, as is often the case) and sizeable sums of money being spent on flashy designs

A concerted effort by travel companies to improve user experience on websites can only benefit their consumers, and the sector as a whole.

With virtual reality video games and online worlds like Second Life – not to mention the cool animated movies that have been topping the box offices for a few years now – expectations from an online experience are increasing. Add to the mix the fact that a Travel Purchase is essentially purchasing an experience – not a book that you order from Amazon and get to stack on your nightstand. The customer is expecting a preview of the experience as a key ingredient to the purchase decision-making process.

Speaking of buying boxes, Amazon and Best Buy sites treat customers the best according to a recent survey. Amazon just wrapped up its best season ever. The Wall Street is certainly very happy.

It’s time to start borrowing ideas from the video-games and the movie industry to make travel shopping an ‘immersed’ experience. Remember The Matrix and the Matrix Online game? Just my personal favorites! Your mileage may vary…

Despite the looming clouds of a USAirways takeover, Delta Airlines is moving ahead with plans to upgrade their systems to an industry standard Services Oriented Architecture. This will apparently be the second evolution of their “Delta Nervous System”, or DNS – and is being referred to as DNS 2.0.

Air Canada will build a new system with help from ITA Software, to be rolled out late 2007. And the low-cost competitor Westjet seems to have given up on trying to build a system from scratch – going from developing AiRES to extending its hosting contract with Navitaire.

Guess one size does not fit all.

Just ran across an interesting news item that I missed last November. Good, old HBSi finally snagged US Airways Vacations to distribute hotels from HBSi network.

Even though most tour operators like GoGo, Travel Impressions and Funjet participate for distribution….and connectivity to all GDS’s is in the works, I am curious about the relative scarcity of Hotel Suppliers in the fold. Maybe, the fact is that all hotels are owned by a handful of companies, and it is futile looking for a big list! One could argue that Synxis provides a respectable feed for inventory…and Hyatt, ICH, Harrah’s and Wyndham are no small change either. Sandals provides the ‘resort’ flavor that can only grow this point on.

This one bears watching… 

After a long three year journey, Sabre is finally declaring victory in converting its legacy systems into a new Services Oriented Architecture (SOA).

The first time we heard about this saga was in 2004, here and at Travdex’04.

Congratulations, Sabre! We look forward to your building upon this achievement.

Looks like Expedia is maturing its SOA (Services-Oriented Architecture) strategy. Its recent purchase of an Enterprise Services Bus shows that it has continuing plans to componentize its architecture and use the SOA strategy to scale its technology and its business.

Using this (new) architecture demonstrates good intentions and strategic thinking, but only time will tell if this will take Expedia places that it wants to go…vacation packaging and corporate travel, by the latest reckoning.

In the recent excitement with Worldspan’s acquisition by Travelport (remember Cendant/Galileo?), a major technology improvement made by Worldspan did not get enough attention. Worldspan has integrated the SITA Automated Rules into its system and eliminated manual loading of rules data from 100+ airlines. This is just another step in making things easier for customers in managing Airline Ticket Changes. Worldspan has already integrated fare and rule data from ATPCO’s Voluntary Changes, Voluntary Cancels, Net Fares, Private Fares and Fare-by-Rule categories. This has made Worldspan the technology leader in the airline ticket repricing process and web-based negotiated fares management process.

I am glad that some one is thinking one step ahead and bringing order to the unnecessarily complex, twilight zone of  fare-rules management. Here is wishing more power to Worldspan in this crusade!

Three distinct but inter-twined trends permeate any modern industry today, including travel business.

First, connectivity in an interconnected world is central to all discussions in the travel business, followed closely by a debate on user interfaces designed to get products to consumers in obvious and user-friendly ways.

Second, data mining for business-intelligence and for customer-relationship management has been offered as a permanent solution to all problems. Actual implementations seem to be more complex and disjointed than you would expect.

Finally, more attention is being paid to ‘back of the house’ operations – the logistics of making an enterprise work. Discussions on business process optimization, automation and outsourcing are key drivers here. Very little attention is being paid to metrics – putting all relevant measures of success on a dashboard, set targets and then manage against them.

Successful enterprises today have taken all of these trends into account, and are building a future that capitalizes on the most efficient architecture.

By all accounts travel business is going to be stronger in 2007. More and more people want to explore new worlds, and at the very least have new experiences in the usual getaways. At the same time, everyone is much more tech-savvy and expects technology-enabled services from all providers. If they had a good experience with BarnesandNoble.com, they expect the same at walmart.com and LocalPizzaShop.com.

When we put together the rising expectations from technology with the travel business, it is a spotty landscape. Some parts of the travel business have embraced technology, others have not. More important, travel business is not very good at ‘talking’ to each other from a technology point of view. Big ‘aggregators’ have traditionally been limited to the handful of Global Distribution Systems, or GDS’s. Sabre, Worldspan, Apollo and Amadeus have brought together the supply of air, hotel, car and cruise inventory for almost all suppliers in the world. These systems have ‘legacy’ technology that is being upgraded to newer platforms…but not fast enough. There are plenty of tech-savvy operators who want to connect with each other to supply and consume products and services today. The real adventurous ones go ahead and build the connections; and are successful in their own small way, but they are not able to make a dent into the juggernaut that the GDS’s are.

With web-services and similar technologies becoming mainstream, it is now time to rethink the paradigm.