Oistr.com

Hotel Booking! Approved by Expedia!

2009-06-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

After months of work we've reached a milestone. Expedia has approved Oistr to sell hotel bookings.

They realize that there are going to be other sites out there selling travel so they have a number of solutions people can use. Most sites simply bounce a user out to the Expedia interface, or an interface designed by Expedia with your logo on it.

We went the extra mile though and designed our own user interface that we think is more intuitive and easier to use - the beauty of a new type of design with all the price and selection that Expedia has to offer.

Research shows that a customer that is looking to book a hotel only succeeds around 50% of the time on a site they chose for that purpose. 1 out of 2 are dissapointed with the amount of information available, simply can't navigate the interface or come up against technical obstacles. We have designed Oistr to be as easy to use as possible.

By approving us, Expedia is saying that the Oistr interface is up to snuff to represent their products, it is a compliment. (Not to mention the other compliments they've paid us.) It makes us feel good about the hard work we've put in.

Now we just need to get some more people using the site....

New Ventures BC and free resources for startups like ours

2009-06-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

New Ventures BC is dedicated to helping new businesses get off the ground - strengthening our economy.

They have competitions that encourage businesses to develop and seminars on everything from organizational structure to where to find funding.

I recently discovered the Vancouver Enterprise forum which also has resources for entrepreneurs, there’s the Ontario Centre for Excellence and those are just the few that I know about.

Take into account Meetup groups, Facebook networking groups and more you could spend your entire day every day just networking and looking for money for your business. Some people say that this should be 75% of a CEO’s job description in a start up and it is certainly true at Oistr.

Part of the reason our economy is stronger and better than other countries is these resources that are openly available and sponsored by larger businesses.

Imagine living in a country where you are free to start a business, in fact you don’t have any of the same red tape to go through in order to open your doors, but there is no education or networking or easy avenues to getting funding for your idea. How are you going to start a business besides a shoe shining stand or a tailor?

Earlier in this blog I posted an entry about how much of that aforementioned red tape there is when you’re trying to start a business in Vancouver and how I felt that was a major holdback for our economy. Now I have a better idea of how available help including money is for new businesses and how that makes all the difference in the world.

Oyster, Oistr, Oystr and more.

2009-05-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

So there is only one way to spell oyster, but there aren't that many dot coms available out there and sometimes you have to settle for what you can get. There are many variations that are held by domain name squatters wh are asking for 10,000 and up for the name - that they aren't using.

Oistr is a different spelling, hopefully it's nice and memorable. I find it easy to rattle off and anyone listening hasn't had a problem typing it in.

I spoke with the CEO of a company that has around 5 different sites run out of one office, he has been diligently buying up domain after domain and he still estimates he's losing at least 10 percent of his traffic to mistyped domains that he doesn't have.

Of course, there are some ways around this, if you can convince your audience to bookmark your site or better yet, make it your homepage you're off to a great start.

If you can't do that, then make it as easily shareable and social as you possibly can. Oistr has share options at every single turn, links to Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook and a chance to email friends whenever possible. You like a picture? Email the link. You like a collection of pictures? Email the link. Have you created a trip? Email the link to your friends, in fact, invite them to take part in the trip.

This last one needs special mention - collaborating on a trip. If you and your friend did a cross Europe trip and visited 17 countries, put your pictures up on the map. Show people how far you travelled. Also, let your friend put his own pictures up - he can still take them down and edit them whenever he wants. Plus, it updates in real time, if your aunt doesn't look at the link for a week and a half, any updates will be reflected when she finally does get around to checking it out.

So we couldn't get Oyster. Or oystr, or oister, or any other reasonable variation. Typos such as ooistr and oiistr are available for people who tap the same key twice (I find it seems to happen more often on my macbook than a normal keyboard) and we are picking these up so any of our traditional advertising requiring people to type the name in will still be directed to the right place.

As we develop we may start buying more expensive names like Oyster, the nice thing is we'll have the data to make the decisions. Isn't technology great?

The Future is Friendly

2009-05-25T11:17:00.001-07:00

As I write this, I am comfortably riding the bus. I remember a day when I didn't even have text messaging on my phone, now I have the whole Internet.

I recently upgraded to a 3G network phone and discovered the joy of tethering to my laptop. Now, I've got the whole Internet anywhere I have cell coverage, at speeds faster than regular dial up and for many things as good as high speed dsl.

But that wasn't good enough. When I'm going to see my parents on a Saturday afternoon I don't want to carry my laptop around. I played around with a couple of different mobile apps, and with Windows Mobile there is a lot of choice.

At some point I stumbled upon Skyfire. www.skyfire.com. This incredibly cool browser works to minimize bandwidth and maximize the mobile browsing experience. Java? Check. Flash? Eat your heart out iPhone. Nearly everything you could want. About the only exception are applications that require click and drag.

Unfortunately, this includes my website www.oistr.com which can only offer limited functionality. My point is that when you don't have to pack around a laptop and you can access the Internet from your phone the face of travel is going to be changed forever.

In the future, accessing our site from a phone will let you find the nearest bar or restaurant to your location, complete with pictures, price range and user comments. Additional functionality may include the ability to upload your pictures and videos directly from your phone, reserve restaurant seats or car rentals or book a bus tour or scenic flight.

Have you ever been standing around in a city not sure what you want to do? We aim to solve that problem by letting you see what other users are doing in real-time. If you're a surfer you'll be able to see which beaches are busy, a skateboarder, you'll see where the skate parks are or where the popular jumps are. If you're a middle aged European couple you can find the best lookouts and restaurants.

Telus is a phone company in Canada and their slogan is "the future is friendly". Seeing as how they are going to be providing many users with the mobile ability to do all of these things, I have to agree with them.

Go be a Tourist in Your Own Backyard

2009-05-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today, it was sunny. It's not sunny that often in Vancouver and we wanted to get the most out of it.

So, we went and sat on a patio. Now, if you've ever spent a sunny afternoon drinking a beer in Gastown, Vancouver, it's likely you spent it on this patio. It's huge, covered in brick and brilliantly placed on the north side of the intersection for maximum sun exposure. (Being in the northern hemisphere, this is the only way.)

Yes, we should have been in the office working on Oistr but once in a while you have to take an afternoon off and go for a walk. Enjoy the sun. Then, go back to the office and struggle to cross everything off your to do list. Maybe take a nap. But, at 8pm when you're still working, you can feel proud of what you've accomplished - maybe.

Back to the idea of being a tourist in your own town, I decided to climb up on a statue of Gassy Jack. Legend has it when Vancouver was nothing but a small collection of miners and fishermen, Gassy Jack said, "If you build me a bar, I will serve you the liquor."
Unsurprisingly, the bar was put up in a day.

Gastown is a very historic area of our great city of Vancouver and I have never once explored it. There are bus and walking tours, plaques all over the place and a lot of history. I've never looked for any of it.

That made me think. People go on vacation, take the tours, take pictures of themselves with mascots and statues and monuments, but they never do that in their own city. I think people should more often.

For Oistr we're going to have contests to get people to go do this stuff, learn about their own city and have a good time doing it. Then, as luck would have it, they'll be able to put up their pictures, their thoughts and let other people enjoy them.... Think about it, if you're planning a vacation, wouldn't you want to see pictures of the locals doing the cool activities? Wouldn't that be useful to you?

I think it would.

Amazing Photos from Above

2009-05-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

I came across a list of photos from Jason Hawkes with map information for the locations. I took all of the locations and mapped them with Oistr so that they are now browseable by map.

Enjoy! Pass it on! These really are some fantastic photographs. I admire Hawkes skill and eye for composition.

To see the larger map and actually view the photo's full screen, view it at Oistr here.

Looking at things from a different perspective than everyone else is used to is also a difficult thing to do. I guess once you get your head around it, then it isn't too bad but respect is still do to those who think of it in the first place.

New Ventures BC Competition - round 2 here we come

2009-04-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

We recently entered the New Ventures BC competition. This competition is for start up companies looking for venture capital to expand and or survive. During the competition you get a mentor and access to seminars and other tools to make the startups in BC better and more competitive.

We like competition.

So we found out today that we made it to round 2. That's roughly the first 50% of the entrants weeded out.

On the scale of eliminated entrants, that is the largest. From the point of view of how well we did, it only places us in the top half of the competition.

It's a positive step forward. It means that the judges may see some value in our idea and we are getting better at explaining our idea to potential VC guys.

The procedure for entering the competition has already helped us improve our presentation skills and the further into the competition we make it the more polished we will have to be.

A voyage of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

You've got to see these falls!

2009-04-23T14:08:00.001-07:00

According to a site I found "If you’re ever in Zimbabwe, don’t miss the chance to take a swim in The Devil’s Pool, a small lagoon, enclosed by rocks, on the edge of one of the biggest, most beautiful waterfalls in the world, Victoria Falls. Set on Livingstone Island, at a height of 103 meters, Devil’s Pool is definitely one of the most surreal locations on Earth."

These falls look absolutely gorgeous, you should check out all the pictures of the guys hanging over the edge to enjoy the view! I am mildly afraid of heights so I wouldn't put myself over the edge if I didn't have someone holding my legs.

When you look at the map and you see where Zimbabwe is in Africa, you know that going there would be a hell of a long trip - but seeing something like this in real life would be worth a bumpy plane ride or two.

Contest Starts Soon

2009-04-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'm working on an outline for a series of contests that will hopefully do a good job of inspiring people to put really good content on our map.

Oistr is designed for showing off locations on a map, and the contest will rate the popularity of locations that people submit. One of the upcoming is "Summer Nightspots".

Where's the best place in your city or, in general your favorite place to have an evening beverage. Is it the beach around a bonfire with friends, or is it a quiet patio at a restaurant with a nice view? Either way every entry on the map will allow users to find that spot if they choose.

I personally don't have any idea what the best beaches for a fire are around my own city, and I'd really appreciate it if I can monitor this contest and find these great places.

Other upcoming contests will include your favorite winter activity and where it happens - is it snowboarding on a mountain or sledding in a nearby park? The pictures are going to be rated on popularity so users will be looking at how much fun it looks like it is, how many people are there and how interesting the activity is to them.

Prizes will be awarded and a year end prize will be given out for first annual "most popular submissions" contest.

I'm really excited about this and can't wait for it to start in June. Please stay tuned and spread your knowledge for a chance to win great prizes!

Twitter

2009-04-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, maybe twitter is useful. I created a twitter account for Oistr and I didn't even post. Between yesterday and today it translated to 3 tweets and 90 hits on the site as of 3.45pm, so a little less than 24 hours. That doesn't include any hits from yesterday evening.

I'm still struggling to figure it out. When I first looked at twitter I thought "140 characters, are you kidding me? Who can write anything worthwhile that short?"

Then I heard a great quote, I think it was Mark Twain, "I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter, I didn't have time to write you a short one."

I turns out that writing in a very small amount of space and conveying meaning is very hard. Since then I've had so many emails that I've cut down and added more ideas to without making them longer - and I hope people appreciate that. More information, less reading. less reading, less time spent on this and more time for something else.

So, I'll be twittering. www.twitter.com/oistr, check it out, I need all the followers I can get.

Weird Hotel You Have To See

2009-04-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

I found a list of hotels today that are probably the coolest in the world. Some are simple, some are incredibly complex and expensive - but they are all extremely unique.

The first is an Ice Hotel, built every winter in Sweden. There are hot and cold rooms, the website has tips on sleeping comfortably in -5 Celcius and they even have an ice garage for your car.

I hope the ridiculous Ice Hotel in the James Bond movie didn't ruin this places reputation because it looks fantastic.

I can imagine snuggling up to a sweetheart under the furs on a bed. It would be very romantic - but probably not nice for a long term stay.

Does Anyone Care?

2009-04-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

I came across a marketing 2.0 posting today on blogs. They said, "don't talk about your company because no one cares".

I tried to think about the types of blogs I read. Do I read company blogs? Once in a while. Google has some interesting things in their blog. I like that they have ground breaking technology some times, and other times the social impact of new tech.

Well, we have some groundbreaking technology. Our interface is a completely different way of shopping for travel. It's more like a video game then Expedia or Travelocity. We call it "Visual Travel".

Maybe in my blog I've been writing about the wrong things. I should probably focus on how great our site is - and how it can affect your life.

My last posting talked about using "trips" on our site to be useful. Now, that's relevant isn't it? That's saying hey, here's something you didn't think of that our site can do that you might appreciate.

We are still working on some bugs in the system but it's coming along nicely, it is a great tool for a lot of things and we're going to make it great.

A Useful Feature: Trips

2009-04-07T11:09:00.003-07:00

Ok, here's an example of a great use of Oistr. I'm working in my office. My stomach growls. Where am I going to go for lunch? Ah, I did McDonalds yesterday and Ricky's the day before, I want to go somewhere I haven't been in a while. Somewhere I know.

Luckily, as I've found restaurants or bars that I enjoy for lunch in my neighborhood, I've added them to a trip on Oistr. That's the screen shot above.

The trip is open so anyone can add to it, play with it, or whatever, here. If you live or work in the neighborhood, please contribute.

So now I can browse the map and immediatley weigh my options based on how far away they are from me. I find it very useful. When I find a new restaurant I snap a couple pictures with my camera phone, throw them up on Oistr and call it a day.

Pictures And Privacy

2009-04-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

I had a friend today and she asked me about privacy. We've seen plenty of news articles about Google getting in trouble over street view. I think Google is already blurring people's faces but there are still many complaints about pictures of private property. Some people are saying that they're afraid of burglars or terrorists getting information from street view to plan attacks or burglaries.

Of course, everyone is afraid of terrorists - all the time, brought to you by the terrorist channel. Side note - terrorists actually did use google maps to attack troops in Iraq.

As Oistr uses maps and lets people put pictures on the map, this friend was saying are you worried about these issues?

I had three responses.

One, we didn't capture the map images, Yahoo did and they're freely accessible on yahoo.com.

Two, we don't take the pictures ourselves and we let people report pins that they find offensive and want taken down. How are we going to know if someone is bothered by something unless they tells us?

Three, though not quite the same thing we're protected as a common carrier. In the states especially it's like suing AT&T because someone phoned up your wife and told her you were sleeping around. We're just providing a service that is meant to be used for good, but like many other things in the world (I can think of cars for vehicular homicide and fire for burning down buildings) could be used for evil.

Big Bus Stops

2009-03-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

We are currently working on a url embed function that we want to use to partner with Big Bus Tours here in Vancouver.

The embed is very easy to find - a part of making our site as smooth as possible to share with others. On the site every pin and group of pins has a share option that lets you copy the direct URL for hyperlinks or you can insert the embed code into blogs or web pages and you'll see the map as you do above.

The implication for tour companies is vast - make your own list of pins or add material and then display it quickly and easily on your own site.

The implication for bloggers is that now they can show people exactly where they've been and let their readers browse pictures and blog entries on the map, in their blog!

Espcially for bloggers I know that readers often don't understand the scale of the travelling they've done, for instance the distance it is to travel from London to Barcelona is vast at 927 miles (or just under 1600 kms) and Oistr lets you show that distance with an interactive map.

I hope you guys check it out, the help videos can be found here.

My Favorite Hotel Location Today

2009-03-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is the Hyatt Regency Churchill London.

This hotel is where I would like to stay in London when I go there next. Of course, I don't think I can afford a 5 star hotel but here's dreaming.

As long as I'm dreaming, I'll think of swimming in the massive pool, relaxing in the hot tub, and of course enjoying the vacation that invariably goes with it all. Getting away from work - isn't that what we all dream of?

Alaska Trip, Snowball Fights, Glaciers, Swimming

2009-03-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

So I've never uploaded photos from any of my trips. But, being as how I believe it to be a very useful thing and I now help operate a website specifically designed for such a task I thought I might try it out.

Luckily in September of 2007 I visited Alaska.

I was cold most of the time, not just regular cold but that I'm damp and I can't get dry kind of cold.

I got seasick. I threw myself at the side of the boat so as not to puke inside so hard one time, coupled with the 5 foot swells, I almost went into the ocean where I surely would have drowned.

I almost fell off a cliff that I was climbing.

I almost slipped on a glacier and plunged 500 feet down the worlds most deadly type of sledhill, you know, the one that is entirely hard unforgiving ice and has jagged rocks at the bottom.

And for all that, it was probably the coolest trip I've taken, ever.

I met a girl there, yes, in Alaska that I went on to have first semi-long distance relationship with, then moved in with.

I hiked up that glacier, and took part in a snowball fight on it.

I did not swim in the ocean like some of the people I was with.

I got drunk off of rum and coke cooled by glacier ice I carved off myself.

We saw some of the most stunning scenery this world has to offer.

It was great spending time with a couple of Germans and two Italians that were experienced sailors and really wanted to see the world.

It's hard to describe the feeling of being out on the water for 2 weeks, touching land here and there but spending most of your time on the boat socializing and watching the scenery. Spending every night playing some cards or just talking about what to do next. Hiking on the trails in a park, or making our own trails and climbing part of a mountain. The entire experience was fantastic back to nature, amazing camaraderie and the freshest air I've ever had.

The whole trip from Juneau up into Glacier bay is here. These pictures are courtesy of Thomas Seidel and Christian Heger, both of Germany and smarter than I was to bring high quality waterproof cameras that shoot video.

I encourage everyone to go have a look and enjoy the pictures and video. Also to Lucio, Luca, Thomas, Christian and Chris, thanks for the memories.

Developers Tab/Iframe For Showing Travel Experiences

2009-02-24T15:33:00.000-08:00

Ok, this week we're going to be launching a site every travel blogger is going to love.

A fully functional interactive map system that is far more robust and holds a lot more information than current solutions.

Basically, it's going to be Oistr encompassed in a blog.

Blogger is great, in the pursuit of ultimate flexibility and customization you have access to the actual HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) where you can insert all sorts of awesome things to make your page better.

We're going to provide a tutorial and the ability for any blogger who would like to show their pictures and video on a map (and post it in the public domain for the rest of the world to see - and even better, link back to the blog) that is interactive and intelligent. It will show people exactly where the bloggers content from a single city or the entire world.

It works like this: You go to www.oistr.com where you create an account and upload your photo's or embed the Youtube videos. Once they're up you place them on the map in groups called "trips" where they took place by hand (moving the map around to the location and clicking on the exact location) , by lat/long (if you have GPS) or by address.

Next, you add the code for embedding the trip in your site. You can even add the individual trips to a master trip so you can show everywhere you've been in the world or just the latest stops.

Voila, a fully interactive map that allows users to finally get the full scope of where you've actually been whether it's 500 miles between cities or 32,000 across a continent.

Please go, enjoy!

Mounting a Projector, How Hard Could It Be?

2009-02-19T15:28:00.001-08:00

Ok, this seems off topic, but it actually isn't at all.

This is about small business. We bought the projector, even bought the proper screen and telescoping ceiling mount for it.

Do we want to spend the extra $250 to have it properly installed? Pfft, no.

Projector, $900, screen, $225, mount off ebay, $75, blood sweat and tears during installation? Priceless. Ok, I was being dramatic there were no blood or tears - but lots of sweat.

The screen goes up fairly easy. We are in a very old building that has concrete ceilings and standard office type foam panels above our heads. These panels are held up by wires that run into the cement so it wasn't difficult to tie more wire to a couple of these anchors and dangle the screen down.

Well, we can't get around it this time. The projector mount has to be carefully positioned and there are no existing anchors to bolt it to. That's it, we have to put holes in the concrete. How hard can that be?

Well, the holes weren't a problem. Any idiot can mark the spots and start drilling. I didn't know I needed special bits and an impact drill, but I found out quite quickly. This is code for "hilarity ensues".

Skipping along, with the proper equipment I go ahead and sink the holes effortlessly. As concrete showers my clothing and hair in a fine dust that a only requires a couple showers to get out, the impact drill goes into the concrete like butter.

Next, my first experience with concrete anchors. Things that look like nails only the heads are flared and have a hollow tube designed to be pushed over the flare to widen and pull tight have been provided.

Seems simple enough. But wait, this drill bit seems a bit small and this one is clearly too big, well, I guess I'll just have to lightly hammer it in. No, that didn't work.

Now I've got a stud that is jammed hopelessy in the hole, won't come out (good job, anchor!) and is in the way of the mount. Well, I'll just rotate the mount and try again.

Drill, drill, drill (more fine concrete in the hair and clothes). Tap, tap, Strike two. Two very solid metal anchors sticking out of the concrete.

Rotate the mount again. Two out of four are broken. If I don't get it right now I'm in a bit of trouble.

Drill, drill. Tap, tap. Wow, I managed to not completely screw it up. Only 50%.

Cut a hole in the ceiling tile and shebang! Professional job.

No ladders or drills were harmed during the making of this episode. My head and my ego however...

Intro To Web Marketing for Small Business

2009-02-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

With the economic downturn, every business is going to be tightening their belts.

Usually, one of the first things to get cut back is marketing. Studies done in the past have actually shown that companies that are able to maintain advertising during an economic downturn see the benefits for years after.

So the question is: How do you get the same advertising presence without spending as much money?

I like to answer the question with a question: How many times have you found a website that you didn't even know that you needed until you'd found it?

You did this by surfing around reading blogs, news stories or through random results from a search engine. This means that the more times a website is mentioned in blogs or news stories or comes up in search engines the more likely it is that it will be found. Part of the visibility in the search engines comes from how many times it has been mentioned on the web.

One of the best way of getting your business mentioned on the web is by using as many of the free web directories as possible. Obviously, the more popular and the more content that you are able to put up the better.

For travel, there is our website www.oistr.com. You've seen a lot of businesses put a map to their location on their website. We're kind of like that map, only on steroids.

Oistr is the only listing service that is searched on a map instead of through traditional text. It's tourism focussed so if you have a business that sells anything to anyone who ever travels, it may help.

There are lots of other directories and I urge every small business to go get on as many as possible. At the same time, blog, link to your site and try to get more attention wherever possible on the web.

That's what I'm doing, good luck.

New Features! Site Grows! Exclamation Mark!

2009-02-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, we are growing fast, our programmer hasn't been leaving the office.

New features! First, browse public trips that other people have added. You can see the list of newly added trips, sort through them and then look at whatever regions of the world you'd like to see more of.

Improved search feature, no when there's 600 pins on a search list you actually have the alphabet to sort through them by - very nice improvement.

Add pins to trips! This is huge. Ok, say you've put together a collection of pins but someone has already added the hotel you stayed at, now you can select it and add it to as many different collections as you want.

For photographer groups, this means that you can add the pins from other people in the group all into one big collaboration of talent. Users viewing the new trip will see a map of the world with pins from each location represented.

This is the key to inspiring people with good photography and putting up your favorite images of the world. Go, contribute, explore, enjoy!

I feel like one of those jack russell terriers jumping up and down! I kinda look like it right now! It's hard to type! Lot's of typos I have to fix! Good times!

SEO and Link Building

2009-02-09T17:15:00.001-08:00

You think I blog for fun? Huh? Do ya? Well, yes, actually I do a little.

I like getting thoughts down on things that excite me (don't think this makes me boring, I do plenty of interesting things off the web) and sometimes it really gives me the chance to think things through.

The number one reason I blog though is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The more times people link to your blog or the more times it is read, the better off your linked to website does in the search engines.

Nearly every blog entry I link to my website, www.oistr.com. The search engines read these links and rate my site higher because of the number of sites that link to it. When Facebook RSS feeds this blog posting into my Oistr company page the search engines eventually read a couple more hits.

The more times your website is listed on the net or linked to or from, whether it's blogs, business directories or your Facebook group page, you will gain attention from the search engines.

So there you go, turn a hobby into a business development tool! Most people don't even realize how great blogging can be for that. It takes a significant time investment but I think the benefits outweigh the time spent...

Business Cards, Social Networking

2009-02-06T12:58:00.001-08:00

Would you believe that we only got business cards today? We found a great printer in our neighborhood named Print Time that did an excellent job. (In fact, there was an issue with how our chosen font printed on his equipment and he was great enough to not only proof it but ask us to come down and figure it out because it wasn't up to his quality standards - that is good service.)
The card looks good eh?

So, now we have cards. What do people need business cards for? I forsook business cards a long time ago in favour of making my website as easily findable on the web as possible. I thought, surely with Google no one will ever have problems finding us if we're memorable enough.

Well, that was kinda dumb. You meet so many people in passing that if you don't give them a card, they don't find it in their pocket later at home while digging for keys or mints, and they never look you up. By the time they remember that they met a guy that had a business, your name, face and location are lost to the winds of time, tiny grains of sand that were scattered amongst a billion others never again to have any recognizable pattern.

(That metaphor was a bit excessive, but if you've studied how human memory works you'll see what I mean.)

So, business cards. I was at Toastmasters the other night which is a club for people who want to learn public speaking and practice it in a formal setting. In this meeting the tables are set up in a long U and the member sit around. As I was making my speech about my business moving around at the front I realized how easy it would be to deal the cards like playing cards along the tables. My speech was excellent and I know everyone would have taken them home.

I'll do that next time. That is just one example of how great cards are.

Social networking, striking up a conversation on a bus, hitting on the counter girl at Starbucks, whatever, business cards are the way to be.

Launched 1.0! Version 1! Lanched! Party!

2009-02-04T10:36:00.001-08:00

The last week has seen many improvements on our site www.oistr.com where our programmer has been working his guts out day and night. I don't know why his girlfriend is still with him, he spends all his time in the office.

But as in the classic saying one mans loss (or woman) is another mans gain. That would be his other partners, including me.

Now I just have to get people actually seeing and using the site. Oh, the easy job, right?

The site is designed to be a social network for travelers to show where they've been, make recommendations and gain inspiration to get out into the world.

We have a long way to go on this site but we've been working on it for close to two years and it is incredibly exciting to have it out there now.

Squashing Bugs

2009-01-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

For most people, squashing bugs doesn't happen very often. In fact, software bugs that I'm talking about are squashed even less often than insects.

When you're developing a complicated website that is not just traditional HTML you end up with bugs. Bugs are hiccups in the programming where something just doesn't work quite right. Most are solid and can be tracked down depending on the complexity of the software, but some are not. They may be intermittent or in a very complex section where it's very difficult to track down.

This is where we are right now in the development of Oistr.com. Due to the complexity of the flash interface these bugs keep cropping up, sometimes in the use of new features and sometimes the new features have an affect on the current features.

They're called bugs for a reason, like cockroaches they keep cropping up, sometimes totally unexpected and are very difficult to chase down. Sometimes you can even kill one and spawn two more.

Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with this situation. Our software developer Sean has done an unimaginably difficult job and it seems like it's only the beginning.

In Vancouver if you ever run over the Lions Gate bridge from downtown there are moments when it seems that the medium incline is never going to end, that it will only go on forever. Luckily with hills this isn't the case. With bug-squashing it usually is.

Someone Uses Oistr To Show the True DTES

2009-01-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

For everyone not from Vancouver, BC the DownTown East Side (DTES) is the slum of Vancouver.

A recent UN report on urban density profiled five cities including Vancouver with urban areas "providing unique examples of urban development." The report has a major focus on city planning for the poor in order to maintain basic human rights - Vancouver was chosen for a reason.

The famous DTES shocks tourists every day. Not too long ago, we had 3 cruise ships show up at once to our port delivering 6000 unwary tourists into the area. With not nearly enough cabs in the entire city to transport all of these people, some hardy souls struck out on their own.

It wasn't long until they came to the real life version of Night of the Living Dead. (It actually looks like that, our office is in the middle of it and when we work late it sounds like it too.) This was embarrassing.

Well, our site is supposed to give people the truth about a city as posted by users. Think TripAdvisor with more pictures and a wider focus. Now someone is using it for just that.

No one wants to see pictures of people shooting up or the graphic video of someone protesting the 2010 olympics. This picture of a guy handing out needles is, for me, particularly a bad representation of the area.

Our position is that it doesn't violate our terms of use so it stays up. I'm sure that there are millions of pictures of people having a good time around Vancouver and that those will cover these few bad ones in an avalanche of "feel good".

Even then, this is why the map-based user contributed tourist site is the future. When you're browsing around Vancouver you'll know where not to go.

TripAdvisor Leaves People More Confused

2009-01-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

I just read a fantastic article about TripAdvisor where the writer pointed out some things that should have been immediately obvious, and lets a couple of obvious things go unsaid.

He points out first of all that TripAdvisors motto "Get the truth, then go" is far more simplistic than it should be.

The number of posted reviews, over 20 million (unqualified) can't be regarded as the truth. First, they're just opinions. Second, people are more likely to post bad reviews so in a mathematical universe they should heavily outweigh positive reviews. Third, when a review is filled with marketing buzz phrases including such as "meal portions were not excessive, which is great in the tropics" then you're probably being duped. (If you haven't heard of the Belkin pay for good reviews scam, have a look.)

TripAdvisor was a good idea but it doesn't work in practice. Like communism. How can we make it more honest and useful?

That is a very hard question to answer. One of our ideas is giving the users the ability to post their own pictures and video as reviews and then encouraging them to do so. There may be issues with pictures of staff for example but that is a giant legal quagmire we shall be entering shortly.

A company called Tripr.tv had an idea where users submit videos of themselves reviewing the hotels they stay in and then uploading them, and if a user books that hotel they get a cut of the commission which has the inherent problem of users only submitting good reveiws, why would they bother with bad ones?

It will be interesting to see how our site develops in comparison to these others.

My Favorite Hotel Location Today

2009-01-16T16:57:00.001-08:00

If I ever pass by Memphis and want to see what it's like to live like royalty, I'll stay at the Peabody hotel.

Anyone interested in beautiful heritage buildings has to look at this link.

And prices starting at $267 per night will keep out the riff raff...

My Favorite Hotel Location Today

2009-01-16T16:27:00.002-08:00

This is where I'm going for vacation.

The Hyatt in Honolulu is reasonably priced, has 3386 rooms and a gorgeous view of Mamala Bay.

Ok, I sound just a little too much like an advertisement but you can be sure that they didn't pay me. (My friends can attest to that.) But the white sandy beaches right in the middle of one of the biggest cities in Hawaii with all of the touristy (wallet gouging) shops, restaurants and everything else you could ever want are within walking distance.

Especially at the end of the week, Friday afternoon, the idea of learning how to surf, swimming in the warm water while my shoulders and neck kind of ache from sitting in front of these monitors all day is mind blowing.

With the link above, if you zoom in and use the map hybrid function you'll get a better idea of what I mean.

I can't wait to go on vacation.

OpenTable for Restaurant Reservations

2009-01-16T16:27:00.001-08:00

If you're not familiar with our new travel site oistr yet, the labour of my life for the last year or so (and our programmer Sean Hudson especially) it is a map-based travel community set to launch soon. It is designed to bring businesses and travellers together, and inspire travellers to keep travelling.

We've formed a partnership with a company called OpenTable that will proived restaurant listings online reservations.

They have over 10,000 restaurants world wide with most of them in North America. This is going to be really great content for oistr because the restaurants not only slot right into the site but you can actually book them online through OpenTable.

We're investigating partnerships with as many companies as possible like OpenTable and Travelocity to give us the business content that we need for our site. Mutually beneficial partnerships are the way to go for a small business like ours.

Martiniboys is another company we are partnering with for content. Although Martiniboys won't offer booking they'll have the up-to-date nightspots with pictures for us to slot into the system.

The users themselves are going to be the largest source of content. We're envisioning a massive collection of travel experience form people that travel including people who want to nominate places and businesses in their own backyards.

For now though, our modest partnerships are putting a lot of content on the map for our initial launch and we hope that people enjoy the site enough to add their own.

The Worst and Best Internet Ads

2008-12-15T16:36:00.001-08:00

Here's my list of ads on the Internet that anger me and will not be included in any business I ever have any association with.

1. Those damned popups that sit over the page and you have to find a way to shut them off to keep reading what you're reading. Even worse, when they make sound.

2. Seperate pop up windows. Even with pop up blockers some make it through. Or, if they don't and you actually want a pop up you have to disable your pop up blocker. In Internet Explorer you have to click twice and reload the page to let you see pop ups. This is partially IE's fault, but I blame the pop ups. Sometimes when I use Firefox I end up with 8 extra tabs of pop-ups.

3. The sites where you click a link and you get not the page you were expecting, but an ad with a line underneath (in small font) that explains you have to click here to get what you already clicked for. I already clicked a link to take me there, why am I clicking another one to get there? Ok, it's only an extra click, but man it makes me angry.

Here is the list of the best ads that make money, help with brand recognition and (the first two) that I will be including in our new business.

1. Google listings. Most people don't even realize they are being advertised to because they search for keywords and the top listings have all paid to be there. The banner ads on the side are slightly less nice, but still relevant and handy.

2. Relevant banner ads. I'm surfing a site looking auto comparisons, and look, a simple banner ad reminding me that toyota won the most awards last year for build quality! Imagine that!

3. 15 second video ads before a professional video like the Daily Show on Comedy Central with a message that says your video will start after this short ad. These aren't a great deal different than number 3 in the worst ad section, but in this case you are getting a professional quality product, on demand and still seeing less ads than you would if you were watching the show on TV. I consider this well worth the 15 seconds.

Madoff Made Off with $50 Billion

2008-12-15T13:26:00.000-08:00

Bernard Madoff lost $50 Billion of clients money. They only found out when he confessed and had himself arrested.

His financial advisory business had been insolvent for years. He lost clients' money from charity foundations to retirement funds.

Disturbingly, it wasn't your typical blue collar, financially uneducated people that got screwed either. Famous people like Steven Spielberg and even massive European banks were hit.

Here's another thing. He didn't keep much of the money, he just lost it. He didn't even lose it all at once, he just lost some, covered it up, lost some more and continued like that until the downturn in the markets meant enough of his clients wanted money back that he couldn't pay.

If he had put away a few billion and then moved to Cuba or somewhere warm with no extradition treaty I can understand that. I wouldn't condone it of course, but I can at least understand.

No, I'm shocked that he'd lose a bunch of money, lose more and eventually put himself in the position of having to confess and go to jail. Why would you do that? What sense does that make? He confessed! He didn't even get found out be the SEC, he just went ahead and confessed to his top staff and his sons. He could have done this years ago without losing so much and probably faced lesser penalties.

I guess he started on a slippery slope, probably lost some money for clients a few years ago and didn't want them to know because that would hinder his ability to get new clients. He probably thought that by posting modest gains he'd be able to take any additional profits and make up the difference.

This of course constituted fraud off the bat and when it didn't work he had to continue the trend on a larger and larger scale until he had lost 50 BILLION DOLLARS.

At a time where people are already liquefying assets to protect them (pulling more money out of the economy for investment and other purposes, hurting it further) they are even more likely to freak out about their investments and pull out of funds and stocks. The more people that pull out, the more the prices drop and affect the value of the remaining owners.

It also means less cash is available to help out entrepreneurs like me. I'm already having investment issues because of this financial crisis and this asshole makes it even worse.

Our economy depends on small businesses and new businesses. This stimulates competition, makes things more efficient, brings more and better products to people at cheaper prices. And I believe in my company, I think that my website is truly a better option for people who want to travel, share their experiences and find and vet businesses.

I can't think of a solution. The death penalty is a pretty good one for this kind of scale but it never works with slippery slope type offenses. The hard and fast rule of an eye for an eye just doesn't apply.

A few years in jail doesn't seem fitting either though. Maybe he just won't survive jail, a death sentence handed out by the courts that doesn't have the death label on it.

One thing is for sure, expensive lawyers aren't going to help this time. This is no O.J. Simpson, this guy is going to jail and isn't going to see a lot of leniency. That's a small smile.

The Global Warming Swindle and Ridiculous Taxes on Cows

2008-12-05T13:03:00.001-08:00

As a business owner, I got very angry when I saw this video about the EPA wanting to impose a CO2 tax on dairy farmers because cows and hogs output a lot of gas. For more information, read the article here.

In a time when our economy is going to shit, the EPA wants the U.S. to become even less competitive economically compared to Asian rivals.

I've blogged before about the hassles of and taxes on trying to run a business in Canada. I'm thankful for our standard of living and all of the opportunities that our system provides. I'm just tired of things like this environmental movement retarding our economic growth.

Contrary to popular belief, science is highly affected by political motivations. The nuclear winter theory back in the 50's where all life would be wiped out by lack of sunlight in the event of a nuclear war was a great example. Nuclear war bad - even if we win. Lets see, if I was a geography scientist I would think: "Hmm, what can I study that will get me more government funding and attention in the press? I know, I'll jump on the global warming bandwagon!" If you think that the results of those studies won't be influenced by the people that funded them, pull your head out of your ass.

There are plenty of reasons why we should be kind to the environment, but greenhouse gas induced global warming is far too simple a theory that does not take into account the complexity of earths interaction with sunlight. Plus, although North Americans produce more CO2 per person than most of the planet, Canada and the US only make up 5% of the earths population.

So I've got an idea. Instead of focusing solely on reducing our individual carbon footprints, how about we work a little harder on convincing our neighbors that have terrible environmental records to shape up their habits slightly as they grow. This is help we didn't have as we developed as nations.

A great example would be Beijing, widely regarded as the worst in the world, or Linfen, China.
World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas.

Maybe it would be cheaper economically and better for the environment overall if we guided these developing nations that have much larger populations than us and are very energy hungry.

Hey, wait a second, we're already doing that aren't we? By funding programs that are developing things like fusion power, more efficient nuclear power, hybrid cars, electric cars, even the biofuel fiasco and more. By developing cleaner technologies to the point where the world is better off overall converting over from things like coal power plants we are doing more about cleaning things up than anyone else.

So instead of taxing us more and screwing our economy up further, (and making us more reliant on food imports that don't have the same health standards etc.) we should be providing more incentive to learn and grow.

All of you politicians that are using "climate change" as political fodder, you also need to pull your heads out of your asses and start helping our countries instead of wasting your time.

The Importance of a Dot Com and Understanding Your Target Market

2008-11-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

The importance of having a dot com instead of a .ca or a .mobi or any other extension right now motivated us to buy a bunch of new domain names and change all of our branding.

Until someone pointed out the obvious problem, we figured .ca would be a fine extension for our new travel site. We liked the name Oggle.ca and since we couldn't get Oggle.com we assumed the .ca would be just fine.

But I think that's a problem many small businesses face. My marketing teacher in grade 10 taught me one of the most important lessons I would ever learn. "We don't care about what you think, we care about what your target market thinks." This is somewhat paraphrased, but the gist is pretty clear.

My partners and I are all on a scale of tech that exceeds the regular population by a percentage ranging from 25 (myself) to 150. This means we had (have) a bit of a hard time designing a site for people who don't understand computers as we do. It took a close and very smart friend of ours finally pointed out why the .com is important.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the wiki article on domains here and the wiki article on .com here)

When I was just starting to email I had a new "friend" that was a couple of years older than me and just starting university. She was trying to give me her email address on the phone and I kept mistaking the extension because I didn't see the relevance until after I had hung up.

"Ok, so that was firstname.lastname (pretty simple) @ youbeesee.com, no, yubeceedot what? Uh, ok, ok, try again, ok, the letters..." and on and on. Today it seems so incredibly simple that I barely remember that I even had a problem.

If only she had said, no, UBC as in "University British Columbia" dot ca as in short for "Canada" I would have understood more easily.

The problem I see is that today with email forwards and everyone having a .com email address whether its hotmail or a company address, no one needs to know what the domains are. Of course the other big ones like .org or .net are pretty easy to understand because you've seen them so many times.

With email forwarding, electronic business cards and more it is even more unlikely you'll need to write an obscure email address down.

It is my experience that most people don't want to learn how the Internet works, they just want it to work without any effort. This seems like a major component of Apple's advertising. Simple, attractive, works, no viruses, etc. How is this not attractive? For people who use computers as simple tools to augment their lives and don't want or need to understand the inner workings I can see how Microsoft's nearly infinite ability to be personalized is more trouble than it is worth.

This is why we spent the extra money on a .com and others. So when someone sees "Oistr" and manage to remember the odd spelling, at least when they automatically type oistr.com it will just work.

Someone Picks up the Press Release

2008-11-26T17:42:00.000-08:00

A bit of success. I contacted Kwantlen University College and they're going to pick up our press release about Oistr. They're picking it up on the angle that I studied marketing there.

The great thing is that those students are definitely part of our initial target market. They're people who have traveled or want to and have experiences to share on our website. We're also hoping that if they become regular users of the site, they will grow as customers and eventually start booking trips. Also, this market also spends a lot of time online social networking and we may be able to use that to get more users.

Lucky for us, they will not only publish it in their local school paper they will also issue their own press release to all of the local papers in the areas of their campuses. Their reasons for issuing the release are for purposes of marketing as well.

If they promote the fact that their alumni are out starting businesses and being generally successful, they may be able to up their enrollment.

Help me, help you. I like it, it works for me.

Another great mutually benefical partnership.

Our Facebook Pitch Video, and Facebook Apps

2008-11-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Facebook in its quest to make money has done a couple things to control and promote good applications.

When the app platform was developed, it went from 0 - 60 in months, everyone wanted to get in on the fastest growing social networking site to make money. Anyone could submit an app and the facebook community could evaluate it. If it was good, it spread far and wide. That's the beauty of social networking.

A lot of bad apps were developed that didn't work, didn't hold true to facebook values or whatever. So facebook started the facebook developers fund. It sounded like a great idea, they'd take applications for funding and then pick the apps that will most likely keep facebook users using facebook, and give them money to make their apps better.

Facebook has also recently started charging a fee to become a "verified developer". This is $375 per year and you go through an evaluation process. The blogs that I've been reading say it's the same thing as an extortion racket and they're offended. One one hand I see their point because it's like the net neutrality issue. If people who have great ideas for apps can't afford or aren't willing to pay, then the users of facebook miss out on something that could potentially be great. Scrabulous would be an example, did those kids in New York know it was going to be huge, and would they have done it if they had to pay? Well, probably, but that doesn't mean others wouldn't have.

I think overall it will keep the flakes from putting up bad apps that I try out for a day or two and then delete, continually wading through the massive tides of unfinished, untested and plain crappy apps.

I think we should rely on user feedback and reccomendations instead of a fee to facebook, but they are a business and I understand.

We created a pitch video to try to get facebook funding. This is before we changed our branding to Oistr. I think we did a pretty good job. We didn't get the funding though.

Writing the Oistr Press Release

2008-11-24T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is the release I plan to send to bloggers, newspapers and anyone who might want to write about our site once it is released as version 1.0

I've written it and re-written it. Writing a press release is actually quite hard.

You want it to be dramatic to get peoples attention, but you don't want to talk crazy. It has to sum up the business and what makes it unique without boring people. It has to be done in as little as 3 paragraphs, and certainly not reaching 2 pages unless each paragraph is more engaging than the last.

I think I've done quite a nice job. It's straight forward, it accurately describes what we are doing, it tries to convey the excitement we feel about the product and has specific calls to action at the bottom.

I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, December 2008 — Oggle Interactive announced today their new travel-tourism site aimed at increasing customer travel satisfaction.

“Stats are showing a decline in satisfaction from customers that book trips through big online companies, and we aim to fix that. As travelers ourselves, we’re also sick of the corporate pandering that most travel sites inevitably pass on to their customers, and we present a better option.” - Co-founder and Marketing Director Scott Carmichael.

Oistr.com, in its infancy, is designed to be a unique integrated travel resource that uses a wiki-style aggregation of information to present all sides of the travel world to its users. Designed to be media rich and map-based for geographical reference, the future will see the addition of travel blogs, games, online booking of hotels, flights and restaurants, and the sponsoring of users that inspire other people to travel.

Currently the site is giving users a unique and powerful interface to show their travels and allowing them to recommend places to go, businesses they liked or didn’t, and to share their pictures and video in trips or right on the business listing. The “trips” can be public or private but Oistr asks that useful information for other users be marked as public with or without your contact information. Also, make friends, be a traveling leader people will watch or ask for advice. If you found a great deal out there or a bait and switch, others want to know.

Oistr is asking for your help. Go to the website, www.oistr.com, use the customer feedback feature and tell us what you think! Explore the site, inspire others to travel and guide them by showing your travel experiences, or simply your own home town.

In Canada, Fat People Get a 50% Discount on Flights

2008-11-21T14:47:00.001-08:00

This is less of an education and more of a rant. Anyone who is here to really learn something other than my opinion, read a different blog or blog entry.

It's official according to the Supreme Court, "Functionally disabled by obesity for purposes of air travel" get a second seat free.

This has little to do with the main subject of this blog. The only tenuous connection here is that I feel for business owners that are being sold out by bureaucracy that has been repackaged with a fake sticker that says "defender of the people". Specifically when it actually hurts the people it is supposed to help, and make everything more expensive for the rest of us.

The best part is, the the Canadian Transportation Agency's ruling doesn't even give a proper guideline for how to determine is a person is "functionally disabled by obesity for purposes of air travel". The best they've got? Whether or not the armrest will go down. If you refer to someone serious, like, you know, a doctor, they have a very specific definition of what obese is.

When I set up my business I had to get a business bank account and license from the city before I could apply for an office. To get the office, I had to go buy insurance (arguably a good idea generally, but still not my choice), in order to hook up the alarm I had to pay another fee to the city for false alarms I hadn't had yet, do a search in city hall to determine if the office was zoned properly for my technology business and then apply for a residency permit to be allowed to go into the office I was paying rent, insurance and alarm bills for.

So yes, I get uppity when a business like an airline has to charge their other customers more so that obese people (many of whom have a choice about being obese) can have a second seat for free.

Before anyone throws the old argument "but obese people don't choose to be obese" in my face, I counter with yes, most of them do. Unless they have some kind debilitating medical condition (obviously not including laziness) that restricts their diet and exercise, it usually is their own fault.

I will continue my beliefs about why most obese people have a choice here.

As a wealthy society, we should be helping those less fortunate. My point here is that if we want to stay on top of all of this wealth we need to drop barriers to making a profit so that we have a better chance against businesses in countries where they can focus on conducting business instead of waiting at city hall for an occupancy permit.

Also, so my taxes don't go to bailing out our national airline again.

Oistr Development, Travelocity, Expedia, Opentable

2008-11-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog entry about my latest business venture.

Statistics show that satisfaction with online travel bookings is actually falling . That's not what you'd expect considering how many companies there are and how they're all trying to improve themselves.

How can this be? Well it's been pointed out that industry growth is slowing and in order to compete, the big companies like Travelocity and Expedia need to differentiate themselves by adding silly crap and unnecessary flashy features.

Did they ever ask what customers want?

Our thoughts were how about a website that caters more to customers than businesses, adds a social networking aspect, is map-based to give a geographical reference and even provides games aimed at getting people outside even if it's in their own town.

It's still in development, if anyone wants to take a look at how it's developing you can see it here. We're still working on plugging in the content. Business listings are provided by a bunch of sources to give the most content, Yellow Pages, Martiniboys for nightlife, Open Table for good restaurants and Travelocity themselves for hotel content.

The big players seem to cater to the hotels and destination businesses and put them above the customer. Travelocity treats customers pretty well, but these guys all seem to have a phobia of stepping on businesses toes.

We want people to post pictures and videos of any business listed on our site. Post your own picture of a hotel room right under the business's advertising version, let people see for themselves if they're liars or honest.

There's a company called Tripit.tv that encourages people to make videos of their hotel rooms, (most travelers have a video camera, at least they have video on their cell phone) and then they'll get a cut of the commission if that hotel is booked through Tripit.

Inherently, the system is designed so that people only make good videos. In fact, even if the place was crappy, they'll still make a good video because otherwise they have no shot at a commission.

What if you could post a video if it was good or bad? The incentive here is that you can prove how bad it was, we don't just have your word for it. If you're quick enough to catch a desk agent being an ass, post it. That's the honesty factor. Plus, the hotel has the option to respond in public, it's a conversation now between customer and business.

We have high hopes. I'll keep updating as we go along. I hope people try it out.