Virgin Atlantic’s plans to roll out global travel community - Vtravelled

It appears that Virgin Atlantic is preparing a major push into social media with the launch of a community site called Vtravelled.

Vtravelled will be a dedicated travel portal which aims to tap into the 'inspirational' travel market, allowing visitors to organise and share their travel plans with friends and family.

Virgin Atlantic will soft launch the site on 28th February to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members staff, cabin crew and Richard Branson's VIP contacts, and it is then hoping to recruit 2m founding members ahead of a public rollout in June, extending the community to a worldwide audience.

This follows Virgin Atlantic sacking 13 staff in November for using Facebook to criticise its safety standards and calling its passengers "chavs".

The travel market has come under increased pressure from the economic downturn, and according to ComScore, unique visitors for airline sites have fallen by an average of 19%, while in December 2008 Virgin Atlantic's traffic dropped 15% year on year, down to 372,000 unique users.

Phase one of Vtravelled will see Virgin Atlantic help ignite ideas for new trips by featuring 800 destinations with a strong focus on images and maps. It's then understood the airline is considering bringing a booking service onto the site in a bid to monetise traffic.

The site will also include “Trip Pods”, enabling travellers to put together their travel plans, to which friends can be invited to join the area, share photos, notes and chat. Brands will also be able to sponsor a Trip Pod, allowing users to view possible itineraries created by companies.

Virgin Atlantic believes there is a gap in the market that could be filled with inspirational ideas, and is aiming to associate itself with this sort of stimulation, hoping people will think of the site when making a travel decision. They also believe the global site will be a way for people to find personal travel content.

The site will be targeted at people who take holidays more than three times a year, with a focus on UK and US audiences. It plans to position it as a must-visit destination and aims to be the only truly global travel community site.

Their move follows a number of social media projects by rival airlines. Last year British Airways capitalised on the travel community market with the launch of Metrotwin, a social site twinning the best of London and New York.

This month Air France and KLM jointly launched social network Bluenity, enabling passengers to share tips from fellow customers.

EasyJet is also creating a dedicated portal allowing users to explore destinations and book flights. A redesign of its site to improve functionality is due to be rolled out this quarter, followed by the incorporation of its Inflight magazine site, which features destination information and downloadable phrasebooks.

American Idol moves into Habbo

US TV show 'American Idol' is to join forces with Habbo, the online community for teenagers, as part of a brand extension that will include merchandising and sponsorship within an 'American Idol' virtual world.

Partnering with Habbo will bring a unique virtual experience to American Idol’s teen user base and will be a great opportunity to deepen the user's association with the show and increase the reach and interaction of the brand with their core viewers.

There are currently Habbo communities in 33 countries on six continents, and to date over 121m Habbo characters have been created with more than 11.5m unique users worldwide visiting Habbo each month.

Dell Ideastorm

In 1984, Michael Dell had $1000 and an unprecedented idea – bypass the middleman and sell custom-built PCs directly to customers. This idea led to the creation of what is now Dell Inc. and the birth of Dell’s direct model.

Twenty four years later, Dell believed more than ever that the best way to understand and serve their customers was to talk to them directly, wherever they may be located. The only difference between 1984 and 2008 is that they now have millions of global customers in more than 100 countries.

It is with that mindset that Dell has created ‘IdeaStorm’. The name is a take-off on the word “brainstorm” and it is their way of building an online community that brings everyone closer to the creative side of technology, by allowing us to share ideas and collaborate with one another.

Dell IdeaStorm is a website launched by Dell in 2007 to allow them to gauge which ideas are most important and most relevant to the public. The goal is for customers to tell Dell what new products or services they’d like to see Dell develop, and hope that the site fosters a candid and robust conversation about ideas.

Their commitment is to listen to peoples input and ideas to improve their products and services, and the way they do business, and to keep us posted on how Dell brings customer ideas to life.

www.dellideastorm.com