“Is Your Mother a Prostitute?”

In April of 2010 Jeff Ireland, the General Manager of the Miami Dolphins, asks Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant if his mother was a prostitute in a pre draft interview. How the 6’ 2”, 224 lb college standout kept from reaching across the table and administering one hell of a beating on Ireland we may never know. Sports talk radio had a field day with this one. Just about anyone who offered their opinion was outraged. Mike Ditka chimed in on the topic, "I think the individual who asked that question, somebody ought to whack him in the head. You don't ask that question." Most people, celebrity or not, shared Ditka’s sentiments.

Jeff Ireland holds one of the top positions within the Dolphin organization. An organization that, in general, has a very good reputation. What does this say about the organization? Is this considered acceptable behavior? The Miami Dolphins is a brand and, like it or not, because of his positions Mr. Ireland is an ambassador of that brand. Actually, it has nothing to do with his position. Everyone who has access to customers is a brand ambassador. Can this kind of behavior change the public’s opinion of the brand? Absolutely.

Let me give a personal example of how one employee can define a brand in a customer’s eyes. In 1988 I had a bad experience with the service manager at Greenspoint Dodge in Houston, Texas. He had no concept of customer service and insulted me and my mother. This brand ambassador for the Chrysler Corporation left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that I sold the car as soon as I could and have yet to own another one of their products and likely never will. I have been into their dealerships when I was in the market for a new car, but could never bring myself to seriously consider their products as an option because of this one bad experience with this one individual.

I would guess that you have had a bad experience that has led to you not going to a certain restaurant, grocery store, shopping mall or other establishment. All because of an interaction with one individual who represented a brand.

Let’s consider social media. Get out and read articles on developing a social media strategy and you will come across multiple opinion and approaches. You will also find several common themes. One common theme is the idea of turning your employees into brand ambassadors through social media. I could not agree more. Think about what Best Buy is doing. Instead of relying on traditional marketing and communication methods, hundreds of Best Buy employees are on Twitter to assist in technology advice. That’s right, hundreds of brand ambassadors.

Do you think Jeff Ireland would be a good brand ambassador for the Dolphins organization? How about the service manager at Greenspoint Dodge? Obviously not. Or at least not without some serious training. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that Best Buy has an extensive training program for the people who are communicating with customers through Twitter.

Companies who have an extensive social media strategy in place are evolving and changing their approaches regularly. It is the nature of the beast. You must remain nimble. In addition, social media is still a new concept to many companies. I still hear stories of miss guided executives and channel managers jumping into social media without developing a strategy. The most common story is that they hear about Facebook, Twitter and others and ask a young team member to create profiles. The end result is, more often than not, that the young person who was asked to create the profile is pulled onto other projects and the profile/account sits with no activity from the company. Customers and potential customers may even be active on these pages posting questions, making comments or even complaints.

So, what should companies know before diving in head first?

• Develop your strategy. What is the goal of your Facebook page? What do you hope to accomplish with your Twitter account? How will you get the word out about your strategy?
  
• Make the commitment. It is not enough to created profiles, accounts and pages. You must have people maintain them and check them every day if not several times a day.
  
• Turn you employees into brand ambassadors. But first, train them. Make sure they know your brand and have enough knowledge to be THE voice of your company. Make sure they know when to escalate issues and can respond to customers in a way that will build your brand and your customers’ confidence in your product.

An Observation in Social Networking

A few weeks ago I got a letter in the mail. It was one of those things that within 2 seconds of seeing it, you know what it is. Oh no, JURY DUTY! I read it. Well, kind of. I skimmed it. I don’t read anything these days. I go over it quickly and move on. This would be one of the many faults I have. Another fault is that I do not follow directions well. On the rare occasion that I read them, I probably will not follow them. I have a point, please stay with me.

They day came and I got in the car and headed to the courthouse, which was in a town 50 miles from my home. I got to the address with about 20 minutes to spare and the first thing I noticed was that this was a Federal building for the Eastern Districts of Texas. The second thing I noticed was that all the men where wearing coats and ties. So, I look at the paperwork I had received and truly read it for the first time. A few lines stand out:

• This is a Federal case.
• Men should wear a coat and tie.
• Jeans are not acceptable attire.

What do you thing I was wearing? No coat, no tie and jeans. This is staring out well. What are you going to do? So I park, gather my things and head to the front door. Not surprisingly, there are metal detectors at the entrance. I empty my pockets, remove my watch and belt and put my belongings in a plastic bin. The guard takes one look and tells me that my cell phone will have to go back to my car. What? No calls during breaks? No checking emails while things are slow? Now I realize that I did not read very far down my paperwork after all. I head back to my car thinking I am going to be bored to death. On the way back to the car I read a bit more on my paperwork and notice the bit about no cell phones in very large, bolded and red text. How the heck did I miss that? I put my phone in the car and noticed that I have a magazine sitting on the front seat. I am saved from epic boredom! I head back in. I empty my pockets, remove my watch and belt and put my belongings in a plastic bin… again. This time the guard looks at me and says no magazines or books either. He asks me if I read any of the instructions that were sent to me. I looked him in the eye and pointed to my attire as if to say, “What do you think?”. This is when I realized that the people at Federal Court do not appreciate my particular brand of humor. Once again, I headed back to the car. I tossed the magazine back in the car. I did not bother putting my belt on this time and threw that in the car as well.

Guys, you know how most of the time we wear belts strictly for appearance? This is not most of the time. I needed that belt and realized it about half way from the car. By this point I had eaten into my 20 minute cushion and I needed to get a move on. All I could think of at this point was, “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, Lookin’ like a fool with you pants on the ground”. If you have been living in a cave and don’t get the reference, please check it out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwhl4IrPNc). This time I made it in with not trouble. The guard gave me directions to the courtroom. I got in the elevator and made small talk with the guy in the elevator with me. He was in a coat and tie and at this point I am feeling a bit uncomfortable. I started making small talk. I said, “I guess I missed the reference about proper attire”. I kind of gave me a smug look as if to say, “Moron.” I deserved it. Turns out that he was there for the case as well. Making more small talk, I asked him, “What do you think this clown did?” He just kind of shrugged his shoulders and did not say anything. It was obvious that he was not interested in chatting, so I just kept my mouths shut from then on.

The people at the court started everything off by putting us all in line, looking for our name on a role sheet and initialing that sheet next to our names. Simple enough. I got that one done without any issues. We then took our first break. Yes, break number one. I was just going to stay there in the courtroom, but they told us we had to leave. There are about 50 of us and we all headed for the hallway. There was another gentleman there who was not wearing a coat and tie, so I made a joke about him not getting the memo either. He laughed and that lead into a nice conversation. I was relieved being that I had nothing else to do. No laptop, no blackberry, not even a magazine. I asked the standard small talk questions: Where to you live? What do you do? It was a nice chat and before I knew it our 20 minute break was over and we asked back into the courtroom.

They did a role call and gave us all cards with numbers on them. They then asked us to sit in the order of the numbers of the cards. At this point the attorneys from the prosecution and defense enter the courtroom. We were not told that was who they were, but it was pretty easy to put two plus two together. Crap! The defense attorney is the antisocial cat from the elevator. I am playing that back in my mind at this point. On the good side, referring to the accused as a clown and asking his attorney what he thinks he did will probably not get me picked to serve on the jury. Now the judge comes in and gives us our instructions. He asks us all to stand up and say a few things about ourselves. Where we live, what we do for a living, what we do in our spare time, marital status and spouses occupation is applicable.

We got through everyone a lot quicker than I expected. Surprisingly, this was kind of entertaining. It was interesting to hear what everyone did and a little about them. Several people had been laid off, lot of people had several kids or grand kids and several people said scuba diving was one of the things they like to do in their spare time. My interest at this point may have been heightened by the fact that there was nothing else to do and we kind of had to listen to what we all had to say. At this point, both groups of attorneys addressed the group and asked several questions. Questions and clarification around things like circumstantial versus direct evidence, witness credibility, etc. The defense attorney spent a lot of time explaining. “Presumed innocent until proven guilty.” Wonder why?

This led into our second break. I struck up several conversations with my fellow potential jurors. We all knew a little about each other now, so ice breakers were easy to come by. One guy’s wife was a vet, so I asked where and that got several other conversations going. Another person overheard us and it turns out that she was a supplier for the wife’s vet office. Another person mentioned growing up in Midland, Texas. My sister and her family have lived in Midland for 17 years, so we chatted about that and how the town has grown over the last few years because of the price of oil. We all found lots to talk about and there were several of these kinds of conversations going on all around me.

All of this is a very long trail to get to my point about social networking. What would this have been like if we would have been allowed to bring in our laptops, phones, books, magazines, needle work or anything else we do to keep ourselves busy in situations like this? I would have found a quit corner and checked voice mail at work and made any necessary calls. I would have checked, responded and forwarded several emails. I may have even checked Facebook for updates and possibly changed my status and made joke about being on jury duty. If I had my laptop, I would have worked on a presentation I need to give later this week. Regardless, I would not have felt inclined to strike of conversations with strangers. Would everyone else have done the same? Would most of us had kept to ourselves if we were allowed to keep the devices that tie is to our jobs and social networks? I embraced the situation and met some very interesting people.

In the end, 14 people were selected and I was not one of them. I left with the promise of a small check and the experience of getting to know some new people. Did it leave me with a sense of nostalgia, reaching back to the good old days and the way things use to be when people truly talked to on another? No way in hell. I would have much rather had my Blackberry and chatted with people I already knew through Twitter, or got some work done through email or updated my status on Facebook. What does that say about me? Am I antisocial? Should I be bothered? It does not bother me at all. I am happy with where technology has taken us and remain excited about future advances. I will embrace this new way of communicating and you will have to take my Blackberry from my cold, dead hand! OK, so that was a little dramatic, but I think you get my point.

Social Media To The Rescue! Well, kind of.

I was traveling last week and picked up a Men’s Health magazine as I often do. Still don’t understand why I don’t subscribe, but that is another story. There was an article about the fattest cities in America that caught my attention. Mainly because 5 of the top 10 cities are in my home state of Texas. Am I surprised? Honestly, not really. We are one of the most pedestrian unfriendly states. With the exceptions of a few cities and towns it is difficult to get out and walk. This makes it difficult to get out, stretch the legs and get some fresh air. Plus, it is so hot in the summer that we don’t really want to go outside even if there are things to do. So, we end up sitting around eating, playing video games and watching infomercials about how to loose weigh and get a tight tummy.

All of this made me think about the industries focused around health and wellness and what a huge role marketing and social media plays. Flip channels for a few minutes and you are bound to find at least three fitness related infomercials on at any time. If you ever have one of those sleepless nights and turn on the TV in the middle of the night it will seem like there is one on every channel. My favorite right now is for the Shake Weights. Have you seen these things? Do a quick search on YouTube and you will find the commercials. Ab Cirlce, Bowflex, The Ab Rocker and the list goes on. Let’s not get into the number of diets out there.

Do they work? Do they make those extra inches melt away like they say? I find myself interested from time to time. However, more often than not I find myself asking, “Who in the hell buys this crap?” Someone does. In fact, a lot of people do. This brings me to my main point, SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE RESUCE!!! Look up any of these products and right below all the paid seach ads you will find many reviews. If a company makes a claim in their infomercial that someone feels is not accurate, the web gives them great tools to let the world know. Furthermore, there are many parodies out there based on these products. See, we laugh at these products yet we still buy them. The bottom line is that if the product works you will find many people backing the product online. If it does not work, you will find even more people bashing the product.


OK, so now there is no excuse! Because of the web and social media it is clear to the world if these products do or do not work. This brings me next point, THE BEST PRODUCT IN THE WORLD WON’T WORK IF IT IS NOT USED. Let’s remember that we are talking about a multi billion dollar industry that is based more on the failure of its consumers rather than their success. Let’s be honest, they want us to stay fat. This way we will buy the next easy to use, 5 minute a day exercise product they come up with. If these machines really worked and they were really able to help us to loose those unwanted pounds that easily, this all would have ended with Suzanne Somers and The Thigh Master. Many of these products are great, but won’t work if they are used to hang laundry on.

Go into any gym the first week in January after everyone makes their New Years Resolutions and I guarantee you that it will be packed. Go to that same gym two weeks later and it will be a totally different story. I am not throwing stones. I am guilty of this. I have had gym memberships for years that don’t get used. Look, we have been told many times that “diets” don’t work. How many times do we hear that people lost 20 pounds only to gain back 30? I am no fitness expert, but it is obvious to me that being healthy is part of a lifestyle change not a quick fix. No “only 5 minute a day exercise” or “loose 10 pound fast” diet equates to a lifestyle change. In fairness, many people buy these products as a way to kick-start a healthy lifestyle change. My argument to them would be that people have been jogging and walking for thousands of years. You don’t need to spend a bunch of money to start a healthy lifestyle change. Even in my pedestrian unfriendly, hot home state you can find things indoors to get your heart rate up. How long has the stomach crunch been around?

Let’s come full circle and get back to my original point of SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE RESUCE!!! As I mentioned earlier, I am no fitness expert. However, there are thousands online. These people and resources are there for anyone. Most of them are free. If a person is interested in exercise product, learning more about the first steps to healthy living, loosing weight or cholesterol lowering foods the web gives them a great starting point and a world wide community to learn from.

PPC Reporting - Don't Make Me Think!

Reporting on PPC is killing me! Once I “translate” the reports I get from a vendor I have to explain them to everyone else. Why is it so hard to produce a report that is easy to read and that makes sense? I get these reports that have a tone of numbers on them. I almost always find myself asking, “OK, I get the numbers. But, are these results good?”

I am no moron when it comes to SEM. I have been working in this arena for a long time. I just have better things to do that spend my time cutting through all the crap in a report to determine if the results are good or not.

Vendors hate me and I have no problem with that. They will give me their “standard” reports that they give to all their customers and I tear them apart. I tell them that I want “Crayon Reports”. That is my way of saying, I want the report to be easy to read and I want it to make sense to someone who knows nothing about search engine marketing. In addition, I want all the marketing fluff cut out of the report. Here is an example of the marketing fluff I am taking about. Many of the vendors I have worked with will double the results their campaign produced. Why? They note that there is an estimated 1 to 1 online vs. offline sale. In other words, for every sale made online another is made off line. That’s great, but I don’t want those numbers included in the reports that are given to me.

So, what do I want included in my crayon report?

• Impressions – Tell me how often the ads were displayed.


• Clicks – Tell me how often people clicked on the ads.


• Conversion – Use the two numbers above and tell me what percentage of people who click on the ads are buying.


• Cost – Tell me how much are we spending on the campaign.


• Sales – Tell me how much money we are making from the campaign.


• ROI – Tell me if we are making more money than we are spending.

Using these numbers and simplified information I have found it much easier to determine if a campaign is successful. I spend much less time analyzing reports and more time taking action. I can look at one of these reports and quickly determine that we need to make changes or stop a campaign entirely. The result is a big cost savings and more effective use of marketing funds. In addition, I spend much less time explaining the results to others.

Tracking Search Engine Optimization

Let me start by saying that I don’t sell any kind of search engine marketing service, I receive them. However, I am accountable for the success of programs I hire vendors to put in place. If the programs I put in place do not work and I can not show that they were successful, it is me who will take the fall. OK, there is more to it than that. I don’t live my life in fear that if every online program I put in place does not return a high ROI that I will loose my job, but who does not want to do a good job and ultimately succeed? I also have a genuine interest in online marketing and want to work in this field for the rest of my professional life.

As a result of all of this, like a lot of other people, I spend a fair amount of my free time learning about new online marketing ideas and how to perfect the existing ones. I attend seminars, scour the internet, sign up to receive emails, read articles, etc. There is so much junk out there it is hard to sort through it all. I often share my experience with others and get their feedback. I have found that some of my most beneficial learning has come from talking to other about their approach and experience.

Tracking Search Engine Optimization
My most interesting conversations and learnings have been related to search engine optimization. I have done SEO inhouse and hired vendors. I have used all types of vendors. I have used expensive vendors who have large teams and wowed me with great reports and more data than I knew what to do with. I have also used mid sized to smaller vendors. One company I worked with was a two man shop. I had challenges with all of them. Some challenges the same, others different.

Reporting ROI for SEO Efforts
One of the biggest challenges I have experienced with all vendors is how to report ROI. I would get these great looking reports that show all kinds of information. Everything from visibility (higher placement) to higher traffic to estimated revenue. At the end of the day I would often find myself looking at all the information and left asking, “Are these results good?”

Visibility
I am not a fan of reporting on visibility. I have used products like WebPosition and received reports that showed how our visibility has increase X%. So what? I work for a hotel company and I had a vendor brag to me that we had first page placement on Google when you did a search for “Accommodations in North Dallas”. My issue with these kinds of reports is, how many people search for “Accommodations in North Dallas” when looking for a hotel? Instead of “Accommodations” wouldn’t a person just use “Hotels”? Instead of “North Dallas” wouldn’t a person use the name of the suburb that are looking to stay in? So, I want to know how we do when someone searches for “Hotels in Plano”.

I know you want to optimize for multiple words and phrases, but you want to optimize for words and phrases that drive traffic. Visibility reports can be misleading. They can be helpful, but you need to take them for what they are worth. It does not show if you are getting more customers or business, just that you are showing up. Ask questions. Are people visiting your site from search engines? Has our traffic increased?

Traffic
Reporting on traffic growth is much better than reporting on visibility. If you can see more traffic coming to your site through the major search engines you know you are getting benefits from your optimization effort. I have been fortunate enough to work for companies that were able to afford reporting software products that have enabled me to see traffic generated from search engines. Vendors may be able to provide you with reports, but I always feel better if the data comes from my company as opposed to a vendor.

There are issues with reporting on traffic as well. Is the traffic coming to your site qualified customers? Here is a funny story. Years ago, I actually had one guy suggest adding porn related key words to a web site’s content and Meta data. That is an extreme example, but I think you get my point. It is more than just traffic you want, it is qualified traffic that is likely to purchase what you are selling.

Sales & Revenue
Common sense tells me that the best way to track success of an effort is to determine how much money it makes for you. This gets complicated as well. Do you look at growth over last year? Part of what makes this complicated is that internet traffic and the use of search engines are growing. How do you account for this growth? For example, you may see a 25% growth in traffic and revenue by doing nothing because more customers are using the internet and/or search engines. There are other types of growth that you want to consider as well. Growth of the brand that you are supporting for example. Is the brand you are supporting becoming more recognizable? Offline marketing efforts almost always have a positive effect on online traffic.

So, what’s the answer?
There is not a simple answer for all web sites in all industries. However, there are a lot of things that can be done to track the performance of a SEO effort. Here are a few recommendations I can make based on my experience.

First and most importantly, establish a benchmark before the effort begins. Look at the current traffic. Look at how much is coming from the major search engines. If possible, separate paid from natural results. I recommend that you look at year-over-year information. It is great if you can look at last year over the current year and keep tracking moving forward. I understand that not all systems can hold two years worth of data. Keep exports of the data whenever possible. I keep monthly, quarterly and annual Excel reports dating back several years. Believe it or not, I use them very regularly. Even the reports that are several years old.

So, what should you report on? I have made some huge mistakes in this area in the past. It is very easy to caught up in the data and want to report on every little thing. My advice is to keep it simple. This will really help when you are comparing current data to data that was produced previously that may have come from a different system. Report on people and money. In other words, visitors and revenue. Know how many people are coming from the major search engines and how much money they are spending. Keep it that simple.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of other data that is very useful. Conversion rate, average sale, unique vs repeat visitors, what search phrase people are using to find your site, etc. are all great and useful information. However, I always find myself coming back to how many people came to the site and how much money did they spend. The biggest benefit you will get is that it is easy to report on growth. How many people came to the site this month vs last month, etc.

I love data! I can get caught up in looking at numbers all day long and coming up with interesting information that it tells me. Here is the thing, I have always been a part of or run very “lean” organizations. Small teams that are expected to do a lot. I have found that it is more effective for me and my team to spend less time looking over the data and more time on other marketing efforts.

I hope this helps!
OK, I am done for now and I hope my perspective helps. Online marketing is more than my job to me. It is also a huge interest area for me. I am not saying I am some kind of sicko and let it run my life, but I do truly enjoy learning from others and sharing my experiences. There is so much information out there about different online marketing efforts I thought I would add my two cents.

Another Redesign

Prior to taking my current position, I worked for Michaels. You know, the arts are crafts store. I worked in their eCommerce division for almost six years. During that time I think we redesigned the web site at least six times. I am not talking little tweaks and color changes. I am talking major 6 month long efforts that totally changed the structure and design of the site. So, I guess you could say that I spent have my six years at Michaels redesigning their web site.

So, after each redesigned traffic shot through the roof, online revenue grew and my entire team got huge bonuses! I wish. So, what were the results? That would be nothing, nada, zip, goose egg, zero, zilch, zippo… you get my point. Yet we did it again and again and again and again.

Because of this entire experience, this one particular article caught my eye. The article referenced a recent survey that asked established companies where their eCommerce focus would be and what major initiative they would be taking on in 2008. Search engine optimization was second on the list. Paid search was third. The list included email marketing, strategic linking, display advertising and local search. What do you think was number one? That’s right, “Web site redesign”. Not by a small margin either. 28%! Search engine optimization was at 13%.

I have talked with several eCommerce leaders and shared my experience. It turns out that my experience is not unique. The survey would suggest the very same thing. We put more focus on redesigning our web sites than we do on attracting new customers. I know that many redesigns are warranted and need to be done. However my experience tells me that much of the efforts, time and money would be better spent on driving traffic and revenue.

My advice to all is to question the need for a redesign. Avoid the, “If we change it, they will come.” mentality. The biggest argument I would get is that we want to redesign to maximize conversion. My argument back is that there will not be anyone to convert! I recently did a paid search campaign with Google. We spent $10,000 and the return on the spend was almost 7:1. All the redesigns we did at Michaels never had that kind of production. Analyze what impact the changes will have on conversion and be realistic about the expected results. What will the financial impact be if you move the conversion rate from 1.8% to 2.0%?

If you have a huge customer base I totally understand the logic behind redesigning a site. If your competitor’s web site is head-and-shoulders above yours, you need to do a redesign. If your site lacks major transactional functionality, you need to do a redesign. However, if your site gets the job done seriously consider putting your focus on driving traffic.

Consumer Generated Media – Another Tech Bubble

Someone recently asked me if I thought we were heading for another internet crash. At the time I said, “No.” Since then I have changes my mind. If you have not seen the Tech Bubble Video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3qPRAAnOg) you are missing a funny one. It was not the video that changes my mind, but it is entertaining none the less. What has changed my mind in part are the number of customer review focused travel sites that have popped up in the past year and a half or so.

Everyone is familiar with TripAdvisor. It has become one of my favorites. It is funny how a site like this can move from being a new blip on the radar to a mainstream site so quickly. But look for a second at how many others are out there. Similarly, CGM has moved from being a buzz word to a tool in a very short time. Amazon has done a great job with their product reviews for years. The reviews were the primary tools my wife and I used when purchasing baby products when we were expecting years back. However, for this conversation I want to keep the focus on the travel industry.

There is no doubt that travelers use these tools. I attended a session where someone from JupiterResearch spoke about the popularity of these online tools. The asked a panel, “How did you use content created by other travels while researching your most recent trip (e.g., reviews, ratings, photographs, etc. from other travelers)? 60% answered, “Verify my hotel choice pre-booking”. They also stated that 58% There are lots of numbers that I could share about how people use these site, how many people use these sites, how they are going in popularity, etc. What is astonishing to me is how many of these sites there are. I mentioned TripAdvisor earlier. There are also sites like VibeAgent, WAYN, Vertual Tourist, TravBuddy, SmallWorldReconnect, RealTravel, TravelPost, IgoUgo, Wikitravel, Kango, FlyerTalk, etc. I am sure there are more, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

If the majority of these sites ultimately fail, consolidate or are gulped up by larger companies it will obviously not be enough to create another tech bubble like we saw in the early part of the decade. But, let me remind you of some of the dramatic stories we were hearing about back then. Some companies you will recognize, others you will not. Interesting just the same.

• Boo.com – Spent $188 million in six month. Went bankrupt in May of 2000
  
• eToys.com - $80 per share in May 1999. Less than $1 in February of 2001


• Inktomi – Stock peaked at $241 in March 2000. Sold to Yahoo! for $1.63 per share in 2002


• TheLearningCompany.com – Purchased by Mattel in 1999 for $3.5 billion. Sold for nothing in 2000

The online travel market is currently oversaturated with these types of companies that offer similar features and functionality. Only time will tell if we hear similar stories about this wave of internet based companies in the travel industry. Regardless, something has got to give.