Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 2nd March 2009
4 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
To launch tomorrow is HotelVideoReviews, a Dutch/US startup focusing on helping travel agencies benefit from hotel video reviews on their sites.
HotelVideoReviews aggregates video reviews from established hotel review sites including tripr.tv and hotels.tv as well as partnered travel agencies. See, the site offers white label solutions to travel agencies enabling them to create their own user generated reviews sections helping them receive more targeted leads.
There are no fees for moderation, integration or daily administration, however the site aims to share qualified leads and therefore profits with individual travel agencies – directly correlated to traffic linked back to their site. At launch they have partnered with leading Facebook travel application WhereiveBeen.com, EasyTobook.com, Gekko.com, and Hotels.nl.
CEO Jan Kooman is a firm believer in the benefits of video reviews:
“We believe that video reviews are very important for the booking experience on a travel website. Research shows that 78% of hotel bookers already use textual reviews when making travel related decisions. However 42% find video most trustworthy.
Adding video content on a hotel booking webpage increases conversions up to 200%. To stay competitive in online travel they are a must.”
Kooman is also joined by ex-Google country manager Marc Duijndam as an investment partner.
Written on 27th June 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yeah, you saw that right: I’m vain enough to hover over our logo. And no, I’m not gonna tell you how long I looked for it.
What you see above this text, is a smart marketing tool by two Dutch guys who want to be the next KillerStartUps.com. Sytse Sijbrandij and Jelle de Bruin have built AppAppeal, a review site for web apps. They’ve created 27 categories – from aggregator to word processing -, containing very short to-the-point reviews. Like this one, about Gmail. I’m not sure it will be useful for you, but AppAppeal can definitely help out people who want to start moving their digital office to the online world.
Anyway, to promote their new site, Sytse and Jelle have spent probably too much time on this world mosaic. The idea is pretty nice and I guess it’s on its way to the Digg frontpage. Yet the execution is somewhat pointless. It would have made more sense if they had placed the logos on the countries they were originally coming from. Then it would have a meaning. Now it’s just a bunch of logos on a pile, looking like the world. Or maybe I’m just a bit pissed of because The Next Web, THE (self-proclaimed) European tech blog is placed somewhere in the Pacific. You be the judge…
Written on 17th April 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Every time when I go to a concert, museum, movie or you name it, a bowling alley, I let my Twitter contacts know how it was. At least, the ones that are watching the Twitter timeline. The contacts who aren’t, will never know how I’ve experienced the night off. Well…, @slack, @danielmorrison and @petelbury have now taken care of this ‘problem’.
They’ve built MicroRevie.ws, a service that collects reviews from Twitter and turns them into Microformats. That’s a web-based data formatting approach that seeks to bring structure in web data in order to make it findable. However, we don’t have to worry about the technical side, since MicroRevie.ws automatically takes care of that. All we have to know is that our reviews will get picked up by services like Technorati’s Microformats Search. So other people than our contacts will be able to look up our honest and humble opinions.
How does it work? Start following @hreview and update like this:
@hreview Some Great Band; really exciting but too loud
@hreview and the semicolon are required. The semicolon separates what is being reviewed from the opinion.
That leaves one question though, what’s the use of 140 characters reviews..? I’m sure my friends appreciate a short statement about a movie. But why would you mind the non-argumented opinion of a complete stranger?
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
