Expanding Distribution
Getting our video in front of as many potential viewers as possible is of paramount importance for our business. The quality of what we produce has allowed us to take our video and syndicated it beyond the Web and we’re pleased to be creating a Video on Demand platform with Charter Communications, one of the largest cable companies in the United States. They join our existing efforts that have us in roughly 30 million homes where our video can be seen on the biggest monitor in the house – the living room television.
As we all know the only constant with the Internet is change. And one aspect of the Internet that continues to see rapid and often disruptive change is with video delivery. Cable operators are grappling with the fact that the programming they once monopolized is being distributed, for free, on the Internet. We’ll be seeing more and more big screen TV’s hooked directly to the Internet, enabling companies to bring their programming direct to consumers. These efforts are a threat to the traditional cable model with both viewers abandoning the set-top provided content, and advertisers who may bolt for the more measurable on-line environment. The push back from cable is seen in their recent negotiations with programmers, as they no longer want to pay premiums, especially if they lose control of where the audience can view it.
Voyage and our type of HD, interest specific programming is a part of the solution. We don’t require cable to pay for the content; we create value around it together. As our cable partners roll out interactive functionality like click-to-call and telescoping, viewers end up with an interactive experience that was once exclusive to the web. With “retail” TV we don’t just show viewers beautiful places, we take them there as well. –John Pasmore
Design Directions
Voyage.tv has been “live” since August. As with any new idea, we have learned a lot and we are beginning to think about how we incorporate those learnings into the design of the site, so as to improve the experience.
Our learnings are that 1) people like the content; 2) see value in having a variety of different but related content (e.g. hotel videos or points of interest videos); and 3) that the getting around the site is generally OK.
We have also learned that when user first land on the site they aren’t really sure what it is exactly. They know that it relates to travel, but the combination of original video, a booking engine and travel deals is a combination that they have not previously encountered. This results in most visitors bookmarking the site and then returning later in the day to explore the site (on any given day 50% of visits are same day return visitors).
We have been thinking about this and working on a number of alternative designs that might better communicate what Voyage.tv is all about. We wanted to share this with you and ask you for your thoughts. You can email them to us at Customerservice@voyage.tv. –MJM
Engagement Is The Objective
Voyage.tv is about finding experiences that we believe our Members will find interesting and creating programming around them. Is it working?
I thought the attached slide that Tedd presented at the PhocusWright Technology Conference in Orlando this week is worth sharing. It shows that Voyage.tv is generating significant time on site for new visitors (most of our visitors are new given how young we are!). It’s pretty cool. –MJM
Travel Video: The Next Big Thing
Earlier this week I had the opportunity of presenting at the Phocuswright ’09 Conference in Orlando as part of the Travel Innovation Summit. Nearly 1,000 people attend this conference every year geared towards the leaders of the travel industry – a great opportunity to showcase the amazing things the team is doing here at Voyage.tv, to get the word out.
Sometimes, though it’s better to have a third-party state your case for you, and in this case we were fortunate to have Google and YouTube present video as “The Next Big Thing” for the travel industry. While most of us know that video — and in particular online video – is mainstream, it still remains somewhat futuristic for an industry used to data entry (think keywords and destinations entered into text boxes) as the place for travel discovery to begin.
At Voyage.tv we think video is a disruptive technology that will revolutionize the way travel discovery happens. Think about it, wouldn’t you rather let your interests guide you to a fantastic place, viewing bite-sized segments about a destination rather than hunting and pecking around the web for ideas?
That was part of the gist of our message, and the Google/YouTube presentation underscored and truly validated our approach to the marketplace and what we’re about. Their studies show that a majority of all travelers – some 56% — view video before making travel purchase decisions. This is an amazing statistic considering how few sites have actually embraced the medium, and it shows that we are indeed creating something that our viewers appreciate.
That’s a quick update for now – we’ll post the video of my presentation so you can follow along and understand better how we are out to make the travel discovery process more exciting, engaging and enjoyable than ever before. Now enough reading, go check out some of The World’s Best Travel Programs on Voyage.tv! – Tedd Evers, Chief Revenue Officer
A Few Changes With this Week’s Technical Release
There is a lot going on the technical front. Let me update you.
We released a new version of Voyage.tv today which resolves some of the bugs that we discovered after the release in late October. We tested rigorously for 5 days prior to the release, but we still encountered a couple of minor issues.
Specifically, we have fixed the issues with top 4 thumbnails on the Deals page and have cleaned up some alignment issues on the Home Page. We have also brought the H1 headline into conformity with our graphics standards.
If you are a frequent visitor to the site, you will see that we are adding new pages for each of the Signature Videos, as well as for Hotels. The idea is to have a landing page for each of the Signature Programs or Hotel videos that a Member can land on, grab an embed code or simply bookmark a page.
We hope the changes enhance the usability of the site.
Our next release is scheduled for mid December and is focused on improving the presentation of the Hotel Page, the Special Offers Pages and some of the interior pages. The main change to the Hotel Page is the move to an embedded video player on the page. We have found that having a pop-up player on the Hotel Page is not working well for many users as it is taking hem away from much of the surrounding information.
We are also re-working the Special Offers page to improve the information presented and to highlight the main “selling points” around the offer. You will see some great new page layouts on both the Hotel Page and the Special Offers Page.
There will also be some new pages available – we have created a Points of Interest Page for the POI videos that we are launching with the New York Cycle. You will also that we have changed the interior pages to make them a bit easier to navigate.
Outside of the Voyage.tv site, we continue to work on extending the availability of our programming and hotel clips. We have a new YouTube Channel that we are launching in early December in partnership with YouTube and have a revamped FaceBook Page that will be available about the same time. We are also working on the launch of several iPhone applications in January.
Stay tuned! –MJM
Voyage News: Another Successful Business Review
Yesterday marked the end of the first and beginning of the “90 day sprint” for Voyage.tv employees and consultants as deemed by CEO Michael McNabb. Three months ago, the company gathered alongside board members at SoHo House New York, 
(the exclusive members-only club in the Meatpacking District)
to set pre-launch goals as well as expectations and benchmarks towards which we were to aggressively reach once the new travel media channel went live. Three months later, employees have accomplished amazing feats: senior producer Josette Persson relentlessly manages post-production in Taiwan from HQ in New York on schedule. VP of Sales Henry Watkins sells through big deals with major luxury travel players like the Bermuda Department of Tourism. President John Pasmore strikes new distribution partnership with yet another mammoth MSO. The team reviewed how far we’d come, as well as where we plan to go. Looking especially forward to continued expansion, development and honing our social media initiatives (stay tuned for new blog launch at luxuryinsider.net, new collaborations, tweets, and other cyber happenings from network host and editorial consultant, Veronica Webb).
All left the seven hour meeting feeling proud, charged, hungry and ready to grow our new business tenfold.
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