In the trend to keep up with a wired clientelle, Seattle’s Hotel 1000 is leading the pack, at least on the West coast, according to the LA Times’ Travel editors. It’s more than the 1000’s ability to deliver high-definition movies from the Internet to a giant flat screen in your room.
A variety of the hotel’s services are connected to a single fiber-optic backbone, including the Internet-based TV system, electronic do-not-disturb buttons and room phones that offer free Internet-based calling to anywhere in the U.S. — doing away with the traditional practice of jacking up in-room calling rates in search of profits.
The avant garde leadership is not without a few bug fixes. French press coffee makers with six-step instructions could perplex operators, crtiicsd opined and the TV remotes, must be pointed at an infrared sensor instead of the television screen. In spite of the vagries, Hotel 1000 can still fulfill at least one ultimate geek-on-the-road fantasy. A recent guest’s call to complain about a broken remote was met with a peculiar response from the front desk clerk: “I’ll send an engineer right up.” [24×7]
Faves.com (formerly BlueDot) Asks Just How Social is the Web?
More than 36 percent of Web users “highly trust” the information they receive from friends and acquaintances in their online social networks, according to a new social Internet survey by Faves.com, a social discovery and bookmarking site which just reinvtened its name and its identity as the Website formerly known as Bluedot. Why the change? The same survey found that 34 percent of respondents visit a social networking site at least weekly.
The number jumps to 90 percent when you add those that moderately trust their social network contacts, while In contrast to the more than one-third of Web users who highly trust information from social networks, only 4 percent of people highly trust content/opinions from vendors or advertisers, 4 percent highly trust comments on blogs or forums, and 3 percent highly trust news communities such as Digg or Reddit.
“People are interacting differently with the Web today, and as the survey results show, people trust their online social networks more than any other online resource,” said Rob Dickerson, chief executive officer of Faves.com. “Also today people are much more comfortable posting to the Web, whether it’s expressing an opinion, uploading digital content, or adding a comment on a blog. Two years ago only 13 percent of the people we surveyed visited a social networking site weekly — today, that number is 34 percent. Two years ago only 9 percent visited a media sharing site, such as YouTube or Flickr, weekly — today, that number is 26 percent. These are tremendous increases.”
Each week 69 percent of survey respondents said they used the Internet to keep up with friends and family, 48 percent to follow a favorite hobby and 53 percent to follow special interests. While more people are using the Internet for social networking and for tracking topics they find interesting, only 25 percent of respondents felt that the Internet definitely met their needs with regard to following favorite hobbies, and 29 percent with regard to following special interests. [24×7]
