Last week Dennis Schaal wrote an article pondering the question of what travel companies should do with their mobile and web strategies in light of the Apple/Adobe feud over Flash.  Dennis got input on whether to continue leveraging the Flash platform or wait for HTML5 to mature from several prominent individuals involved in the travel industry including RockCheetah’s Robert Cole.  And Robert got it exactly right…only backwards.

But I don’t want to bury the lead.  Let me state up-front: You should not stand on the sidelines and wait for the Adobe-Apple kerfuffle (nod to @jangles) to sort itself out.  This will take years.  Instead, be thoughtful in establishing your web and mobile strategy and get moving today.

Now let me outline where I have disagreement with Robert’s views.

Different platforms require different modes of presentation based on different usability strategies

Robert worries that uncertainty around the winner of the Flash debate will result in the “dumbing-down” (Dennis’ words, not Robert’s) of sites or the need to invest in multiple sites to support different technology platforms.

In fact, trying to provide the same experience over different devices or platforms is the epitome of dumbing-down.  “Write-once, run anywhere” is a siren’s call that can cause many apps to crash on the shores of poor usability and blandness.  Different devices have different use cases and capabilities.  If you don’t take that into consideration you’re making a fatal mistake.  Let me elaborate.

• Think of the use case: In software development, just like in web design, nothing is more important than the use case. For example, prospective travelers are more likely to conduct their primary research during the trip planning phase on their desktop/laptops, but are more likely to use their mobile devices post-booking and while in-situ (e.g. itinerary changes, alerts, making a dinner reservation).  So the kind of information that you present and how you present it should differ in each case. While the information you provide the “travel researcher” can have a lot of text, high-res images, and video, the information and options you give the mobile traveler need to be much more streamlined and transactional in nature.
• Consider the device capabilities: First of all you must remember that the desktop paradigm is based around the traditional WIMP (windows-icon-menu-pointer) construct while most smartphone and mobile devices are touch-based.  This changes almost everything about the way you need to present your information.  In a touch-based paradigm mouse-overs don’t work because you can’t physically do it.  The precision of ‘pointing’ is constrained.  Finally, and most obviously, not every device has the same screen size or can automatically switch from portrait to landscape mode. To not adapt for the different devices is to leave a lot of potential improvement to the user experience on the table. More importantly, why bother creating an app for a device if you aren’t going to take advantage of specific device capabilities like accelerometers, locators, calendars, or phonebooks?

Finalization of the HTML5 spec will take years, but won’t hinder adoption

It is true that the finalization of the HTML5 spec is not anticipated until 2012.  But that’s a very different point than saying that no one will be adopting it until the spec is finalized. If nothing else the web is fluid and reacts quickly.  Every desktop browser of note either supports HTML5 currently (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera) or has pledged its support (Microsoft for the upcoming IE9).

And the same goes for mobile browsers, which are increasingly based on the WebKit standard.  Check out this chart from a post in the O’Reilly Radar:

Overwhelmingly mobile browsers already support HMTL5 (with Microsoft pledging support in the future) and TODAY, none of these mobile browsers (nor really any mobile device I’ve heard of) supports Adobe Flash.

Add on top of this the fact that by all accounts over two-thirds of videos on the web – and perhaps as high as 90% – are available in the H.264 standard used by HTML5-powered sites, I’d say that video content isn’t a deal-breaker anymore.

Let’s get real about “Open Source”

Lastly there is the debate as to who is more open.  Is it Adobe or Apple? I think that Daring Fireball’s John Gruber (no relation) says it well.

“Open” is one of those terms that means a lot of different things to different people. Most should be able to agree, though, that open-vs.-closed is a continuum — shades of gray, not just black and white. A light enough shade of gray is “open”, dark enough is “closed”. The arguments are over where those thresholds lie.

I, for example, would argue that HTML5 is open, and that Flash is not. HTML5 is open, to my eyes, because no one vendor defines or controls either its specification or its numerous implementations. The specification is being written and decided upon by consensus by two standards groups, WHATWG and the W3C.

You can argue whether or not Apple’s policy regarding AppStore approvals make any sense and you probably have a good argument.  But I don’t think it’s fair at all to say that Apple is closed from a technology perspective.  Apple’s web vision is based on HTML5, CSS, Javascript and H.264 video — all industry standards that they do not control.  Adobe on the other hand freely licenses the Flash player, but not the platform. Adobe can make whatever changes to Flash of their own choosing and on their own timetable.  They may claim to take the desires of the development community into consideration in developing their product roadmap, but they are not required to. In the four years since Apple’s iPhone ushered in the age of the web and media driven smartphone there has been no mobile version of Flash available for any device and consequently no mobile device has supported Flash in all that time and we have lived to tell about it.

In my view, Adobe’s entire argument is merely a matter of timing. Only now when Adobe is finally planning to release Flash Mobile 10.1 (anticipated to be launched next month on the Android 2.2 OS…backwards availability or compatibility not assured…and H/Pre’s WebOS) after years of delay are they protesting.  How much longer should they have expected the rest of the industry to wait before they moved on to a standards-based approach? It’s important to remember that months prior to the release of the iPad and the announcement of iPhone OS4, it was Google who was the most vocal proponent of an HTML5-centric view of the future of the web.  Only recently has Google begun to embrace Flash on mobile devices driven by their “the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend” strategy against Apple.

Yes, Adobe’s products have long been a favorite of designers (let’s not forget that it was Apple who helped them achieve that position), but they’re certainly not the most “open” company and there are plenty of alternatives for web and mobile app development to Adobe’s Creative Suite.

OK, one last thing. While Tnooz highlighted the largely sarcastic and self-serving ads by Adobe to show how much they love (i.e. loathe) Apple at this moment, I feel compelled to share a faux-ad that I found on TechCrunch created by an Apple fan that I found truly amusing

Here’s your weekly reading list:

1. T2Impact’s Timothy O’Neill-Dunne tries to judge who’s right in the airline merchandising row.  Spoiler Alert: it ain’t the BTC.
2. American Airlines is trying to make GDSs, distribution channels to embrace XML in order to access ancillary services, which otherwise can’t be done prior to arrival at the airport.  However, American insists there will be no incremental costs to book via the direct connect channel.  GDSs probably don’t want to have to work through Farelogix, but also don’t want to modernize their feeds from EDIFACT to XML on a supplier-by-supplier basis.
3. Redmonk’s James Governor explains how VMWare isn’t getting into the relational database business, but that doesn’t mean they’re not in the database business.
4. First broken by BusinessWeek, it looks like Google is going to buy ITA Software for more than $1B, fully ushering in Google to the travel meta-search game (which they’re kind of in already with their recent integration of hotel results into Google Maps.  If this is true, it’s not good news for Kayak.com nor for Microsoft’s Bing Travel, the current leader in meta-search who also leverages ITA’s technology.  Good analysis on the rumor from Tnooz.
5. Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang breaks down the announcements from Facebook’s f8 conference.  Also check out Robert Scoble’s take on Facebook’s Ambition.
6. Does HTML 5 Herald The End Of RIA Plug-Ins? It’s behind the Forrester paywall, but I wanted to share it anyway.  It’s a pretty good analysis that separates the hype behind HTML5 from the reality that a lot of people have invested in RIA platforms and that HTML5 is still an emerging standard and therefore it will take a while to kill of RIA platforms like Flash.  However, the analysis doesn’t really take the rise of the mobile Internet.  I think it’s a pretty big miss and could act as a tipping point in favor of HTML5, but we’ll see.
7. HTC passes on Palm Buy. Not many options left. Lenovo? Motorola? Dell? My decision to by a Pre last summer is looking worse and worse.
8. Blippy offers a lame explanation of how credit card information ended up on Google. The “it’s less bad than it looks” line is the sort of non-apology apology that I have grown to expect and loath from companies and celebrities. What I’d like to know is whether Blippy went through PCI-DSS certification or if they even know what that is.
9. Apple tries to take over the travel industry next.  Great writeup by PatentlyApple.  But I’m not sure NFC will play as central as a role in reality as it does in the patent application.
10. 2 great posts by Don Dodge on what makes successful startups here and here.  Really nice to see him getting back to good content rather than shilling for Google.

A little late, but here’s your weekly bit of curation:

1. Mashable: Google v. Yahoo. Who has the right social strategy? It may not be who you think. Build or Buy revisited.
2. From RedMonk’s @sogrady: “What Sports Can Teach Us About Analytics: The MIT Sloan Conference“  Great post about Dorkapalooza. Wished I could have attended.
3. TechCrunch: Windows Slate preview. Yes it has flash, and some custom work to accommodate a touch interface, but still seems to hold too tightly to the traditional windows paradigm…and not just because it runs Windows7
4. “When the platform changes, the leaders change”. Great post by Seth Godin
5. Benioff’s Facebook Imperative Part 2.  Is he trying to change the conversation, buddy up to Facebook (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) or just trying to promote Salesforce Chatter?  Or could it be all three?  Read the initial post here.
6. Great post on design nuances for iPad
7. The Revolution at Work (the industry reacts to Salesforce’s moves) from Robert Scoble [Video]
8. From @compete: Lost Bookings Where Are You?
9. Good post on possible impact of Twitter Geo-Location — Red Giant Consulting: High Tech Marketing Consultant
10. Extraordinary review and perspective on the latest research and understanding of Social CRM from Paul Greenberg of the Enterprise Irregulars.

Each week I’ll be providing a list of 10 items that caught my eye during the past week, in no particular order. So if you missed it, here’s your chance to find what I thought was interesting. Please provide feedback good or bad so I can improve the relevancy…well at least understand what you’re interested in.

• Switched On: Making it different versus making a difference Impressions of Windows Phone 7. Story is just like it sounds, but this new mobile OS from Microsoft will either seriously impact the mobile landscape or will be the final chapter in Microsoft’s attempt at participating in the mobile market.
• Scobleizer: Marc Benioff’s enterprise ambitions (first look at Salesforce Chatter) Tech blogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble’s take on Salesforce.com’s social enterprise app.
• Tnooz: Yapta to integrate Kayak Meta Search Engine.  Another interesting move my travel meta-search leader Kayak.com as they evolve their business.
• Tnooz: Orbitz launches travel agent website, commission program for hotels, packages Interesting move by leading OTA Orbitz to try to get traditional travel agents to book on their platform. You always hear that  Sales people are coin-operated, I guess we’ll find out as Orbitz increases commissions by 20%.
• Singularity Hub: Minority Report Interface Is Real, Hitting Mainstream Soon (Video).  Usability is so interesting to me.  The guy who designed the interface concepts for the movie “Minority Report” is trying to build a real business out of it.  I think that this tracks very nicely with the move away from mouse and keyboard interaction.  Perhaps life will imitate art after all.
• Tnooz: How the travel industry can thrive rather than just survive in 2010 Coming out of a brutal 2009, there is muted optimism for a recovery. Technology to support dynamic packaging can enable both travel suppliers and intermediaries to create demand.
• Tnooz: A genuine “awesome” – Microsoft new visual eye candy on Bing Maps. Story covering Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ TED talk on Bing Maps and Augmented Reality.  tNooz’s ever-intelligent editor Kevin May links to amazing insights by…wait for it…ME! on how such technologies may impact the travel market.
• TechCrunch: My Bloody Valentine: Expedia.com Semi-hilarious and well chronicled story of TechCrunch’s MG Siegler’s misadventures with a booking on Expedia.com.  Expedia finally made good (at least economically), but the lag in response time is stark contrast to Southwest Airlines’ response to “Silent Blob” being tossed off a flight for being to fat to fit in a single seat.
• Travel Trends – Travel 2.0 Blog: The Future of Visitor Guides, 2009 Internet Usage Stats. Another look at how the iPad may revolutionize travel and some good stats on Internet usage, et al.
• Sameer Patel’s Pretzel Logic: The Enterprise 2.0 Parallel Universe Start to Merge.  Sameer’s blog is a must read.  This post provides some insight on how the Social Web and Unified Communications markets may start to merge.

Today I saw a video from TED 2010 of Blaise Aguera y Arcas (an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, the architect of Seadragon and the co-creator of Photosynth) presenting how Bing Maps has begun to integrate augmented reality into the experience.  Really very cool stuff. Watch the video (below) and then meet me for the rest of the post.

So it’s cool, but what can we do with this in the travel industry? I see a TON of uses, but let me start with just one.

Think of how this could impact the packaged travel sector. Last week at Travel Technology Europe 2010, Viator’s Patrik Oqvist, Managing Director, Europe spoke about how the travel booking process is actually upside down – the booking process is centered around getting there while people’s desire to travel is based on what they’ll do once they arrived. So if you’re trying to convert lookers to bookers, isn’t the best thing to increase the excitement they have for taking the trip in the first place?

This is where I think augmented reality comes in. Instead of just showing some canned pictures of a venue or activity, let prospective travelers literally see those activities through the eyes of people who have already been there or view live video. It could not only help travelers build excitement during the planning process, but also help them build/select daily itineraries, see what other activities are nearby, etc.

Of course these kinds of uses don’t need to be limited to tour operators or DMO’s but could also be used by hoteliers to promote their property and proximity to other activities and perhaps help put them at the center of the travelers’ plans.

Well that’s my initial reaction. What ideas do you have for integrating augmented reality into your travel marketing plan or travel technology platform?

One of the amazing oddities of the travel sector is the lack of adoption by traditional travel agents of modern user interfaces in travel reservation systems. It’s kind of funny that much of the software industry is debating HMTL5 versus Flash while the travel industry is holding onto a user experience that makes me reminiscent of working on a DEC VAX. Even at this week’s Travel Technology Europe 2010 show, I was flabbergasted to see new releases of software purposefully replicating the mainframe-style, hot-key oriented user interface that Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and Central Reservation Systems (CRS) introduced 30 or more years ago.

I struggle to understand the psychology of travel agents who cling to the old-style interfaces. Time and again I’ve read and heard of stories where they claimed that it makes them more efficient and that even new travel agents, many of which grew up using computers and the Internet, abandon the modern enterprise software GUI interfaces (a relative term since the GUI hasn’t changed dramatically in the past 20 years) to adopt a user experience which is one step removed from punch cards and stone tablets. At Travel Technology Europe I spoke to someone from one of the leading TMCs who used to be in operations and spoke enthusiastically and nostalgically about using the old-style interface indicating that she felt it gave her a sense of irreplaceability since it takes a while to understand the idiosyncrasies and nuances of the system to develop the speed that she was so proud of.

So I had a thought while participating in a discussion around the iPad: could touch be the technology that takes travel agent desktops out of the stone age?

Some of what I’ve heard is that as great as the different RIA (Rich Internet Application) technologies may be, it takes a long time to execute different searches and drill down into details. Touch should be faster than manipulating a mouse and if a layered “Minority Report” style UI brought up different search results using a cover-flow approach and you could tap on a property or flight and “flip the card” to see more details and to view photos it could match and potentially exceed current productivity levels and prepare the industry for further innovations.

Just a thought. What’s your take?