We must not like our friends. Why? We often post comments on Facebook or Twitter when we like or don’t like something. BUT this just makes our friends read our commentary when they don’t need it. And when they do need it, our commentary is not available since it’s not stored or categorized for them so they can easily find it.

What’s the point of writing about your great stay in a hotel in Paris if your friends are not looking for a hotel in Paris at that moment? Yet when they are looking for a hotel in Paris, your comment and review is long gone. Let’s admit it– we all do this. Is it because we like being mean to our friends or is it because there just isn’t a better way?

My guess is the latter so I’ll suggest a better way. Instead of posting a comment via a tweet or status update that is lost in the ether (thereby useless to your friends when they need it) OR writing reviews on a site like Trip Advisor (where the review is not available to your friends and only for people you don’t know), just add @funnelscope to your status updates. That’s it. No sign up or registration.

For example, add @funnelscope to a tweet when sending out a review (just mention the hotel name in your message) or tweet @funnelscope with a link to a review you previously wrote on any travel or review site like Yelp or Hotels.com (with your username from that review site). The result is a big favor to your friends and gratification for you.

Once you send the status update, Funnelscope automatically connects that review to your social network and stores it for anytime one of your friends in your social network is looking for a hotel. So at the time they search, your review shows up! Wouldn’t you also love to have that capability when you are searching for a hotel…where all of your friend’s comments are available at the time you search? We use special technology to convert each comment into a rating so your friends can quickly see a personalized ranking of hotels along with your comments.

Now one thing that has not been discussed is how your friends find your review. Funnelscope is working with your favorite travel sites where users can login either with Twitter or Facebook and see personalized hotel rankings based reviews you and other people in their network provide Funnelscope. Alternatively, users can directly visit Funnelscope’s website.

So stop being mean to your friends. Make your input available to them when they actually need it versus when you choose to share it.

PS- Travel bloggers please tweet us your blog posts on hotel reviews and we will make it available to your Twitter and Facebook networks when they are actually in need of that review. We know you write fantastic content, yet it becomes even more valuable when people in your network can find it when they’re searching and expressing their intent. In this way Funnelscope becomes a great marketing tool for you. So start tweeting us your reviews today!!

If you are the kind of person that needs a good gym or spa when staying at a hotel, then your best bet is to start your search at Funnelscope. Funnelscope analyzes reviews for gym quality, spa quality, pool quality, and much more.

As an example, here are reviews and ratings for Caliente Tropics Resort in Palm Springs. This is different than what you get at trip advisor or other hotel sites because we categorize reviews by over 20 categories. The idea is to avoid you having to read all the reviews that are not relevant to you.

For Palm Springs check out the top spa quality hotels, hotels with the best gyms, and best pools. If you are on the east coast, here are some suggestions in Miami: best gyms and best spas.

And if you are interested in booking a trip soon, Funnelscope is offering a discount through its partner Hotels.com. Check out these deals and book that hotel with a great spa or gym!

Let’s admit it. There are really just a few things that can make a great stay at any hotel. Comfortable bed, cleanliness, and a nice bathroom would probably do it for most of us. Sure maybe a nice TV and gym would help but probably not as important as the other three.

So if those things are important why can’t we search for those key things when we start our hotel search on popular travel sites? From our analysis, almost every review talks about these things so why aren’t they broken out separately?

Well, Funnelscope solves that issue. We analyze reviews and tweets then rate them by the key criteria you care about. For example, here are the hotels with the best bathrooms in Chicago. And here are the ones with the best bathrooms in Boston.

Want to read the reviews that determine those ratings? No problem, Funnelscope breaks them out for you. For example, here are the bathroom reviews segmented for the Harborside Inn of Boston.

I could keep going but it’s probably best for you to just start your search at Funnelscope and see how easy it is. And while you’re at it, login with twitter and/or facebook and see how your friends rate the hotels.

What more can you ask for: hotels that are clean, with a nice bathroom, with comfortable beds, and that your friends recommend.

Check out Funnelscope and let us know what you think.

As we chart the course for FunnelScope’s future – with your feedback incorporated of course – a reflection of where the online travel industry has been is of interest.  As the old cliche goes, “you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been”.

There appears to be 4 major phases:

1 – Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

ISPs provided access to the brand-new internet for the general public.  ISPs also attempted to provide some content, including basic travel information, to their customers.  In this phase, consumers began to find it more efficient to book travel utilizing online travel agencies.

2 – Portals

AOL, Yahoo, and others spring to life.  Portals attempted to fulfill all needs, including travel related services and content, in one location.  It was the “come here for everything” internet strategy.  Portals had big influence on trip planning including hotel choice.

3 – Search

Search is the stage we’re currently in now.  However, the search stage may be in its twilight.  The search mantra can be summed up as, “why do I need to know or remember anything?  I can just use a search engine to find what I’m looking for”.

Search, dominated by Google, provides relatively easy access to information including travel reviews.  But, the search information presented is from sources not personally known by the searcher.  The travel reviews in search results also have the potential of being manipulated.  Hence the current clamor for unbiased travel reviews.

The search engines send copious amounts of paid and natural traffic to the likes of Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz.

4 – Real-Time Online Social Interaction

Through-out history other human beings, especially our friends and family, have always been our most trusted and influential sources of information.  Perhaps it’s because information from our friends and family has been filtered, culled, and targeted to a personal level.

In this new world where information, including travel discovery, is increasingly organized through people and their networks, travel related companies need to give people the tools and means to socialize their travel discovery process.

The next generation of killer travel applications (including FunnelScope!) will provide ways to combine the discovery of travel information with the social mechanisms to share it via Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Try a FunnelScope search now.  Socialize your search with your friends on Twitter leveraging FunnelScope.  Pretty cool, right?  Let us know what could be even better.  We want your feedback.

Facebook has over 300 million users.  Almost 20% of Americans are estimated to have a Twitter account.  These are both significant statistics.

Social Networking is huge, and it isn’t going away.

However, the most interesting aspect of social networking isn’t the massive number of people that engage – it’s how social networking is changing human behavior.

Think back to what modes of communication were possible just a few years ago.  The limited technology only allowed mainly one-to-0ne communication.  Now, it’s easy to communicate to many at once using social networking tools.  Also, if you have enough friends or followers, your individual influence can be just as great as that of a large corporation.

Yes, this changes a lot of things – including travel planning.

Individuals can use their social graphs to research and plan their trip.  They can also find reviews and comments about their destination.  However, even though folks are having more luck with social media than old trip planning methods, evolution is still needed to capture the full potential of social networking in trip planning.

Yes, social networking isn’t going away, and companies like FunnelScope will help usher in applications and tools to harvest the potential of social networking in trip planning.

Watch FunnelScope evolve.  Even better, use our current tools and provide feedback to become part of the evolution.  The potential is exciting.

How has social networking altered your trip planning?  What trip planning tools do you wish were available?  Please leave a comment.

Consumers Trust Hotel Reviews More Than Advertising.

Surprising?  Not to me, and probably not to you either.

Nielsen recently completed a study that confirms a core belief at FunnelScope:

• We tend to trust recommendations from people we know.
• Consumers trust other consumer’s opinions posted online.

What’s again not surprising is that both online reviews and friend recommendations are more trusted than other forms of advertising according to Nielsen:

“Nine in every ten internet consumers worldwide (90%) trust recommendations from people they know, while seven in every ten (70%) trust consumer opinions posted online”

This blows away trust in other mediums such as TV (62%); newspaper (61%); radio (55%); email (54%); search engine results ads (41%), and online banner ads (33%).

No wonder Trendwatching.com is now saying, “Reviewing is the New Advertising” in their September trend report.

Social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc. are helping to put the power of reviews on steroids.  Social media was built on the foundation of friends freely sharing information including opinions about products and services like hotels and travel.  In fact, some people refer to Twitter as a global real-time reviewing tool.

Customers are now demanding the ability to instantly compare hotel attributes and prices online in an effort to get the best deal while meeting their needs.  But consumers want to be able to do this in a time efficient manner.

That’s why we started FunnelScope.com.  We’re giving the consumer what they want from sources they trust:

Compiled hotel reviews provided in a time-saving manner based on what’s important to the consumer from both online reviews and friend recommendations.

Try a FunnelScope.com search now.  Socialize your search via our Twitter connection (Facebook coming soon).  Then tell us what you think.