Obama is Dominating the Internet Battle

I know I'm a total nerd for even noticing this, but as I've been working over the last several days I've noticed that Barack Obama is geo-targeting ads based on a users IP address and serving up an ad encouraging internet users to vote early in their state and then offering to help them find the location where they can vote.

I'm getting a Colorado ad because I'm on Qwest and they think I'm in Colorado...but you get the idea.

I'd never vote for Obama for a number of reasons, but I do admire his solid marketing strategy. Not a tough thing to do, but shows a good understanding by his team of the tools he can use.

I tried to contact the Romney team during the primaries to volunteer to do some similar stuff but could never get in touch with the right people. He could have used a better internet presence to capture a few extra votes.

Travel Site Ready for Prime Time

Well, we are finally ready to roll out Reservation Counter. Like I mentioned before it has been many months in the making and is a major project for our team at work. We have seen some early success in terms of booking different rooms. We've been told by a few friends and family that the prices we are offering are very competitive and in many cases are better than the major travel portals.

I'm thinking of starting a contest to encourage people to offer reviews on hotels they've stayed in. Does anybody have any suggestions for a prize? I was thinking of giving away a free iPod Touch for the person that does the most user reviews in a 2 month period. What if anything would encourage you to write multiple reviews on a site?

Here are some hotels that I'm promoting this week that I'm trying to get some reviews on. So if you've stayed at any of them, please write a review:

Red Lion Hotel Bellevue
Bellagio Hotel Las Vegas
Stratosphere
Silver Cloud Inn University
Fairfield Inn Bellevue

The site is working really well in Firefox...if you happen to still be using Internet Exploder (shame on you) let me know if you run into any usability issues.

Trip Down Memory Lane

Connor, our oldest son, was asking the other day to buy some Pokemon cards. I told him I didn't want to pay $5 for a pack of lame Pokemon cards and mentioned that I had stacks upon stacks of basketball, baseball, and football cards in the attic and his Grandma and Grandpa's house. Ever since then he's asked everyday for me to go get them. So tonight I braved the attic and went to grab the cards. After about choking on the dust from the cards had accumulated I brought them down and split some of them up amongst the boys. It was kind of fun actually, it reminded me of all the hours Brad and I spent scheming about trading with our buddies and how best to complete our collections--which we were sure were going to make us rich. Well fast forward 20 some odd years and we now know they are virtually worthless but they are now bringing our boys the same innocent joy and excitement they brought us.