Facebook is pursuing a trademark on the word “Face” and has filed litigation against a Website that includes the name “book” in their URL.  Some in the accommodation industry may consider that Facebooks new “Check in” service, that has found its way into the mobile version of the website and the Facebook App (accessible to iPhone, iPod, Blackberry and Android devices), might some day pose a threat to the industry standard for guests announcing their arrival at the front desk.

In the meantime, Facebook Places provides a simple, handheld way for your guests to tell all their friends that they are at your location.

Why Facebook’s Places app matters?

• over 50% of web users have an account at Facebook.
• over 90% of people who earn at least $30 000 per year own a cell phone.
• over 35% of cell phones are Internet enabled devices.

It’s a fair guess that 2 of every 10 guests you are serving today has a handheld device and are capable of checking in on Facebook.

Whether an accommodation, food service, beverage service or attraction ask yourself this question.

“Would you like your clients to tell their friends that they are enjoying themselves at your location?”

Go ahead, I’ll give you a second to think about that.

OF COURSE YOU WOULD!!!!  Perhaps friends will come along to join the party, look you up online . . . at the bare minimum, you are going to score credibility points with all the friends of your guests who decide to check-in at your location.

So what do you need to do to encourage your guests to “Check in” on their mobile device?  Ask your guests to check in.

Call your guests to Action.

Give your guests a clear call to action.

Consider posting a sticker on your door, a sign in your waiting area, a rack card at your dining table that invites your guests to “Check in” on their handheld.  Consider offering an incentive to folks who check in – like a coupon for a free coffee on their next visit.

Of course there are a myriad of location-based games and associated apps – Gowalla, Foursquare, etc…. but the granddaddy of “Social” is Facebook.

What do you need to do to get started?

Go to your lobby or guest waiting area, turn on your handheld and point it to Facebook app or mobile website.  Click on the places tab and fill in your location.  If you are the first one to check in, you’ll be able to give your place a title and description.  All others who check in, will announce their arrival with the information you post as well as their own personal note.

My conversation with David Janes @dpjanes (Discover Anywhere Mobile) asks the question:

Are a you Destination Marketing Organization or a Destination Make-them-spend-more-money-in-your-region Organization?

Download Podcast

In this 40 minute conversation, David and I cover a number of interesting content ideas for destination apps including:

• underestimating the growth of mobile
• understanding the needs of digital traveler
• the importance of finding the right partners
• marketing Web apps in a destination
• the importance of GPS location relevant data for the traveler
• the irrelevance of regional boundaries
• how Discover Anywhere Mobile does the work of integrating destination content into the app including: remapping the themes of experiences, events calendar, tracking changes (adding, modifying and deleting content for the host dmo) – so there is no need to upload your content to a content management system.
• why an app living on a device is more valuable than a Web app and why hosting data on the app is vital for minimizing data pull (roaming charges) for out of country users
• augmented reality
• integration of social media with real time communication from twitter users in the destination
• direct communication with the dmo from the app
• the importance of having Web Savvy staff at your DMO and partners in your community.
• issues and opportunities with making handheld payments from within an app.

Check out apps discussed in this podcast:

• Discover St. John’s app on the iTunes store
• Near Me BC app on the iTunes store

What do you think are the obstacles and opportunities of handheld applications for regional destination marketing organizations?

Introduction

This guest post is about how to create a website specifically created and optimized for people using the Internet from mobile phones.

To make sure this is perfectly clear, we’ll be talking about two different sites: your “normal” website (e.g. www.example.com) and your “mobi” site (e.g. m.example.com). Your website is what one would normally see on the Internet, your mobi site is something that you’re explicitly using for mobile devices

Why am I doing a mobi site?

Because there’s a lot of travelers using smartphones, there’s going to be a lot more in the future, and they’re visiting to spend money:

• Nearly 70 percent of frequent business travelers have a smartphone somewhere on their person (link)
• 1 in 7 computer owners currently own a smartphone (link)
• over 40% percent of consumers will make their next mobile phone a smartphone (link)
• more than three quarters of smartphone owners said that they will either be planning or taking a trip in the next 6 months (link)
• smartphone owners demographically skew wealthy (link)
• as of January 2009, there are about 18m iPhones and about 13.6 iPod Touches in use (link)
• iPhone and BlackBerry sales are expected to increase 25% this year (link)

What is the emphasis of your mobi site?

In-destination, the emphasis of a mobile site should not be marketing: the user is sold, they’re there. Instead, it should be to rapidly allow users to navigate to information they’re interested in consuming in the most convenient possible way.

This means:

• allow users to quickly see navigation items in the most obvious way possible
• present location information based on proximity (if GPS is available)
• present event information based on date.

IMHO concepts such as “the entertainment district” may have to become de-emphasized as this is an organizational unit more suitable to the printed page than mobile devices.

Page size and features

Page load speed is as critical as possible. This is true in the web browser world too, but in mobile:

• minimize JavaScript, as there’s probably not a lot of value in clever browser tricks or the CPU cycles to do it.
• minimize page size, as that corresponds to time-to-download and also cost to the user. In any case, do not exceed 25K for a page (why)
• put CSS and JS in separate files to optimize caching
• minimize images. 0 is a good number; 1 is OK; 2 is too many. It goes without saying that any images should be small both in dimensions and bytes.

Since the traveler is likely not to be using their normal carrier, they’ll appreciate the effort.

Which devices?

Test your mobi site on a BlackBerry and on an iPhone (here’s why). If it looks decent on those, it’s probably at least tolerable on lesser devices.

The relationship between your Mobi site and your website.

When a mobile browser reaches your normal website, you have several options:

• use CSS to make your normal website look good a mobile browser
• automatically redirect users to your mobile site
• prominently display a link to your mobile site

You should probably do the first option anyway, but this is not sufficient for creating a compelling mobile experience, as you really want travelers to see your mobile optimized site. Either of the other two options are good, with my preference being the “display a link” option, as users may still want to reach content that is only available on your normal website.

Detection of whether the user is reaching your site via mobile browser can be done “server side” (in the website code) or “client side” (using Javascript). My preference is the first.

If a user reaches your mobile site from a non-mobile web browser (i.e. from their computer) there’s no need to do anything special. You probably should have a link from your normal website to your mobi site somewhere anyway.

Domain Names

You have two good options for a domain name for your mobi website:

• m.example.com
• example.mobi

My preference is the first. Note that you should always register your .mobi name so that someone else doesn’t. You should redirect the user’s browser from the unused one to the correct one.

iPhone and BlackBerry Applications

Places with large event calendars, many properties or listings, or many visitors should consider developing custom iPhone and BlackBerry applications. This will:

• provide a superior experience to what is achievable in a mobile web browser
• reduce dependence on having an Internet connection in order to be able to achieve tasks
• provide “wow” factor
• enhance loyalty, the chances of repeat visits, and create word of mouth

I am not a neutral party in this recommendation.  My company, Discover Anywhere Mobile creates iPhone, BlackBerry and mobi websites for DMOs, CVBs, festivals, events, conferences, etc.. Our website explains our mobile web services in detail.

Conclusions

• every travel website should strongly considering having a mobi website companion
• that mobi website should be developed especially for the needs and limitations of mobile devices
• the emphasis of mobi website should be user experience in-destination, not marketing
• larger organizations should consider apps

Please feel free to leave comments below, or follow me on Twitter at @dpjanes.

This post originally appeared on the Discover Anywhere Mobile blog.