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 Liam Morgan, Emerald group publishing limited Campus, (2012) "Generation Y, learner autonomy and the potential of Web 2.0 tools for language learning and teaching", Campus-Wide Information Systems, Vol. 29 Iss: 3, pp.166 - 176 [online] Retrieved from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17038677 [accessed 28th October 2012]

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Why my product is innovative

Overall my product is a progression and combination of what already exists. Although as of yet, there does not seem to be the combination of the products in order to create a new innovative product that relates to a specific topic, which in this case is holidays, but with the possibilities of expanding into other topics such as fashion, interior design and many more topics which have a collective audience.

• People have Facebook, where they like to look at what other people are doing, which is the need for surveillance of other peoples lives.
• People use twitter where they follow anybody, not necessarily their real life friends.Twitter has a sense of anonymity where it is not strange or unusual to interact with people who you do not always know, for example, celebrities.
• Instagram is a new social trend which has increased massively in the past 2 years since it's creation in October 2010.
• Blogs have always been and will continue to be a popular source of user created content and the concept recognises this in a context where the posts are much less detailed and shorter than a blog but it is the feeling of sharing experiences, which has an association with blogs; hence, attracting bloggers to the concept.

To summarise, my idea is primarily a mobile phone app, also with a website as a by product, which allows people to share holiday experiences with other people through the use of images and tagging images, using hashtags. People can search for hashtags of things they are interested in such as 'Buckingham Palace' then the most recent threads of buckingham palace will appear on feed. People could also search for descriptions of places through hashtags like 'boho' or 'modern' and people may have images of hotels they have stayed in with these descriptions and hashtags.

When you choose to see someones posts on your feed regularly you become one of their 'viewers'. E.g. How many viewers have you got? You can choose to be anybody's viewer (similarly to how you can follow anyone on twitter) This includes celebrities, friends and anyone from all over the world. Apart from the people you view the most popular posts will be displayed in everyones news feed. The most popular posts will be calculated on how many 'spreads', 'writes' and 'bites' that a post has (see below) and the posts the are most popular will also be tailored to you. So, the most popular posts that show on your news feed may be different to the most popular posts on somebody else's news feed.

When you choose to share something that someone has posted you are 'spreading' eg. I spread auntie gill's pictures from her trip to paris. By doing this everyone that you follow will also have 'Auntie Gill's' posts on their new feed with information of who shared the post which was originally posted by auntie Gill.

When you decide that you want to show someone you are 'viewing' that you like one of their posts you can 'write' E.g i'm going to write on auntie gills picture of the Eiffel Tower. This is the equivalent to giving comment and feedback on somebody's post and these comments can be seen by everyone who looks at that post.

If there is something you are very keen on and want to store in your favourites you 'bite' someones post and this will add that post to your favourites page in your profile, which is then accessible to anyone else who looks at your profile. Although when you bite something this does not appear to everyone else  on the network (unless they look on your profile). Biting is more discreet than 'spreading' and 'writing'. It just lets the poster know that you have seen and appreciate their post.

Before you upload an image it can be enhanced using software that is installed as part of the app which would include effects such as vinaigrette, cropping, selective colour change, sharpening/softening and greyscale.

This concept is not something that will effect the booking or the direct holiday experience but it will contribute to the post-trip experience. However, as the app is accessible anywhere with a 3G signal (the majority of the world) it could also take place whilst someone is away; causing debate about which process of the trip that my concept affects. I believe that as that exact event in the holiday has occurred it is then post-trip, or post-event. It has happened already and is in the past.

It allows people to share memories easily and this will encourage other to visit destinations that their viewers have been to. The general feel of the concept is planned to be positive as people are meant to share the good aspects of their holiday with others, it is not somewhere to criticise a destination. If a user feels as though a destination is being posted about in a negative light they can report the post as negative and this will be reviewed and if found fit, removed.
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Possible Technologies involved

Location Based Services
My concept would use location based services to pinpoint where in the world a post is being submitted. When you post an image of your holiday, say, in Mumbai, the people who follow your posts and feeds will automatically be able to see that you have posted from Mumbai and view a map of your current location. This is down to the mobile device that you post the image from, using the mobile network, it can place your geographical position. This challenges the ideas of the loss of location privacy discussed in the article by stephen B Wicker who suggests that people are defined by where they are. This is an issue within my concept as people may judge people on their locations, for example wales is less exotic to the british public as Hawaii and the social stereotyping which may occur with the use of this technology.

The Semantic Web
If the web is able to process what the user is looking at then the website and app for my concept can direct a user to similar users and location posts. The semantic web will allow users to find interests without other users having to use tags which will speed up the process of sharing images. In order for users to attract other users they will have to tag topics but if we could introduce the semantic web to the concept this would eliminate the need to tell other users more information as the semantic web would organise information for us.

User generated content, Web 2.0 and Social Networks
This technology will make up almost the entire structure behind my concept. It is using ideas from ready created social networks and combining them to create something new. Web 2.0 allows for user generated content meaning that the web has become a pull media as well as a push media used in web 1.0. Web 2.0 allows for interactions between user interfaces and allows us to do simple things that we now take for granted. Web 2.0 allows for uploading and sharing of images and posts which is essential for my concept.
The journal by Liam Morgan explores how web 2.0 is allowing for the younger generation to learn language independently. This use of web 2.0 will be good for my concept as when people are travelling they will be all over the world and users will be from many different countries. Understandably, everyone will post things in their own language and if people are feeling confident about learning other languages they will be able to appreciate posts from people all over the world.

Mashups
My concept will use mash-ups as this is often a feature of web 2.0. One use for mash ups is communication and my concept creates a mash up through communication as the idea of my concept is not primarily for communication but this is a by product of the idea. Therefore creating a mashup.

Mobile Apps
This technology makes up my concept. Nowadays you will struggle to find someone between my target age range (16-40) who do not own a smart phone which runs on either apple app store, google play (powered by android) windows or blackberry app world. This means that making an app for a smart phone increases business prospects massively. The idea behind my concept focuses more on the mobile app than it does on the website, as when people are travelling they are less concerned with accessing a full computer and would normally use wifi to connect to the internet on a mobile device. This could be a restriction to my concept as people do not normally use 3G internet on their mobile phones when away due to high roaming costs.
However, I would have to ensure that my app would be user friendly, clear and simple to upload images, it would have to include a short tutorial on how to use the app and it would have to be available on all four of the major smartphone operating platforms (Apple, Android, Windows and Blackberry)
I would offer a free version of the app to people which would work well and run efficiently but I would also create a pro version of the app which would cost £1.49. This would offer some extra features including extra photograph enhancements and a direct messaging system to users (so that contacting other users about destinations was a quicker process). Below is a graph of the users on each smartphone operating system:

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Customer needs

In my opinion, the three key needs that customers requires to be satisfied are; to be able to book a holiday destination that is suitable, to get value for money (get what you pay for), and to be able to share their experiences with other people.

The customer need for my product is that there is not currently a way for customers to share their positive experiences of their trip, whilst on their trip, or afterwards with the social world. People can not now search for a place in the world and get user generated content of real peoples experiences easily and quickly whilst enjoying the social media side of this process.

I am going to focus on the point of being able to share experiences with other people.

The most popular ways to do this nowadays are; Facebook, Instagram and emailing images which all using modern technologies which show that the traditional image sharing methods like printing off pictures and sending postcards are becoming less frequent and unnecessary as they are either more expensive, more time consuming or a combination of the two.

People have the desire to do things quickly and easily in the modern day and the need for this is reaching out to more unexpected audiences. Looking at the charts below it’s clear that the older generation cannot be ruled out fro using Facebook and in the next three years the amount of older people using the site is set to increase due to encouragement from family, friends and the increased marketing that surrounds social networking.

Therefore, my audience focus for my product will be on a mass audience, as the BBC is a mass broadcasting industry and it is required to fulfill the needs of a mass audience. I think  that the social online media has to follow this pattern and to share holiday experiences is a good way to get the ball rolling, as everyone goes on, and enjoys holidays, no matter far or near or how long they last for. 
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Why would people like the Idea?

People enjoy sharing their own experiences with other people and like to receive feedback on what other people think. This concept allows people to do so during and after their holiday experience. I found that instagram uses image enhancements and this has made people enjoy sharing and browsing other peoples images more. Previously facebook gave to opportunity to share mass albums, whereas my idea would take more of a 'one-off' image approach, more like instagram, making the travel images that people share more special and unique. There are endless amounts of blogs consisting solely of people images from traveling and holidays so my concept will create a sharing programme to easily link with other people of the same interests in location and styles of holiday. This will interest people to travel to other places that people with similar interests have posted about and in turn this could increase the popularity of less popular, more unique destinations.
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Initial Idea

My initial idea is for the combination of:

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Blogs

Although instead of combining the social sites with a general theme they will strictly involve travel/holidays.

I gathered the idea through a good knowledge of these social sites and researched similar products relating strictly to holidays.

I suppose a similar website could be trip adviser although this focuses more on peoples opinions of the place and less about sharing experiences through images. It also has a strong focus on the negative aspects of peoples holidays and often puts people off a destination, whereas my idea focuses on positive parts of the holiday experiences and would encourage more tourism to that destination, even extending to boosting a countries economic climate through tourism.

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