Is Everything Better With Cute Animals?

Jaunted: We've made the point once or twice before, but not only do we adore innovative travel search engine Hipmunk on its merits, but there's also something about their cute little mascot that seems custom-built for the Internet. We're not sure that the success can be reduced down to a simple formula, except inasmuch as the Internet loves cute animals that are kind of animated, and the Hipmunk mascot is a cute animal that's kind of animated, and so the Internet loves the Hipmunk mascot. 

Hmmm. Apparently it can be reduced to a simple formula after all.

So much can viral videos be reduced to formulas, apparently, that the Hipmunk people have gone ahead and done exactly that in their first stab at video advertising. Explaining on their blog that "everything's better with cute animals," the search engine brought together members of sketch comedy show SMBC theater and asked them to dress up like some of the Internet's most famous stars. Then they had the actors recreate those stars' most famous moments, the result being a series of homages to cute animals doing cute things (with some exceptions for annoying animals doing annoying things, because sometimes the Interwebs have a problem distinguishing cute from annoying).

The arguably questionable results were filmed, edited, and delivered to Google TV ads in the hopes of getting a legitimate viral campaign going. See how many Internet memes you can spot in the embedded commercial below. If you give up, the Hipmunk people have also written a kind of cheat sheet into the video. Every time a new reference appears you'll see a link to the original video appear in the top right corner, so you can just click through if you need to.

And if you don't need the cheat sheet because you recognize each and every reference to each and every animal video being recreated, maybe that's a sign that you need to get out a little more. Luckily this is a post about a travel search engine, so that might be a problem that kind of solves itself. Enjoy.

The Decline of Las Vegas Quickie Weddings

MSNBC/Bloomberg: The quickie wedding, long a Las Vegas tradition for romance-besotted tourists, may be the latest casualty of rough economic times. Fewer couples have been pledging their love in Sin City as the number of visitors has fallen and some couples postpone marriage or shun it entirely. “If you don’t have a stable job, it’s hard to say, ‘Let’s get married and start a family,’ ” says Diana Alba, clerk of Nevada’s Clark County, whose office issued 91,890 marriage licenses last year, down 16 percent from 2007.

Dianne Schiller, owner of Renta-Dress & Tux Shop, a wedding and formal wear store in Las Vegas, says her business has dropped 15 percent from two years ago, forcing her to stock more inexpensive gowns. “People are spending way less,” Schiller says. Adds Cliff Evarts, founder of chapel operator Vegas Weddings: “Gas prices, airplane ticket prices, all those things impact people’s ability or desire to come to Vegas.” Some 37.3 million people visited the city last year, down from 39.2 million in 2007, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The slump is prompting the 90-plus wedding chapels in the county — where there are no requirements for blood tests or a waiting period — to shift their focus to husbands and wives seeking to renew their vows and “commitment ceremonies” for same-sex couples who can’t legally wed in Nevada. “Just because there is a decline in marriage certificates, there isn’t a decline in love,” says Charolette Richards, owner of the Little White Wedding Chapel, which offers drive-through service in its “Tunnel of Love.” Richards, who in 1987 married Bruce Willis and Demi Moore and has hosted weddings for Britney Spears and Joan Collins, says recommitment ceremonies now make up about a third of her business, a big increase over prior years. “People today are renewing their vows more than ever,” she says.

At $60 for a marriage license, Clark County has lost some $2 million in annual fees from weddings since the peak in 2004. Now the county is considering official certificates for couples renewing their matrimonial commitments, which could help make up some of the difference, Alba says. “If we did 1,000 annually and we charge, say, $45, that would still be some revenue that we didn’t have before,” she says. The certificates under consideration would be optional and would display the couple’s original wedding date. “We want it to be something fun,” Alba says. “There is a market among tourists, particularly from foreign countries, who want … a certificate that contains an official seal that says Las Vegas.”

Chapel operator Evarts is lobbying local officials to issue the certificates. Since 78 percent of visitors are married, he says, it’s smart to shift the focus away from weddings. That would allow companies such as his to market to some 30 million potential customers a year, as opposed to the far smaller number of single visitors. “There’s a real opportunity,” Evarts says, “for Vegas to reinvent itself as the vow renewal capital of the world.”

The bottom line: As the economy suffers, Las Vegas is seeing fewer quickie weddings, but at one chapel vow renewals now make up a third of business.

Hotel Chain Trains Staff to Fight Child Prostitution

CNN: Hotel operator Wyndham Worldwide will improve its staff training and procedures after authorities cracked down on gang-led child prostitution rings in California hotels, a probe that drew media and activist attention to the chain, a hotel spokesman said Friday.

Wyndham is expanding its years-long efforts to fight child sex trafficking by reviewing its operating practices in partnership with the nonprofit ECPAT-USA (Ending Child Prostitution and Trafficking), said Michael Valentino, director of communications for Wyndham Worldwide.

Southern California authorities recently completed an 18-month investigation into allegations that three rival Crips gangs collaborated to prostitute girls and women out of California hotels through Internet-arranged meetings.

The investigation resulted in an April federal indictment of 38 people, including suspected gang members and the owners of a Wyndham-franchised Travelodge in Oceanside, authorities said. A CNN story in June prompted one activist to lead a 14,000-signature online petition drive on Change.org, an activist platform, demanding that Wyndham reform its business policies.

"As long as human trafficking and exploitation continue to be supported by those profiting from this tragic practice, we believe no member of the travel and tourism industry can ever guarantee these events will not occur in the future," Valentino told CNN in an e-mail Friday.

"However, our shared commitment and partnership with organizations like the Polaris Project and ECPAT help play a critical role in increasing awareness and prevention," he said.

The Polaris Project is a non-profit, non-governmental group combating human trafficking, and Wyndham has given hotel accommodations through the group to victims of human trafficking, Valentino said.

One of the world's largest hospitality firms, with 7,380 franchised hotels and vacation ownership resorts, Parsippany, New Jersey-based Wyndham has also become a member of the Code for the Protection of Children in Travel and Tourism, an industry initiative combating child sex abuse that's funded by UNICEF, Valentino said.

"We have also had human rights policies and training at our company for several years, and have been actively collaborating with ECPAT in reviewing and enhancing our training, policies, and procedures to best adhere to the intention and spirit of the code," Valentino said.

On Thursday, Change.org posted on its website the headline "Victory! Wyndham Signs Code of Conduct to Prevent Child Sex Trafficking" and recounted the online petition drive San Diego native Tim Rosner launched after reading the CNN article, which dealt with a child sex trafficking ring at a Wyndham property in his hometown.

"I'm thrilled to see Wyndham take this proactive step to fight child sex trafficking," Rosner told Change.org.

The petition asked Wyndham to join the child-protection code initiative and to commit to its six criteria for preventing child sex trafficking and child sex tourism at their hotels.

Valentino added that "it's important to note that in recent years, Wyndham Worldwide has worked with ECPAT, Polaris Project, and other organizations in our shared commitment to the safety of all children."

Ground Zero's 'Ring of Steel' Security System

Daily Mail: Details emerged today of the extraordinary lengths the NYPD is going to as they attempt to make lower Manhattan the safest business district in the world and protect it from a dirty bomb threat.

New York City police are stepping up protection against the threat of a radioactive attack on the area as part of a $200 million security upgrade. A command centre will monitor 2,000 mobile radiation detectors carried by officers each day around the city, which will send a wireless, real-time alert if there's a reading signaling a dirty bomb threat. The system already is being tested under the watch of federal authorities in hopes it can be perfected and used elsewhere.

‘This is the first and only place you'll see it,’ an NYPD counterterrorism official said. ‘It's been tested in the field. It works, and we're hoping to get (the wireless detectors) deployed in a few months.’

A dirty bomb has never been discovered in a U.S. terror plot, but they are a serious threat because they are easy to build and foreign terrorists are known to want to use them against U.S. cities. The radiation detection system is part of a $200million security initiative in lower Manhattan. It has been inspired by the so-called ‘ring of steel’ encircling the London business district in Britain.

But this is certainly broader in scope and sophistication

It will rely largely on 3,000 closed-circuit security cameras carpeting the roughly 1.7 square miles south of Canal Street, the subway system and parts of midtown Manhattan. So far, about 1,800 cameras are up and running, with the rest expected to come on line by the end of the year. Only 500 cameras were online at this time last year, reported the New York Post.

Police began monitoring live feeds in 2008 from the cameras at a high-tech command centre in lower Manhattan - home to Wall Street, the new development at Ground Zero and other important sites.

‘We're talking about some of the most significant targets anywhere in the world,’ Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The NYPD is using a single, high-bandwidth fibre-optic network to connect all its cameras to a central computer system. It's also pioneering ‘video analytic’ computer software designed to detect threats, like unattended bags, and retrieve stored images based on descriptions of terror or other criminal suspects.

No Extra Charge...

The Smoking Gun: About a week before Dunkin’ Donuts made it’s initial public offering, a New Hampshire employee of the donut and coffee chain made a very different--very foul--offering of another sort to two cops.

According to a Jaffrey Police Department affidavit, when Detective Joseph Hileman and Lieutenant Terry Choate stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee on June 19, server Christopher Hildreth grabbed cups and headed to the back of the store to fill their order. This the cops found “odd as they had never seen him go to the back of the store to make coffee in the past.”

Watching Hildreth, 20, on a monitor in the front of the restaurant that allows a view to the back of the store, they observed him make their beverage and then allegedly “put nasal mucus into their coffees.”

Believing there was snot in their drink, they contacted the manager who joined them in a viewing of the store’s surveillance tape which made it "even more obvious that he placed nasal mucous into their coffees.”

Hildreth was fired and then hit with two misdemeanor counts of attempted assault. He will be arraigned in district court on September 15 for his repulsive act.

UK Airline Announces Twitter Concierge

Travolution: CityJet claims it is the first UK airline to offer a Twitter concierge service to its customers.

The new service, delivered through the main @CityJet Twitter feed, will be available for customers to use from August 1. It will initially operate on a trial basis, running for two hours a day from Monday to Friday.

CityJet said the Twitter service will offer its passengers help with “their travel related queries” as well as enable hotel, taxi and restaurant bookings. The service aims to deal with all requests within 15 minutes.

Also available through the service will be destination information for all the destinations the carrier serves on its 17 routes including Paris, Florence, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Dublin.

The Concierge will not deal with any requests which require a financial commitment upfront such as ordering flowers or booking theatre tickets.

Christine Ourmieres, chief executive of CityJet, said: “Twitter has become the ‘go to’ tool for customer service within the travel industry but we wanted to add value to the experience and offer a personal service where possible.

“The majority of our passengers are business travellers and the Twitter Concierge taps into their need for a swift, efficient and seamless travel service.

"It sits comfortably alongside our 15 minute check-ins and convenient flight schedules. If the trial proves successful, we will extend and build on the Concierge service.”

Universal Launching “Hostel” Maze at Hollywood Theme Park

Total Film: Hostel director Eli Roth has confirmed he will design a maze based on his movie franchise for the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood.

The Hostel: Hunting Season maze will feature as part of the Halloween Horror Nights experience and will recreate the Slovakian locations from the films.

"Creating a maze for Halloween Horror Nights is a horror fan's dream come true," Roth told Variety. "I've been visiting Halloween Horror Nights for years, and still remember the heart-pounding terror of going through the mazes for the first time.

Roth said fans will have a chance to experience their favourite Hostel scenes, along with “some new surprises”.

The director will also help judge the event's annual short film competition, with the winner being announced on the opening night.

The first maze to be announced for 2011 was The Thing: Assimilation, tying in with Universal Pictures' release of The Thing prequel movie in October. Previous events have seen Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees wandering the bloody hallways and have included an attraction based the Saw franchise.

Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights event runs from 23 September to 31 October.

Canadian Border Guards Mistake Oil for Heroin

Daily Mail: This senior-citizen's trip across the border lasted far longer than expected when authorities couldn't tell the difference between oil and heroin.

Janet Goodin of Minnesota was crossing the border to play bingo and visit family when border patrol guards mistook a container of motor oil for heroin.

'They handed me the jar and said. 'What's this?' I said 'Well, I don't know. I suppose it's oil or something left over," really not thinking too much about it,' she said.

Bound for Sprague, Manitoba, the 66-year-old couldn't believe it when the jar of brownish liquid in her car tested positive for drugs. 'They came over and said that the substance in the jar tested positive for -- well, she said some chemical term and I didn't understand. So I asked her to repeat it and she said it tested positive for traces of heroin,' she said.

She told the authorities that it was actually oil that her son-in-law had used when he had recently done some work on her vehicle. Nevertheless, she was handcuffed, interrogated and strip searched twice. After that, she was placed in a remand centre in Winnipeg. Police charged her with trafficking heroin, possession for the purpose of trafficking and importation of heroin. 'It was totally surreal,' said the former administrative assistant for the Girl Scouts.

She was not allowed to call family to let them know where she was, and could only call a legal aid lawyer twice. Because it occurred the week before the Easter long weekend, her bail hearing was delayed several days. 'They were absolutely horrified,' she told Canadian TV. 'They were just beside themselves. They were so upset.'

'My one son called the border people and said if there were any drugs in the van, they were his -- you know just trying to help me out,' she says.

But police instead took this as an admission of fact which would still make Ms Goodin an accessory to the crime. Bail was set at $5,000 and because given she was not Canadian had to also provide a surety of $15,000. After 12 days in custody, further tests by the RCMP lab found the oil was not heroin. The charges were dropped and she was released May 3.

Now the Canadadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews wants answers and report from the head of the Canada Border Services Agency. Ms Goodin herself wants answers and remunification. She said: 'Well, I would like to have some sort of compensation. At my age, two weeks out of the rest of my life is quite a long time for me. And of course, the children borrowed money to try to get me out of trouble and now we owe that.'

She also wants the system changed: 'At the very least, they really need to fix whatever's wrong at the border so it doesn't happen to somebody else.'

Winnipeg-based lawyer Scott Newman, who represented Goodin during the saga said she is 'contemplating' suing the Canadian Border Services Agency. 'Certainly, a civil lawsuit is one of the options that are available to her. I can't advise at this point if she's going to be taking this step,' he said.

The Canada Border Services Agency have said that its on-site testing equipment might be to blame, but that false positives occur in less than one per cent of cases.

'Whenever the CBSA becomes aware of erroneous field tests, we will review that case and determine appropriate next steps and where appropriate, take corrective action,' spokeswoman Lisa White said.

Google Experiments with Hotel Finder Search Tool

CNET: Google has been ramping up its transportation search features for desktop and mobile, but now it is shifting into full on travel mode with its Hotel Finder experiment.

The Next Web reports that the utility is "designed to help users find the perfect hotel." Easier said than done, of course, but maybe something that Google creates is just crazy enough to work.

Google's Hotel Finder (not to be confused with HotelFinder.com) can find the ideal accommodation for a particular user based on a few different priorities, such as location and budget. For example, when searching for where to stay, the user can draw shapes around neighborhoods using a mouse rather than searching by individual addresses.

Other helpful tools include being able to compare hotels easily within the same browser tab featuring photos and reviews of different hotels, along with the option to keep a "shortlist" for ones that might catch a traveler's eye.

Again, Google's Hotel Finder is still in experimental mode (and it might have that similar name to worry about), thus don't expect it to work so perfectly just yet. Additionally, it's only available for finding hotels in the United States at this time.

In related Google travel/transit news, Google has officially added the London Underground to its repertoire of information for public transit agencies. Info on transport for London includes over 18,000 bus stops and over 250 Underground stations. Note that this data refers to planning trips, getting directions, and general location information--not real-time alerts and schedules.

Nevertheless, it's a good start--especially if you're planning to attend the Summer Olympics in London next summer, which starts one year from yesterday.

Google today also announced the the Page Speed Service project for improving load times by up to 60 percent.

The First Twitter Olympics

ExpoWeb: Major sporting events provide a great opportunity to study social sharing at scale. Consider that Twitter users set a new record of 7,196 tweets per second for this month’s FIFA Women’s World Cup final game.

With 15,000 athletes from more than 200 countries competing in the Olympic and Paralympic Games for 4,400 medals, over 3.5 million tickets already sold and 20,000 accredited media onsite, the London 2012 Olympic Games will certainly drive plenty of tweets, likes, posts, comments, photo/video shares, etc. across a wide range of social media platforms.

In this week’s post, I share with you a new social sharing initiative London 2012 announced in a press release yesterday to mark the one year out milestone: a Twitter competition to find out which country has the most online fans.

According to the press release, “London 2012 will also enable fans from all over the world to celebrate one year to go by creating an interactive Twitter stadium and world map. By visiting www.london2012.com/1yeartogo people will be able see what athletes are saying about London 2012 and will be able to tweet their support for their team using the #1yeartogo 'hashtag'. People will also be able to upload videos and photos, which will appear on the world map alongside video messages from the world’s athletes.”

As of this post, there were already more than 85,000 tweets.

This social marketing program is certainly worth a look for event marketers as there are valuable takeaways here, especially in the area of social engagement. A key one is that London 2012 is not just promoting the global mega event on Twitter by tweeting news updates and other information, they have created a new target-relevant piece of content, i.e., the contest to engage their audience. More specifically, they have designed something simple, fun and interactive—and integrated competition between countries into it which syncs well with the Olympics.

London 2012 has several social media initiatives and has already generated over 153,000 fans on their Facebook Page. Visit the London 2012 Web site to see firsthand what they are doing.

The 1,500 Calorie Big Kahuna Donut Burger

Syracuse.com: Forget Deep-Fried Twinkies and the Mashed Potato Sundae. Heartburn has a new name at this year’s New York State Fair: The Big Kahuna Donut Burger.

Billed as “two meals for the price of one,” the BKDB is this year’s gastronomic innovation, according to the Fair.

It’s a quarter-pound burger placed between a grilled, sliced glazed donut with your choice of cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion -- all for about 1,500 calories. The beast will be sold by the Big Kahuna concession stand located in Times Square next to the Poultry Building. The sandwich will cost between $5 and $6, depending on toppings, according to the AP.

The glazed donuts will come from Harrison Bakery in Syracuse.

The Fair runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 5.

Alert your cardiologist in advance.

Pilot attacked on American Airlines Plane in Miami

Two brothers on an American Airlines plane in Miami were arrested after they attacked the pilot last night. Passengers said the men were acting erratically and some believed they were drunk or on drugs. One of the men was sleeping and would not wakeup to buckle his seatbelt. The flight attendants notified the pilot who decided to pull back to the gate. The pilot asked one of the men to get off the plane, the man's brother decided to get off too. Witnesses said one of the men punched the pilot in his eye and then exited the plane.

The pilot followed the two men down the jet bridge to make sure they exited. The two then jumped the pilot and beat him. According to police, one of the men said to the pilot 'If you ever fly to San Juan, I will have you killed.'

Other passengers then intervened and held the men down for about 10 minutes until police came.

The two rowdy passengers have been identified as Jonathan Baez and Luis Baez. They are being held on aggravated battery and simple battery. American Airlines said the pilot is okay, but did sit the flight out. He may have permanent damage to his eye. The plane landed in San Francisco around 2 a.m. local time.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

New Mobile App Trover Launched

MocoNews: It has been a lucrative couple of years for companies seeking funding armed with a powerfully simple idea: sharing exactly where you are and what you’re doing with friends or colleagues using a mobile phone and a data connection. A company called Trover hopes to join that group by catering to explorers at heart, but will face a tough time elbowing into an already crowded space.

Trover is both a Seattle startup and an iPhone application, one that lets users take pictures of interesting places they find during their travels and share them with fellow users. It’s led by Chairman Rich Barton (who counts founding stints at Expedia and Zillow on his resume) along with CEO Jason Karas and Andrew Coldham, vice president of technology, and is sort of a side project that has emerged from Travelpost.com, a travel reviews site that counts all three as team members.

The concept is pretty familiar: take a picture of that cool new restaurant around the corner from your apartment or the trailhead that leads to that awesome waterfall with your mobile phone and upload it using Trover’s app. It then goes into a geolocation database that can be shown to other Trover users as a “discovery” when they ask the application what kinds of interesting things are near their current location or when they “follow” another Trover user’s updates.

So it’s sort of like Foursquare meets Instagram with a dash of Yelp and Foodspotting built in. Karas seems to have heard this criticism before, pointing out the unique points of Trover’s approach: it’s for places only (pictures of people get deleted by community moderators), it’s not about real-time “check-ins” but rather a record of significant discoveries in your area, and it’s not just about restaurants, although people do share restaurant tips through the app. And it’s not Color, Karas assured me, although it’s not clear whether Color is Color anymore.

But only 70,000 people are currently using the service, based on a deliberate decision to limit logins to those with Facebook accounts. Starting Thursday, anyone with a Twitter account or e-mail address will also be allowed to sign up for the service, which will likely draw more users but could chip away at the community aspect of the service, which Karas said has been key to the experience so far. And Karas said the company is looking into ways to get merchants to participate, but it hasn’t figured out exactly how some sort of sponsored “discovery” would work in Trover’s stream of updates.

We’re nearing a point in the evolution of location-aware mobile services where you have to start to wonder just how many photo-sharing travel/nightlife applications the mobile market can take, especially when application discovery and post-download engagement are two of the biggest problems that mobile application developers face. Still, with the barriers to entry so low, launching a new company with nothing but a mobile app and some experienced entrepreneurs is a relatively easy way to see what types of services will gain traction with consumers.

New Orleans Trump Tower Project Officially Dead

NOLA.com: The Trump International Hotel & Tower, the excessively hyped 70-story, $400-million condominium project announced the day before Hurricane Katrina turned toward New Orleans, is officially dead.

The Poydras Street parcel where the Trump Tower was to be located was sold at a sheriff's foreclosure auction last Thursday to the operator of the surface parking lot at the site.

While there have been no signs of motion for several years on the project that would have created the tallest building in the city, and a mural of the project painted on a brick building abutting the site (above) has long since been removed, the Florida developers who worked with New York real estate magnate Donald Trump on the project remained silent about its fate, even as other swanky high-rise condo projects fell apart.

Stephen Dwyer, the local attorney for developer Poydras LLC, said that twin hurdles of the storm and the financial crisis were just too great to overcome. "The economy just did not justify going forward," Dwyer said. "The developer still hopes to bring the project online at some point. He has not given up on building a project in New Orleans."

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Mega Theme Park Planned Near Moscow

The Independent: Russia is to build a huge "destination resort" theme park just outside Moscow, the first such attraction in its history.

The enormous Magic World Russia theme park will stretch across 600 acres (242 hectares), the consortium behind the plans announced last week, and will sit around 50 kilometers outside the capital Moscow.

Designed by the same team behind the Galaxy Macau Casino Resort which opened in May, the mega park will in fact be comprised of smaller amusement parks and hotels, designed to lure travelers into staying for several nights.

Among the parks will be a Hollywood studio 'branded' park, likely to involve a well-established US theme park brand such as Disney or Universal Studios, a family park dedicated to young children, two waterparks with adjoining beach resorts and the Nanopolis Children's Park, an "edutainment" attraction.

The designers, who were also involved in Abu Dhabi's new Ferrari World project, also promise an extreme sports park and Park Russia, an attraction themed around Russian folklore and history. A world-first addition will be "World Without Boundaries," a park designed solely for special needs children.

Hotel options will include properties from internationally-recognized brands, the consortium said, with Hotels Magazine reporting that a 1,700-room five-star property and 1,750-room mid-range hotel will be among the options.

Although 80 percent of the park will be covered to ensure it is available for visitors all year round, additional activities are set to include shopping malls and a 15,000-seat live-performance theater.

Construction on the park is expected to begin next year, with 10-12 million visitors every year predicted to pile through the gates when it finally opens in 2016.