TripAdvisor trots out social network
31548
Blog: New tools on the travel opinions site makes it easier to separate boho travelers from vacationers without passports.
662588
Itching to explore  the world but struggling to find friends with time to travel,  Ela Patel signed up to a companion-finding Web site and is now  packing for a trip to Argentina, just weeks after jetting off  to Vietnam.
84988
Orbitz is offering a Web site that lets travelers post last-minute tips that can ease a painful travel experience.
119999
(InfoWorld) - Forget isolation and relaxation. For the seriously connected geek of today, vacations just aren't what they used to be. An informal and completely unscientific poll of InfoWorld readers revealed that -- although a few certified techies unplug completely when on vacation -- most elect to stay at least somewhat connected with their regular life; thanks to the ever-broadening range of cellular and wireless networks, most of them can. [See InfoWorld's Top 10 geek vacation list.] Jeff Helm witnessed the transition at one vacation spot: "I first took the family to Pigeon Forge (near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park) in October 2001. I walked across the hotel parking lot to the new public library to get on the Internet and check mail. I was told I would have to fill out a form, pay $5, let them hold on to my driver's license, and swear that I wouldn't 'conduct any business' or credit card transactions of any kind." Fast-forward to August 2006: "We went to the same hotel. I got out of the car to check in, and my PDA gave an audible report that it found a wireless signal. Yes, the same library was now beaming invitations to connect to the Internet to everyone in the area. Every hotel â¦ did the same. I checked e-mail at the outside mall, waiting for a patio table at the restaurant, and just about every place I went. I shut off the audible alert because the thing was going off constantly with all the networks." "The Outer Banks of North Carolina have a full complement of Net hotspot and cell-phone coverage capabilities," writes Peter B. Young. "I like to sit in the shade of an upper deck on our mansion-of-the-week, my sturdy old laptop plugged into an outlet in the living room or often out on the deck itself, and let 'er rip -- as gentle southern breezes caress my worn and wounded body." Rand Foster recommends cruising the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington between                                                     Vancouver Island and the mainland: "There is Wi-Fi at every marina." Brad St. Pierre found the perfect combo in Canada's Northwest Territories: "At the Bayside B and B in Yellowknife, I could watch the lakeside airplane and boat activity from the lounge or deck all day while surfing the Net. With almost 24 hours of sunshine, it's never too late to do the things you forgot to do while you were online." High-tech contractor David G. Evans found a way to have his vacation and get paid for it, too. "I was on call for production support. I spent a few weeks grooming my contacts to text me if they had an issue. That being done, I found a wonderful camp spot in Seaside, Calif., 20 seconds from pristine dunes and the ocean, 15 minutes from downtown Monterey, private, inexpensive, and well equipped. The recreation room has two hookups for Internet and a Web-mail kiosk. "Since this was an East Coast contract, I would get up at 4:30 or 5 to do a quick message check and reply as a first-thing-in-the-morning connection for them. Then we would drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium but leave me three blocks away at the Kinko's with my laptop, where access is free, 24 hour, and comfortable. I would spend an hour or two working, then wander down to the wharf to meet them for some exhibits and lunch. If there was work, I would check back at Kinko's; if not, we had family time. Except for some mad coding from the backseat of the Volvo, plugged into the cigarette lighter for a portion of the trip home, this was the best working vacation I ever had." Edward C. Horvath had the best idea for a busman's holiday: "Buy yourself a ticket to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Live on caffeine, sugar, new technology, and the famed Jobs Reality Distortion Field for a week." The prize for the most far-out connected experience has to go to Savio Rodrigues, one of the authors of our Open Sources blog. He proudly sent us a photo from Machu Picchu -- not of himself, but of his BlackBerry, with a strong connection. A close second: April Harris Calderwood's working vacation, "going to a third-world country and helping a community project with technology; you rest and give back to the community."
707118
Travel: Benji Lanyado puts Tokyo's army of bloggers through their paces to bring you the ultimate cyber guide to the Japanese capital
434869
Blog: A first look at Searchles: a new web app that seeks to combine social networking with web search functionalities.
607489
Study exposes emerging tribes of social network sites
87412
Many of the reader-generated reviews of travel services on the Web are taking an ever-growing piece of the market from print guides.
618094
As travelers spend billions online, Internet options keep growing.
231077
A neighbourhood watch for the digital age, utilising the power of social networking is proposed.
32944
The online application vendor has ported its productivity tools to the social networking site.
328729
Research reveals which social network site is capturing the hearts and clicks of Britons.
484743
One of the best things I like about the Internet is the boundary-less nature of this amazing network. I can check out user views of people (from here in India) around the world on the India issues.
125530
Fingers all tired from typing Web addresses from Bebo to Zebo to hit all your social networking and media sharing sites?
588516
Increasingly popular social-networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook account for huge volumes of DNS queries and bandwidth consumption.
335055
The local merchant social network brings some complementary elements to Citysearch's offering.
390016
Comment is free: Indra Adnan: Social networking has turned relationships that were easy to distinguish into one amorphous web.