I have waxed poetic on this blog many times before about the *perfect* meeting planning tool. As a result of a kajillion mergers and acquisitions, the industry really only has a handful of products to choose from though – and consumer-driven development rarely occurs when the company gets too big to listen.
Regardless, I was excited when the Meeting Industry Megasite posted a story last week about the roll out of StarCite TV. What is it? What does it mean?
First off – I should say that whatever StarCite TV is, it’s in beta. Which means that it’s pretty much a testing platform for web-based applications. This is a good sign.
Right now, however, other than a pretty cool destination/hotel search tool interface, there isn’t much to write home about. I mean, the interface is cool – but it doesn’t work. I tried clicking into the state of Tennessee (go Vols!) to see what properties were listed and got nada. The navigation bar links to StarCite’s existing tool kit, opening in new tabs which irritated me for some reason.
<rant>Maybe I’m too demanding, but the corporate travel and meetings industries need to spend more time getting to know their customers again. The technology out there typically looks like some combination of misshapen legos – some from the Barbie Dream House kit, some from the Star Wars Death Star kit – piled up and glued together on top of a global distribution system (GDS). Development cycles typically take place in a vacuum and are so long that the systems are outdated before they go to market. Sigh.
At the same time, a 16 year old takes 3 months to write a web application that enables millions of people to hang out together, exchange information and network. Why can’t billion dollar companies get out of their silos and get with the program?</rant>
So in summary, on this hawt August morning, I’d like to know what the game plan is for strategic meeting managers and the technology we love to hate. I want everything – a communication medium that enables me, my sponsors, clients and yes, ATTENDEES, to stay engaged and up to date with every logistic detail and content string associated with my event.
Discuss.
I’d like to hear what operating system and browser you were using when our site failed you on your search. You should have been presented with 11 listings including hotels and a few regional video tours.
Let me know. I’d be glad to decipher bugs and work improvements into the tool.
Thank you
Chip Stockman
cstockman@starcite.com
StarCite
Cool! I was using Mac OS and Firefox – not the most favored flavors, but I’d still hope the platform works with most OS’s. Thanks for the input.
Thanks for clicking and checking out StarCite.TV. As we’re invited to “discuss”, I thought I’d do just that. Our new “beta” product isn’t designed to take over the world (just yet) and a couple of 16 year olds took 3 months and built what you see right now.
We’re glad to bring thousands of short multimedia presentations on hotels, destinations, cruise ships and golf courses to the planning community. Rather than YouTubing there way to gathering vital content, we believe StarCite.tv will (over time) provide meeting specific digital content in one easy to use website.
We plan to add collaboration solutions and hope that some subset of the meeting planner community will choose to provide feedback on properties, destinations and other providers for the benefit of all.
We’re not sure what happens to the site in the future and that is a delightful problem we hope planners help us to solve. That is what feedback (good and bad) is all about. All we’d ask in return for our investment are constructive and honest suggestions.
Hundreds of our clients would question your assertion that our development cycles typically take place in a vacuum and (btw) our solutions are entirely GDS-free. I wish you were referring to us when you mentioned billion dollar companies (sigh) and sorry for the current lack of Tennessee content. We can only hope that meeting suppliers in that great state will “voluntarily” decide to give us their content.
Thanks for noticing us, for your comments and in the meantime, we’ll keep testing………
Thanks Mike and Chip for your clarification and comments. Yes, I did lump you in with GDS dependent applications because of the integration with online booking engines. I apologize as I know those issues are not within your realm of control.
My intended point was that while better access to more content is great (really!), there is little discussion about integrating social networking into the major meeting management tools. It’s seems like a natural evolution – when an attendee registers for a meeting, a profile is created for everything.
From the moment they hit the register button, attendees, sponsors, presenters and planners have the opportunity to interact and help shape the content of the conference. Everybody wins!
Again, I apologize for picking on the site – and I appreciate the Volunteer pun. Mostly I thank you both for taking the time to read and comment here.
I too caught Starcite’s announcement as it relates to Starcite.tv and decided to venture into the site.
I am surprised that they “limped” in with the ICE Portal product and failed to customize the distributor’s settings with a Starcite logo.
Starcite is a leader in their space but this beta move makes them look like just another a “follower”.