Wednesday, January 7, 2009

On the (Up)Take

Vacations


From the "Been meaning to write this for a couple of weeks now but there was the holiday's and the snow, and..." file, comes today's post finally announcing that I have joined the Uptake.com Vacations blog team.

Yes, I have joined Uptake Vacations blog lead editor Whit (who may soon be crowned King of the blogging world) and his band of merry men and women in their quest to bring cool vacation knowledge to the wired world, one simple blog post at a time.

My mission, now that I have chosen to accept it, is to blog about family vacation destinations, places of interest, and fun things to do in the Seattle area over at the Uptake.com vacations blog.

What exactly is Uptake.com? Here is how they describe themselves:

UpTake.com is a travel search and discovery site - the first step for travelers to decide where to go, where to stay or what to do. Founded in 2006 by Yen Lee, former general manager of Yahoo! Travel, UpTake was developed to be complementary to existing travel sites by providing relevant summaries to travelers and offering direct links to travel sites for complete results. In this way, UpTake is complementary to its partners—their products get discovered, while travelers can find vacation information more easily.

Using UpTake, travelers are able to make better decisions because it delivers personalized results relevant to their desired trip.UpTake helps users make informed decisions about what best fits their travel preferences. UpTake has indexed more than 5,000 sources and 20 million travelers’ opinions from across the web to help travelers make better decisions about where to go, where to stay and what to do. UpTake uses a travel ontology and natural language analysis to extract meta-tags from the collective intelligence of the Web and returns unbiased, personalized recommendations based on travelers’ facts and feelings about hotels, motels, camping, beaches, spas, golf courses, attractions and restaurants. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto. More information can be found at www.uptake.com.

Uptake has been so successful that in just a few short months after it went public it became the largest travel search engine on the web. Impressive. It certainly warrants a bookmark in your 'Travel' folder as the place to go, before you go.

I am familiar with most of the bloggers who are now writing for the Uptake Vacations Blog and I can honestly say that I am in awe that I could actually be included in such an impressive group of entertaining writers. Subscribe to the vacations blog feed and you will be introduced to numerous places of interest that you may have never known existed.

My latest post is about the heart and soul of Seattle, the Seattle Center. Check it out. I look forward to seeing you there.

12 comments:

Jason Roth said...

Welcome to the group. I look forward to reading your posts. Especially since we're planning a trip to the Emerald City in late June, early July during my summer break. BTW...I noticed that hotels are expensive during that time.

Dan said...

Man everyone's writing for that blog but me.

Can't i join whit? I know i don't know anything about the States, but i can make up some stuff.

Come to Alaska - Home of the worlds biggest mouthwash museum

SciFi Dad said...

Congrats on the new writing gig. That's cool.

Anonymous said...

I am so peeved that I had to bail on writing for UpTake. Just too much stuff happening at work. Loved the first post. Never been to Seattle. But we have enough rain here right now to make me think I am there.

James (SeattleDad) said...

@VegasDad - Glad to be on board. I have been reading your posts and taking notes. You picked the best time to visit. It is beautiful here in June/July. Perhaps I will do a post on Summer hotel deals.

James (SeattleDad) said...

@Dan - I can't speak for Whit or the uptake brass, but I would love to read about vacation ideas across the pond. And about Alaskan mouthwash too.

@SciFi - Thanks. Now if I can only find the time for everything.

@DC - Maybe you will find the time later. Once you get the hang of it it's not so time consuming. I have 3 earlier posts preceding this one too.

Ed (zoesdad) said...

Hey, Dan--just hold tight. With the exponential rate of growth they have experienced--they'll be going global in no time.

And James--Good stuff. Looking forward to more.

Whit said...

Glad to have you on board.

I feel a road trip to Alaska coming on.

Scary Mommy said...

Oh, how fun!! I've never been, but it tops my list. Way to go on the gig!!

Eric said...

congrats man!

James (SeattleDad) said...

@Scarry Mommy - Thanks. You would enjoy it, but come in the Summer.

@Ed - Thanks. LIkewise.

@Whit - Love Road Trips. Wait, that was when I was younger. Now I kinda dread them.

@Eric - Thanks.

Anonymous said...

could you tell me the process of joining? I am interested to join .