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MKGI Meeting Customer Needs by Integrating Alternative Lodging Rentals into Mainstream Travel Marketing
Today, customers have a lot more choice when it comes to booking accommodation for a holiday. Gone are the days when holidaymakers and travelers had no option but to book hotels for their vacations. Now, they can choose from a variety of short- and long-term house rentals, vacation homes, resorts, timeshares, and other Alternative Lodging Rentals (ALR).
Hotel companies are changing their services to suit the needs of a new generation, but, although traditional lodging has not been forgotten, it is starting to face serious competition from ALR. In fact, according to a survey undertaken by OAG published on Tnooz.com (http://dtn.fm/R5Bv6), of the 2,500 travelers questioned, two-thirds being leisure travelers with the rest taking trips for work, more than 50% would like to see accommodations from Airbnb, a major online ALR marketplace, in travel agency search results. Not only this, the majority of these people also stated that they would book such accommodations on an online travel agency if they could. But ALR options still have little or no representation in the mainstream travel industry, especially if the traveler wants instant confirmation of ALR bookings. Whether booking ALR properties through Airbnb or other services, people seeking such non-traditional accommodations still face the time-consuming hassle of waiting for the ALR property owner/manager to respond, unlike with airline or hotel bookings.
In addition, from a business travel point of view, companies seem to still be slow on the uptake. Out of the one-third of those taking trips for business, less than 5% said that their company offers Airbnb as a lodging option. However, a third of those people said they would take advantage of such lodgings if they could.
As a result of this need for integrating ALR into mainstream travel marketing, Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), a technology-driven travel company, has been developing and will soon be launching the first real-time system for booking ALR, such as vacation homes and unused timeshares, among others, on its NextTrip.com website and mobile application.
Currently, customers wanting to book alternative lodging are having to contact property owners, wait for responses, and wait for confirmation from the potential host. As a result, ALR has been one of Monaker’s key focal points, and the company believes there is a large gap in the market due to the fact that these accommodation options are currently offered separately to other alternatives such as hotels. The convenience of instant booking confirmations and the ability to perform all travel planning and booking from one site represent a major shift in the travel industry, and Monaker aims to be the company to offer it.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Twitter says it shuttered 377,000 terrorism accounts in six months
http://dtn.fm/fbs8E
In the ongoing battle to purge Twitter of content promoting terrorism, the social media company has closed hundreds of thousands of accounts in recent months.
In its latest transparency report covering the period from July 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016, Twitter said it shuttered a total of 376,890 accounts “for violations related to promotion of terrorism,” bringing the total number of closures for terror-related content to a colossal 636,248 accounts from August 1, 2015 through December 31, 2016.
Faced with such a massive task, Twitter has had to develop proprietary tools designed to automatically identify accounts to take down. The software, which is supported by a team of human investigators, accounted for 74 percent of the most recent batch of reported account closures, the company said.
Twitter, like Facebook and other online giants, has been accused in the past of not doing enough to combat extremist activity on its service. Criticism over the last few years prompted the company to implement more robust procedures such as increasing the size of the teams that respond to reports, and taking any necessary action more quickly.
In addition, the company made efforts to start checking more accounts similar to those reported, while it continues to develop algorithms to automatically surface potentially violating accounts for review.
Twitter said it’s also worked harder to prevent those whose accounts are shuttered from quickly returning to the service, though it hasn’t revealed how exactly it does this.
Click the link for complete article.
Facebook Introduces a Fact-Checking Alert to Fight 'Disputed Content'
http://dtn.fm/KcFk6
In an effort to counter the spread of fake news, Facebook is rolling out a new feature that alerts users of articles that include “disputed content.”
The fact-checking tool was first spotted by Facebook users attempting to share a story falsely claiming that thousands of Irish people were brought to the United States as slaves, according to the Guardian.
Some users noticed that an attempt to link the story prompted a red alert stating that the article was disputed by fact-checking site Snopes and the Associated Press.
If the alert is clicked, a pop-up emerges, stating: “Sometimes people share fake news without knowing it. When independent fact-checkers dispute this content, you may be able to visit their websites to find out why. Only fact-checkers signed up to Poynter’s non-partisan code of principles are shown.”
Click the link for complete article.
Monaker Group’s (MKGI) ROTH Conference Presentation Details How Mark Travel Partnership Will Deliver a Marketing Advantage
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), in its March 15, 2017, presentation at the ROTH Conference (http://dtn.fm/zhZm7), said that its B2B and B2C site, NextTrip.com, will be enhanced in 2Q2017 and its wholesale travel partner, Mark Travel (www.MarkTravel.com), is an important element of its strategic advantage.
Monaker Group is a high technology travel provider that offers users an all-in-one site with artificial intelligence that provides conventional travel, alternative leisure rentals (ALR), and a library of videos to help consumers and businesses choose their plans. The booking engine offers real-time digital data and reduces the time it takes to book diverse travel from hours to minutes, the company said in its ROTH Presentation slide deck.
The company said Mark Travel, through its Trisept Solutions technology firm, will power Monaker Group’s NextTrip and offer expanded product offerings and distribution. Monaker Group said Mark Travel offers both B2B and B2C advantages. In B2B, it offers its VAX XML link to more than 200 companies. Its VAX VacationAccess system is a portal for more than 70,000 travel agents and greater than 50 leisure travel suppliers, together accounting for more than $1 billion in annual bookings. In B2C, Mark Travel offers Monaker Group preferential pricing for air, car, hotel, and ground activities. It will also offer integration with its travel-linked artificial intelligence platform.
“Trisept has the most advanced technology available for leisure vacation packaging today,” commented Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group. “Expanding NextTrip’s capabilities and access to agents and consumers will accelerate our growth and differentiate us from our competition.”
In addition to the technological advantages, Monaker Group’s marketing efforts are set to benefit from partnering with wholesaler Mark Travel. At $3 billion in annual sales, Mark Travel is the largest wholesaler of travel in North America. It owns Funjet Vacations, founded in 1974, which specializes in personalized and independent vacations for groups and individuals.
Mark Travel’s other brands include Southwest Vacations, United Vacations, Mark International, Showtime Tours, Blue Sky Tours, and My Destination Wellness. The company offers service to more than 1,100 destinations globally and specializes in end-to-end travel service for its clients.
To Monaker Group, Mark Travel offers Trisept Solutions, a high technology travel platform through which it offers several other booking advantages. These include VAX VacationAccess, a $1 billion booking engine that brings together more than 70,000 travel agents with more than 50 leisure travel suppliers. Also, Mark Travel brings its Xcelerator agency platform with artificial intelligence. Its Synapse provides back office travel functions on a secure and seamless platform, Monaker Group added.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI ROTH Conference Presentation Details How Mark Travel Partnership Will Deliver a Marketing Advantage
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), in its March 15, 2017, presentation at the ROTH Conference (http://dtn.fm/zhZm7), said that its B2B and B2C site, NextTrip.com, will be enhanced in 2Q2017 and its wholesale travel partner, Mark Travel (www.MarkTravel.com), is an important element of its strategic advantage.
Monaker Group is a high technology travel provider that offers users an all-in-one site with artificial intelligence that provides conventional travel, alternative leisure rentals (ALR), and a library of videos to help consumers and businesses choose their plans. The booking engine offers real-time digital data and reduces the time it takes to book diverse travel from hours to minutes, the company said in its ROTH Presentation slide deck.
The company said Mark Travel, through its Trisept Solutions technology firm, will power Monaker Group’s NextTrip and offer expanded product offerings and distribution. Monaker Group said Mark Travel offers both B2B and B2C advantages. In B2B, it offers its VAX XML link to more than 200 companies. Its VAX VacationAccess system is a portal for more than 70,000 travel agents and greater than 50 leisure travel suppliers, together accounting for more than $1 billion in annual bookings. In B2C, Mark Travel offers Monaker Group preferential pricing for air, car, hotel, and ground activities. It will also offer integration with its travel-linked artificial intelligence platform.
“Trisept has the most advanced technology available for leisure vacation packaging today,” commented Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group. “Expanding NextTrip’s capabilities and access to agents and consumers will accelerate our growth and differentiate us from our competition.”
In addition to the technological advantages, Monaker Group’s marketing efforts are set to benefit from partnering with wholesaler Mark Travel. At $3 billion in annual sales, Mark Travel is the largest wholesaler of travel in North America. It owns Funjet Vacations, founded in 1974, which specializes in personalized and independent vacations for groups and individuals.
Mark Travel’s other brands include Southwest Vacations, United Vacations, Mark International, Showtime Tours, Blue Sky Tours, and My Destination Wellness. The company offers service to more than 1,100 destinations globally and specializes in end-to-end travel service for its clients.
To Monaker Group, Mark Travel offers Trisept Solutions, a high technology travel platform through which it offers several other booking advantages. These include VAX VacationAccess, a $1 billion booking engine that brings together more than 70,000 travel agents with more than 50 leisure travel suppliers. Also, Mark Travel brings its Xcelerator agency platform with artificial intelligence. Its Synapse provides back office travel functions on a secure and seamless platform, Monaker Group added.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) ROTH Presentation Covers Company Strategy for First-In-Industry Travel Platform Targeting $100 Billion ALR Market
On March 15, 2017, Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) gave a presentation at the 29th Annual ROTH Conference held in Dana Point, California. Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group, made the presentation, covering what Monaker has accomplished, along with the company’s strategy and plans for 2017.
Florida-based Monaker Group considers itself a technology-driven travel company, with a B2B and B2C platform that offers a first-in-industry real-time system for the booking of Alternative Lodging Rentals (ALR), including vacation homes, resort residences, and unused timeshares. Importantly, the system integrates this with mainstream travel products and services, all on a single site. As a key engine for growth, Monaker has designed the approach to be compelling to major travel business partners as well as to end consumers.
Kerby began the presentation by explaining the value and potential of bringing, for the first time, ALR business into the mainstream travel industry. According to Kerby, Monaker has been working aggressively on building its ALR program for the past 15 months, based upon an online platform similar to Airbnb, but designed from scratch with greater functionality and flexibility. This is significant, since Airbnb has a market cap of roughly $31 billion. In addition, this work has been funded largely by Monaker’s own directors and key insiders, and they now feel they have the money in place to launch and take the company into profitability. For interested investors, MKGI is still in the small-cap range, with approximately 11 million shares outstanding.
The multi-billion dollar ALR market is the fastest growing travel sector, primarily because people increasingly view it as a preferable alternative to staying in hotels, offering more for the money, and yet it sits largely outside the traditional travel industry. Monaker’s innovation is to use superior digital technology to bring ALR into the mainstream travel industry in a way not currently available with any other platform. Currently, the overall global travel market is approximately $1.2 trillion, with the online services portion representing about $593 billion. The ALR sector has jumped from very little to $100 billion in just the past six years, and it is expected to grow to about $170 billion over the next couple of years.
People prefer the convenience and economy of ALR properties, and the soon-to-be-launched Monaker platform greatly exceeds Airbnb’s ALR by offering ALR properties with real-time booking and instant confirmation, versus consumers having to contact an ALR property owner and then wait and hope they get back in time in order to coordinate travel plans. Monaker lets consumers book ALR with instant confirmation, just as they would a hotel or plane travel. Monaker now has one million properties available for display, with another two million under contract, compared with Airbnb’s 2.5 million and Expedia’s Home Away at about 1.2 million.
Monaker will soon launch its platform on its NextTrip.com website and associated mobile app, with another critical factor being that the site will not only represent the best and most efficient portal for ALR properties, it will also offer 200,000 hotels and over 400 airlines, as well as all the major car rental companies, restaurants, cruise programs, tours and activities. As a result, it is expected to become the industry’s first and only one-stop shop offering instant confirmation for all types of travel booking.
Monaker will also be rolling out a Group Planner system, which will allow multiple individuals in a group to view travel plans, letting them participate and vote, and using PayPal to transfer any needed funds once ready to book. The system also offers rebates for booking and for trip feedback, generating an objective reference database for future travelers. The company will also be moving toward an optional Artificial Intelligence engine for smart travel planning based upon traveler preferences. Preliminary evaluations suggest that this AI option will significantly reduce the time required for planning and booking, but it will be a strictly optional offering so that users have complete discretion over the use of information.
A key driver for all of this, and especially the high-margin ALR business, is the large number of big-distributor partnerships that Monaker has developed. The company makes it easy and inviting for airlines, as well as cruise and tour operators, to access the Monaker property inventory, allowing them to flexibly pick and choose properties, adjusting the markups and fees they want to apply, and plugging it all into their own websites to present it exactly the way they prefer, and all with real-time booking. Monaker has also paired up with Mark Travel, the largest travel wholesaler in the U.S., to make the Monaker product available on its large VAX system, which is used by 70,000 travel agents. Monaker is also working with Recruiter.com, and its connection with nationwide business decision makers, to use Monaker products for company business and vacation travel.
Finally, Monaker also owns the major long-established upscale touring company Maupintour, offering luxury tours anywhere in the world. These are not just your typical tours, but customized private adventures for individuals or groups, with what the company considers the best professional tour planners in the business.
A replay of the live ROTH Conference is available at http://dtn.fm/Li0Vs.
For other information on Monaker Group, refer to www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI ROTH Presentation Covers Company Strategy for First-In-Industry Travel Platform Targeting $100 Billion ALR Market
On March 15, 2017, Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) gave a presentation at the 29th Annual ROTH Conference held in Dana Point, California. Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group, made the presentation, covering what Monaker has accomplished, along with the company’s strategy and plans for 2017.
Florida-based Monaker Group considers itself a technology-driven travel company, with a B2B and B2C platform that offers a first-in-industry real-time system for the booking of Alternative Lodging Rentals (ALR), including vacation homes, resort residences, and unused timeshares. Importantly, the system integrates this with mainstream travel products and services, all on a single site. As a key engine for growth, Monaker has designed the approach to be compelling to major travel business partners as well as to end consumers.
Kerby began the presentation by explaining the value and potential of bringing, for the first time, ALR business into the mainstream travel industry. According to Kerby, Monaker has been working aggressively on building its ALR program for the past 15 months, based upon an online platform similar to Airbnb, but designed from scratch with greater functionality and flexibility. This is significant, since Airbnb has a market cap of roughly $31 billion. In addition, this work has been funded largely by Monaker’s own directors and key insiders, and they now feel they have the money in place to launch and take the company into profitability. For interested investors, MKGI is still in the small-cap range, with approximately 11 million shares outstanding.
The multi-billion dollar ALR market is the fastest growing travel sector, primarily because people increasingly view it as a preferable alternative to staying in hotels, offering more for the money, and yet it sits largely outside the traditional travel industry. Monaker’s innovation is to use superior digital technology to bring ALR into the mainstream travel industry in a way not currently available with any other platform. Currently, the overall global travel market is approximately $1.2 trillion, with the online services portion representing about $593 billion. The ALR sector has jumped from very little to $100 billion in just the past six years, and it is expected to grow to about $170 billion over the next couple of years.
People prefer the convenience and economy of ALR properties, and the soon-to-be-launched Monaker platform greatly exceeds Airbnb’s ALR by offering ALR properties with real-time booking and instant confirmation, versus consumers having to contact an ALR property owner and then wait and hope they get back in time in order to coordinate travel plans. Monaker lets consumers book ALR with instant confirmation, just as they would a hotel or plane travel. Monaker now has one million properties available for display, with another two million under contract, compared with Airbnb’s 2.5 million and Expedia’s Home Away at about 1.2 million.
Monaker will soon launch its platform on its NextTrip.com website and associated mobile app, with another critical factor being that the site will not only represent the best and most efficient portal for ALR properties, it will also offer 200,000 hotels and over 400 airlines, as well as all the major car rental companies, restaurants, cruise programs, tours and activities. As a result, it is expected to become the industry’s first and only one-stop shop offering instant confirmation for all types of travel booking.
Monaker will also be rolling out a Group Planner system, which will allow multiple individuals in a group to view travel plans, letting them participate and vote, and using PayPal to transfer any needed funds once ready to book. The system also offers rebates for booking and for trip feedback, generating an objective reference database for future travelers. The company will also be moving toward an optional Artificial Intelligence engine for smart travel planning based upon traveler preferences. Preliminary evaluations suggest that this AI option will significantly reduce the time required for planning and booking, but it will be a strictly optional offering so that users have complete discretion over the use of information.
A key driver for all of this, and especially the high-margin ALR business, is the large number of big-distributor partnerships that Monaker has developed. The company makes it easy and inviting for airlines, as well as cruise and tour operators, to access the Monaker property inventory, allowing them to flexibly pick and choose properties, adjusting the markups and fees they want to apply, and plugging it all into their own websites to present it exactly the way they prefer, and all with real-time booking. Monaker has also paired up with Mark Travel, the largest travel wholesaler in the U.S., to make the Monaker product available on its large VAX system, which is used by 70,000 travel agents. Monaker is also working with Recruiter.com, and its connection with nationwide business decision makers, to use Monaker products for company business and vacation travel.
Finally, Monaker also owns the major long-established upscale touring company Maupintour, offering luxury tours anywhere in the world. These are not just your typical tours, but customized private adventures for individuals or groups, with what the company considers the best professional tour planners in the business.
A replay of the live ROTH Conference is available at http://dtn.fm/Li0Vs.
For other information on Monaker Group, refer to www.MonakerGroup.com
Twitter Hears Advertisers: 'We Want to Buy Like We Do on TV'
http://dtn.fm/FI7sy
Twitter is now offering some advertisers guarantees on video ads, a step of maturation for the company that makes its ad product similar to a TV-style buy.
Twitter has been working closely with Dentsu Aegis Network to develop its first guaranteed ad product, which lets brands order a set amount of pre-roll video ads with certainty that they get seen by a target group of consumers.
Click the link for complete article.
Report: Facebook’s Display Ad Domination To Grow As US Digital Ad Spend Hits $83B In 2017
http://dtn.fm/41vNV
The US digital ad market will grow 15.9 percent in 2017 to top $83 billion, with growth dominated by Google and Facebook, eMarketer estimated on Tuesday. Facebook’s US growth will exceed 32 percent in 2017, higher than eMarketer previously predicted.
Click the link for complete article.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Adds Artificial Intelligence to its Arsenal Targeting $817 Billion Digital Travel Market
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) is bringing artificial intelligence (AI) to the travel industry, giving users the opportunity to book through its all-in-one search engine for conventional air, land travel, and rental cars, while also evaluating alternative lodging rentals (ALR). The platform is designed to speed up the researching and booking time for consumers from hours to minutes, the company said. Monaker Group is a travel company that is technology-driven, focused on the ALR sector, and offers both mainstream and alternative travel in one place to travelers.
Targeted for a rollout in the first quarter of 2017, the AI enhanced ‘planner’ feature on the company’s booking site is designed to reduce booking time and research. On its website, NextTrip.com, a subsidiary company of Monaker Group, Inc., the user can view suggested travel itineraries, read articles on destinations, view a library of videos, and book trips — all on a single site. The company utilizes a profile of the user to offer travel.
In its February 2017 presentation (http://dtn.fm/7cO0F) for investors, available on its website, the company details the growth of digital travel and the role of AI in delivering diverse travel, from its branded Maupintour customized tours to conventional hotels, to the consumer. eMarketer (http://dtn.fm/Ke7ul) research finds that digital travel reached $564.87 billion in 2016, and it is projected to reach $817.54 billion by 2020.
Monaker’s proprietary booking engine is also designed for access by online travel agents (OTA), so they can simply “plug and play” when delivering the ALR market for their clients. Monaker’s worldwide inventory includes more than 500,000 resort residences, one million accept/request properties, and even those offering a ‘make an offer’ bidding solution option. The inventory offered ranges from luxury timeshares and conventional hotels to tours and concierge services. Its inventory totals 1.2 million vacation rentals, with an additional 1.8 million more in process, the company said in its presentation.
The result is a comprehensive site, offering travelers real-time AI to help plan a business or leisure trip or a combination of the two, all on one site. Consumers can either book directly with Monaker via NextTrip.com, or use an online travel agent who earns commissions by booking with Monaker. The traveler gets suggested ideas, watches videos, and then plans a vacation using major branded air, land, and tour partners. Monaker Group can do the same for business trips, as well as for a combination of business and leisure.
The debut of AI cuts the time for researching and booking travel, using a profile of the traveler to aid in the research process. The result is quick booked travel after the user has viewed videos and made decisions.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Adds Artificial Intelligence to its Arsenal Targeting $817 Billion Digital Travel Market
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) is bringing artificial intelligence (AI) to the travel industry, giving users the opportunity to book through its all-in-one search engine for conventional air, land travel, and rental cars, while also evaluating alternative lodging rentals (ALR). The platform is designed to speed up the researching and booking time for consumers from hours to minutes, the company said. Monaker Group is a travel company that is technology-driven, focused on the ALR sector, and offers both mainstream and alternative travel in one place to travelers.
Targeted for a rollout in the first quarter of 2017, the AI enhanced ‘planner’ feature on the company’s booking site is designed to reduce booking time and research. On its website, NextTrip.com, a subsidiary company of Monaker Group, Inc., the user can view suggested travel itineraries, read articles on destinations, view a library of videos, and book trips — all on a single site. The company utilizes a profile of the user to offer travel.
In its February 2017 presentation (http://dtn.fm/7cO0F) for investors, available on its website, the company details the growth of digital travel and the role of AI in delivering diverse travel, from its branded Maupintour customized tours to conventional hotels, to the consumer. eMarketer (http://dtn.fm/Ke7ul) research finds that digital travel reached $564.87 billion in 2016, and it is projected to reach $817.54 billion by 2020.
Monaker’s proprietary booking engine is also designed for access by online travel agents (OTA), so they can simply “plug and play” when delivering the ALR market for their clients. Monaker’s worldwide inventory includes more than 500,000 resort residences, one million accept/request properties, and even those offering a ‘make an offer’ bidding solution option. The inventory offered ranges from luxury timeshares and conventional hotels to tours and concierge services. Its inventory totals 1.2 million vacation rentals, with an additional 1.8 million more in process, the company said in its presentation.
The result is a comprehensive site, offering travelers real-time AI to help plan a business or leisure trip or a combination of the two, all on one site. Consumers can either book directly with Monaker via NextTrip.com, or use an online travel agent who earns commissions by booking with Monaker. The traveler gets suggested ideas, watches videos, and then plans a vacation using major branded air, land, and tour partners. Monaker Group can do the same for business trips, as well as for a combination of business and leisure.
The debut of AI cuts the time for researching and booking travel, using a profile of the traveler to aid in the research process. The result is quick booked travel after the user has viewed videos and made decisions.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Facebook to phase out Atlas brand, shift tools & clients to Facebook’s products
http://dtn.fm/Sl7Xl
Facebook is starting to fold Atlas's measurement products into Facebook's own tools and will transition Atlas's remaining clients as well.
Facebook is finally phasing out Atlas, the ad server and measurement platform that it acquired from Microsoft in February 2013 and has been folding into Facebook since last fall.
Over the next year, Facebook will move Atlas’s existing measurement capabilities and its remaining clients to Facebook-branded products like Business Manager, the company announced on Tuesday. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the Atlas brand will be eliminated as a result of the transition.
The announcement signals Facebook’s final steps in dissolving Atlas into Facebook, four years after the social network acquired the ad tech platform to beef up its measurement capabilities and two-and-a-half years after Facebook unwrapped the revamped platform. In September 2016, Facebook transferred Atlas employees from its ad tech division to its measurement division, and two months later Facebook shut down the ad server side of Atlas.
While the Atlas brand will go away, its underlying measurement products will not. After combining Atlas’s employees with Facebook’s own measurement team, the company is now merging Atlas’s products into Facebook’s own tools.
Click the link for complete article.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) to Present at ROTH Conference on March 15, 2017
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) will present at the ROTH Conference on March 15, 2017. The 29th annual conference will be held March 13-15 in Dana Point, California, at the Ritz-Carlton. Monaker Group is a multi-tiered technology travel company targeting the high-end tourism market, the alternative lodging rental (ALR) industry, and business/leisure travelers.
Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO, will present on March 15 at noon, when he is expected to discuss the company’s all-in-one site that includes a real-time booking engine for ALR, conventional travel and specialized tours. Omar Jimenez, company CFO, and Richard Marshall, director of corporate development, will also be present.
The presentation will be rebroadcast on the company’s website and will be broadcast live at http://wsw.com/webcast/roth31/mkgi. Kerby, Jimenez, and Marshall will be available for meetings throughout the conference for institutional and individual investors. Meetings can be pre-scheduled through email at OneOnOneRequests@roth.com.
Hundreds of companies are scheduled to make presentations at the ROTH Conference, as well as to participate in question sessions and direct and small group meetings.
ROTH Capital Partners, LLC, is a privately-held investment bank based in Newport Beach, California, that’s focused on emerging companies.
Monaker Group operates the NextTrip.com website, which offers rich content and a library of some 15,000 hours of video that assist travelers in their search for travel destinations and tours. The booking engine offers users the choice of conventional travel, ALR, or specialized tours prepared by a subsidiary of the company. The company has targeted several demographics, and it sees the potential growth of the ALR market, especially for travelers who seek challenging and adventurous trips. Monaker is also focused on business travelers who wish to add additional days for personal travel. Monaker Group aims to capitalize on ALR’s current status as one of the fastest growing sectors of the travel industry.
For more information, refer to www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI to Present at ROTH Conference on March 15, 2017
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) will present at the ROTH Conference on March 15, 2017. The 29th annual conference will be held March 13-15 in Dana Point, California, at the Ritz-Carlton. Monaker Group is a multi-tiered technology travel company targeting the high-end tourism market, the alternative lodging rental (ALR) industry, and business/leisure travelers.
Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO, will present on March 15 at noon, when he is expected to discuss the company’s all-in-one site that includes a real-time booking engine for ALR, conventional travel and specialized tours. Omar Jimenez, company CFO, and Richard Marshall, director of corporate development, will also be present.
The presentation will be rebroadcast on the company’s website and will be broadcast live at http://wsw.com/webcast/roth31/mkgi. Kerby, Jimenez, and Marshall will be available for meetings throughout the conference for institutional and individual investors. Meetings can be pre-scheduled through email at OneOnOneRequests@roth.com.
Hundreds of companies are scheduled to make presentations at the ROTH Conference, as well as to participate in question sessions and direct and small group meetings.
ROTH Capital Partners, LLC, is a privately-held investment bank based in Newport Beach, California, that’s focused on emerging companies.
Monaker Group operates the NextTrip.com website, which offers rich content and a library of some 15,000 hours of video that assist travelers in their search for travel destinations and tours. The booking engine offers users the choice of conventional travel, ALR, or specialized tours prepared by a subsidiary of the company. The company has targeted several demographics, and it sees the potential growth of the ALR market, especially for travelers who seek challenging and adventurous trips. Monaker is also focused on business travelers who wish to add additional days for personal travel. Monaker Group aims to capitalize on ALR’s current status as one of the fastest growing sectors of the travel industry.
For more information, refer to www.MonakerGroup.com
Twitter turns to algorithms to clamp down on abusive content
http://dtn.fm/A9Snv
Twitter Inc has launched a wider effort to use algorithms to identify accounts as potentially engaging in abusive behavior, a departure from its practice of relying on users to report accounts that should be reviewed for possible violation of its rules.
Twitter and rivals like Facebook have long relied on users' reporting potential abuse for review, sometimes to the chagrin of groups that accused them of doing too little to thwart hateful speech or harassment. Twitter, which already uses technology to try and limit some communications, will still review user reports on potential abuse.
Twitter said it will limit the functionality of accounts flagged by its technology as abusive for an unspecified amount of time, a restriction that could include allowing only followers to see that user's tweets. Currently, accounts are deleted or suspended when marked as abusive.
"We aim to only act on accounts when we’re confident, based on our algorithms, that their behavior is abusive," Ed Ho, vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post. "Since these tools are new we will sometimes make mistakes, but know that we are actively working to improve and iterate on them everyday."
Twitter is also introducing new filtering options for notifications to allow users to limit what they see from certain types of accounts, such as those that lack a profile photo, and said it would alert users when it received abuse reports and inform them if further action against certain accounts takes places.
The updates announced Wednesday are the latest in a series of changes Twitter has implemented in recent months to combat abuse. Early in February the social media company said it would make it harder for abusive users to create new accounts, launch a "safe search" function and begin collapsing tweet replies deemed abusive or low-quality so they are hidden from immediate view.
Twitter, Facebook and other internet companies have faced growing complaints in recent years over how they monitor and police their content, as users and governments have stepped up pressure on Silicon Valley to prevent violent extremist propaganda, curtail harassment and bullying, and limit fake news.
Those efforts have often clashed with free-speech activists who have warned about internet censorship and some political groups that claim they are being unfairly targeted.
Ho on Wednesday acknowledged that protecting users continues to be a challenge for the San Francisco-based company.
"We’re learning a lot as we continue our work to make Twitter safer – not just from the changes we ship but also from the mistakes we make, and of course, from feedback you share," Ho said.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Set to Capitalize On Adventure Travel Market
According to a Voyager’s World article (http://dtn.fm/wVHm5), adventure tourism is on the rise because of an increase in disposable income, a change in consumer expectations, improvements in technological infrastructure, and the ability for organizations to tap into the adventure tourism markets.
The article points out that, in earlier reports from 2015, “69% of global travelers aspire to try (something) novel, something that they are previously unaccustomed to, in 2016. This also indicates that millennials plan to be more adventurous by engaging in more challenging activities.”
Adventure activities as we know them have changed, with trekking, hiking, and cycling being augmented or replaced by more extreme activities, such as bungee jumping, rappelling, paragliding, skydiving, and more. Adventurers are now looking for experiences that are both authentic and unique.
With the proliferation and development of the internet, consumers are now able to do in-depth research about nearly all destinations across the world. Despite many opting to book their adventures on their own, travel agents have now made a huge shift to online, meaning that travelers can book all-in-one package holidays from the comforts of one website.
This growing trend comes with a newfound need for safety. Because adventure travel comes with its own risks, adventurers often prefer to organize these activities through trustworthy, licensed companies, many of which offer package holidays that include flights, ground transportation, hotels, tours, and activities.
This is where Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) comes in. The technology-focused travel company offers trips to a variety of destinations around the world through its flagship NextTrip.com. The platform caters to all types of travelers, allowing them to book their adventure holidays through NextTrip’s all-in-one travel planner, which works on desktop, mobile devices and tablets.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Set to Capitalize On Adventure Travel Market
According to a Voyager’s World article (http://dtn.fm/wVHm5), adventure tourism is on the rise because of an increase in disposable income, a change in consumer expectations, improvements in technological infrastructure, and the ability for organizations to tap into the adventure tourism markets.
The article points out that, in earlier reports from 2015, “69% of global travelers aspire to try (something) novel, something that they are previously unaccustomed to, in 2016. This also indicates that millennials plan to be more adventurous by engaging in more challenging activities.”
Adventure activities as we know them have changed, with trekking, hiking, and cycling being augmented or replaced by more extreme activities, such as bungee jumping, rappelling, paragliding, skydiving, and more. Adventurers are now looking for experiences that are both authentic and unique.
With the proliferation and development of the internet, consumers are now able to do in-depth research about nearly all destinations across the world. Despite many opting to book their adventures on their own, travel agents have now made a huge shift to online, meaning that travelers can book all-in-one package holidays from the comforts of one website.
This growing trend comes with a newfound need for safety. Because adventure travel comes with its own risks, adventurers often prefer to organize these activities through trustworthy, licensed companies, many of which offer package holidays that include flights, ground transportation, hotels, tours, and activities.
This is where Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) comes in. The technology-focused travel company offers trips to a variety of destinations around the world through its flagship NextTrip.com. The platform caters to all types of travelers, allowing them to book their adventure holidays through NextTrip’s all-in-one travel planner, which works on desktop, mobile devices and tablets.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MonakerGroup.com
Facebook’s video app is now available on Samsung smart TVs
http://dtn.fm/LaRo9
We knew it was coming, but Facebook’s new video-focused app is now available to download on Samsung smart TVs.
The social networking giant first announced plans to launch a standalone TV app a couple of weeks back, kicking off with Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung TVs. The exact date of availability has hitherto been unclear, but now anyone with a Samsung smart TV model from 2015 onwards can download the app from today.
The dedicated app allows users to watch videos that are shared by their friends and brand Pages, as well as searching for videos from around the world. Facebook previously revealed that it would also recommend video based on a user’s stated preferences and previous activities.
The move represents the latest in a long-standing battle between Facebook and Google-owned YouTube, which has offered TV apps for many years already. Twitter, too, has thrown its hat into the proverbial video-streaming ring, recently launching its own live video app for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Xbox One.
Embracing video is one of a number of ways Facebook is looking to boost its revenues — just last week, Facebook announced that it would start inserting mid-roll video ads. Additionally, Facebook revealed plans to begin monetizing live video, with celebrities and brands able to include 20-second ad breaks in their live broadcasts.
Olympics, smartphones push Twitter revenue up 30 percent in Brazil
http://dtn.fm/V1cmu
Twitter Inc has found a bright spot in Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, even as weak advertising sales across the globe have punished the social network's stock in recent weeks.
Advertising revenue rose about 30 percent in Brazil last year, Twitter's top executive in the country told Reuters, defying a two-year slowdown in the local economy and more than doubling the company's 13 percent revenue growth globally.
Twitter, which does not break down its revenue by country, gave no concrete sales numbers in Brazilian or U.S. currency. It was an unusual move for the company to give details on its performance in one country.
"Brazil is a motor of growth for Twitter, both in users and in revenue," said Fiamma Zarife in a recent interview.
A surge of interest in real-time marketing around the Olympics, which Rio de Janeiro hosted in August, brought new clients to the platform, she said, and rising smartphone use continues to generate user growth in the country.
The performance in Brazil last year may have been a bright spot for Twitter, but the company is still struggling to convince investors it can win the global war for online advertising against rivals Snapchat and Facebook Inc.
Earlier this month, Twitter posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public four years ago, sending its shares down more than 10 percent to a seven-month low.
THIRD-FASTEST
While the number of Twitter's monthly active users worldwide edged up 4 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, it jumped 18 percent in Brazil, the third-fastest-growing market over that period, according to Zarife.
Zarife said there is more room to run in Brazil as smartphone use continues to grow. Just 70 percent of Brazilians on Twitter connect via the mobile app, compared to about 83 percent globally.
Smartphone penetration doubled in two years to 40 percent of Brazilians last year, according to pollster Ibope. That has boosted many tech companies in the country, even as Brazil's economy struggles with its deepest recession on record.
Digital ad spending in the country was expected to grow 12 percent in 2016 to 10.4 billion reais ($3.4 billion), according to industry group IAB Brasil.
Zarife said her strategy for attracting both users and advertising will be to focus on video content and live events. Brazil was second only to the United States in Twitter conversations about the Super Bowl, she said.
The strategy paid off during the Olympics, when Zarife said several clients including Banco Bradesco SA, a sponsor of the event, stepped up marketing on Twitter and were convinced to keep a strong presence on the platform since then.
Zarife, formerly head of agency relations in Brazil, took the top job in the country last month from Guilherme Ribenboim, who remains Twitter's vice president for Latin America.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Offers Business and Leisure Travelers Specialized Travel Tools with Maupintour
Maupintour (www.maupintour.com), a specialized tour operator owned by Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), is a hidden gem for both Monaker and its users. Maupintour, founded by Tom Maupin, designs comprehensive and creative tours for groups and individuals, offering travelers the opportunity to arrange uniquely customized tours to exotic locales. Other travel companies have booking engines that can arrange business travel, but Monaker has the unique advantage of owning a subsidiary, Maupintour, which designs specialized tours for the business traveler seeking to turn a business trip into a customized leisure adventure.
According to a 2016 Global Business Travel Association Index study (http://dtn.fm/iZ8rA), 45% of business travelers at firms with 1-249 employees extend their trips to combine business and leisure travel. Especially for younger travelers, extending company paid travel with additional days of personal travel offers them the chance to explore destinations they have already reached. Monaker’s booking engine is perfect for them to integrate the booking of business and leisure travel using the company’s efficient NextTrip.com site. For Monaker, Maupintour represents an important additional revenue stream.
To high-tech travelers, Monaker Group’s Maupintour is something very special. This 65-year-old tour arm of the company specializes in tailored tours to travelers who are adventurous and curious to try exotic trips. A business trip to Athens, Greece, can become a Maupintour archeology tour. A business meeting in Rome can become a specialized tour of the Vatican. A meeting in Chile can be extended and turned into a customized wine-tasting tour. A ho-hum business trip to a foreign location can become, by extension, an economical but glorious leisure trip, as well.
The Index study found that these travelers would use leisure travel not only to explore these destinations, but also to visit family and friends. In addition, it found that learning about a destination’s cultural offerings was important to these employees.
Monaker Group is a technology-focused company that is travel-driven, targeting the alternative lodging market (ALM). Bill Kerby, founder, chairman, and CEO of Monaker, sees ALR as one of the fastest expanding sectors of the entire travel market, projected by industry experts to reach $169 billion by 2019.
The company’s real-time booking engine offers ALR inventory, plus access to air, conventional lodging, business travel needs, and a library of greater than 15,000 video clips of destinations and leisure activities, cruises, and other travel, all on one site.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Offers Business and Leisure Travelers Specialized Travel Tools with Maupintour
Maupintour (www.maupintour.com), a specialized tour operator owned by Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), is a hidden gem for both Monaker and its users. Maupintour, founded by Tom Maupin, designs comprehensive and creative tours for groups and individuals, offering travelers the opportunity to arrange uniquely customized tours to exotic locales. Other travel companies have booking engines that can arrange business travel, but Monaker has the unique advantage of owning a subsidiary, Maupintour, which designs specialized tours for the business traveler seeking to turn a business trip into a customized leisure adventure.
According to a 2016 Global Business Travel Association Index study (http://dtn.fm/iZ8rA), 45% of business travelers at firms with 1-249 employees extend their trips to combine business and leisure travel. Especially for younger travelers, extending company paid travel with additional days of personal travel offers them the chance to explore destinations they have already reached. Monaker’s booking engine is perfect for them to integrate the booking of business and leisure travel using the company’s efficient NextTrip.com site. For Monaker, Maupintour represents an important additional revenue stream.
To high-tech travelers, Monaker Group’s Maupintour is something very special. This 65-year-old tour arm of the company specializes in tailored tours to travelers who are adventurous and curious to try exotic trips. A business trip to Athens, Greece, can become a Maupintour archeology tour. A business meeting in Rome can become a specialized tour of the Vatican. A meeting in Chile can be extended and turned into a customized wine-tasting tour. A ho-hum business trip to a foreign location can become, by extension, an economical but glorious leisure trip, as well.
The Index study found that these travelers would use leisure travel not only to explore these destinations, but also to visit family and friends. In addition, it found that learning about a destination’s cultural offerings was important to these employees.
Monaker Group is a technology-focused company that is travel-driven, targeting the alternative lodging market (ALM). Bill Kerby, founder, chairman, and CEO of Monaker, sees ALR as one of the fastest expanding sectors of the entire travel market, projected by industry experts to reach $169 billion by 2019.
The company’s real-time booking engine offers ALR inventory, plus access to air, conventional lodging, business travel needs, and a library of greater than 15,000 video clips of destinations and leisure activities, cruises, and other travel, all on one site.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Twitter Is Putting Abusive Accounts In Time Out
http://dtn.fm/7gNBl
After announcing that it was planning to take trolling more seriously, Twitter has introduced its latest tool to deal with harassment on its platform. The social network will restrict the reach of users it believes are partaking in abusive behavior.
The protocol, which started being put into effect last week, will prevent tweets from users deemed to be abusing the platform from being seen by people who don’t follow them. The tweets won’t appear in searches, Moments, or anywhere else on the platform other than their own timeline.
If a restricted user mentions someone who doesn’t follow them, that person won’t see the tweet or receive a notification about it. Retweets of abusive users from followers won’t appear to people who don’t follow the punished user.
When a user is hit with the restriction, they are alerted via email from Twitter that informs them that some features of their Twitter experience have been disabled. “We’ve detected some potentially abusive behavior from your account, so only your followers can see your activity on Twitter for the amount of time shown below,” the email reads.
Click the link for complete article.
Zuckerberg Lays Out Broad Vision for Facebook in New Mission Statement
http://dtn.fm/6kwjO
After a year of controversy over Facebook Inc.'s role in spreading misinformation and handling violent images, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg now is positioning the company as the backbone of what he hopes will be a new "social infrastructure" addressing some of humanity's biggest problems.
In a nearly 6,000-word manifesto Thursday, Mr. Zuckerberg outlined ambitions for the 13-year-old social network to play a larger role in tackling issues including terrorism, disease and climate change, alongside the work of governments, nonprofit organizations and other companies.
Facebook is investing more in building products that can alleviate some of these issues, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote, outlining few concrete steps. He also said Facebook was developing tools to more effectively fight the spread of misinformation; detect terrorist propaganda through artificial intelligence, and to promote political engagement, both nationally and globally.
"Today's threats are increasingly global, but the infrastructure to protect us is not," Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. "Humanity's current systems are insufficient to address these issues."
The post underscores how much Facebook has evolved since its founding in 2004 in a Harvard dorm room. From its start as a social hub for college students, it has become a powerful shaper of views and an essential hub of information, social ties and communication for its nearly two billion monthly users -- roughly a quarter of the world's population.
"For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families," the 32-year-old CEO wrote in the note, published on Facebook. "With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community -- for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all."
The post also comes after a trying year at Facebook, which faced criticism for, among other things, the design of its news feed, which put legitimate news sites on equal footing with those peddling misinformation during the U.S. presidential campaign. The company also drew fire for failing to catch violent live videos and for inconsistently applying its content standards, such as when it deleted posts containing a famous Vietnam War photo of a naked girl fleeing napalm bombs last fall. After considerable public uproar, Facebook reversed that decision.
Mr. Zuckerberg has, at times, struggled to articulate a coherent response to these concerns, sparking both public and internal backlash. Speaking at a conference two days after the U.S. election, he dismissed accusations that fake news on Facebook tipped the election as a "crazy idea." This didn't go over well with many employees who argued that the social network should be doing more to confront fake news as well as the "filter bubble" in which many users see few ideas or information different from their own, current and former employees said at the time.
Just over a week later, Mr. Zuckerberg changed his stance, saying that while Facebook didn't want to be in the position of determining the truth, the company takes hoaxes very seriously. Since then, Facebook has taken steps to curb fake news through partnerships with fact-checking organizations and tweaks to its algorithm to demote news items that are deemed "disputed." It also is investing in news literacy and working more closely with publishers.
Thursday, Mr. Zuckerberg said fake news and filter bubbles worried him, but a greater concern is "polarization."
Facebook wants to show users a wider range of perspectives and demote sensationalized news, but has to be careful to do so without deepening divisions, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote, citing research showing that people hold tighter to their beliefs when confronted with an opposing view. "Our goal must be to help people see a more complete picture, not just alternate perspectives," he wrote.
Additionally, Facebook is revamping the way it handles objectionable content to give users the ability to set parameters on how much nudity, violence, profanity and graphic content they can tolerate, Mr. Zuckerberg said. For users who don't take those steps, their settings will default to the content choices made by the majority of users in their region.
Longer term, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to build artificial intelligence that can detect violent content and terror-recruiting networks. Some of that work can be done now, he said, but major advances are still needed to build effective systems that can catch hate speech, graphic violence or sex.
Facebook's New TV App for Apple TV & Others
http://dtn.fm/Bu0pi
Social media giant, Facebook Inc. FB has unveiled a new TV app to enhance the video viewing experience. The app will be initially available on app stores on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV and will be rolled out to other platforms gradually.
In a blog post, Facebook said that the app will enable users to “watch videos shared by friends or Pages you follow, top live videos from around the world, and recommended videos based on your interests.” Currently, Facebook enables users to stream videos on their TVs from their Facebook page.
Click the link for complete article.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Positioned to Capitalize as U.S. Private Accommodation Market Set to Reach $36.6 Billion by 2018
Perhaps no segment of the travel industry has changed so much over the last few years as lodging and accommodation. Spurred by an initial decline of the global travel market a few years ago but given new life by a new generation of travelers who prefer a different kind of tourism with more personal experiences to the traditional hotel and sightseeing model, the alternative and private lodging segment has been growing at a steady rate recently. The private accommodation market is becoming increasingly popular and is expected to reach $36.6 billion in the United States alone by the end of next year, according to new data from travel industry research authority Phocuswright. This is great news for both tourists and providers of alternative lodging rental (ALR) services such as Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), which offers these services via its innovative, real-time booking platform NextTrip.com.
In two separate reports released this month, Phocuswright emphasizes the fast growth of the vacation rental market, which has become one of the most popular segments of the industry. Private accommodation grew by 11 percent in 2016, which was nearly twice as fast as the overall U.S. travel market, according to the report ‘A Market Transformed: Private Accommodation in the U.S.’ (http://dtn.fm/AdOQ7). This growth pace is expected to slow down in 2017 and even 2018, but this segment is expected to continue outpacing the overall travel market throughout this time span, the document underlines.
The increasing role of private accommodation and alternative lodging rentals is also outlined by the sixteenth edition of Phocuswright’s ‘U.S. Online Travel Overview’ (http://dtn.fm/u4Wc8). According to this report, the alternative lodging rental market now accounts for almost one-fifth of the entire accommodation market. In addition, booking rates for vacation rentals are growing increasingly faster than those reported by hotels.
Once regarded simply as a cheaper alternative to traditional accommodation or a largely offline alternative typically reserved for family vacations, private accommodations have become increasingly popular since moving online with the help of intermediaries such as Airbnb and HomeAway. Gradually, they have become the accommodation of choice for a new generation of younger tourists whose traveling preferences focus mostly on creating memories and personal experiences by interacting with the places and people they visit more closely. The success of this private accommodation market has also attracted the interest of large travel and accommodation groups such as Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) and The Priceline Group’s (NASDAQ: PCLN) Booking.com, both of which have already started building their ALR inventories. In 2015, Expedia completed the acquisition of the HomeAway platform for $3.9 billion.
This trend is likely to continue in the future, with the private accommodation market set to continue gaining more ground over the traditional hotel and lodging segment, according to Phocuswright experts. “The segment’s shift online, the expansion of the concept to include private homes in urban markets, the entrance of OTAs, and numerous innovative startups have all contributed to powering a period of tremendous growth,” said Douglas Quinby, Phocuswright’s vice president, research. “Against a backdrop of strong performance for the U.S. travel industry, the private accommodation segment has grown much faster than travel overall,” he added.
With a continuously growing portfolio of alternative lodging units that currently stands at more than 1.1 million worldwide, the NextTrip.com platform is representative of Monaker Group’s focus on this market segment and its commitment to offering customers comprehensive travel solutions and personalized tours. The NextTrip.com platform is unique on the market at the moment, being the only one to offer travelers real-time booking and access to everything they need to organize their journeys down to the smallest details, from ALR options to hotels, rental car services, airlines, concierge and more. In addition to the NextTrip.com platform, Monaker Group offers a wide range of tourism services, including highly customizable tours and travel solutions, through its Maupintour subsidiary.
For more information, visit http://www.monakergroup.com
MKGI Positioned to Capitalize as U.S. Private Accommodation Market Set to Reach $36.6 Billion by 2018
Perhaps no segment of the travel industry has changed so much over the last few years as lodging and accommodation. Spurred by an initial decline of the global travel market a few years ago but given new life by a new generation of travelers who prefer a different kind of tourism with more personal experiences to the traditional hotel and sightseeing model, the alternative and private lodging segment has been growing at a steady rate recently. The private accommodation market is becoming increasingly popular and is expected to reach $36.6 billion in the United States alone by the end of next year, according to new data from travel industry research authority Phocuswright. This is great news for both tourists and providers of alternative lodging rental (ALR) services such as Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), which offers these services via its innovative, real-time booking platform NextTrip.com.
In two separate reports released this month, Phocuswright emphasizes the fast growth of the vacation rental market, which has become one of the most popular segments of the industry. Private accommodation grew by 11 percent in 2016, which was nearly twice as fast as the overall U.S. travel market, according to the report ‘A Market Transformed: Private Accommodation in the U.S.’ (http://dtn.fm/AdOQ7). This growth pace is expected to slow down in 2017 and even 2018, but this segment is expected to continue outpacing the overall travel market throughout this time span, the document underlines.
The increasing role of private accommodation and alternative lodging rentals is also outlined by the sixteenth edition of Phocuswright’s ‘U.S. Online Travel Overview’ (http://dtn.fm/u4Wc8). According to this report, the alternative lodging rental market now accounts for almost one-fifth of the entire accommodation market. In addition, booking rates for vacation rentals are growing increasingly faster than those reported by hotels.
Once regarded simply as a cheaper alternative to traditional accommodation or a largely offline alternative typically reserved for family vacations, private accommodations have become increasingly popular since moving online with the help of intermediaries such as Airbnb and HomeAway. Gradually, they have become the accommodation of choice for a new generation of younger tourists whose traveling preferences focus mostly on creating memories and personal experiences by interacting with the places and people they visit more closely. The success of this private accommodation market has also attracted the interest of large travel and accommodation groups such as Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) and The Priceline Group’s (NASDAQ: PCLN) Booking.com, both of which have already started building their ALR inventories. In 2015, Expedia completed the acquisition of the HomeAway platform for $3.9 billion.
This trend is likely to continue in the future, with the private accommodation market set to continue gaining more ground over the traditional hotel and lodging segment, according to Phocuswright experts. “The segment’s shift online, the expansion of the concept to include private homes in urban markets, the entrance of OTAs, and numerous innovative startups have all contributed to powering a period of tremendous growth,” said Douglas Quinby, Phocuswright’s vice president, research. “Against a backdrop of strong performance for the U.S. travel industry, the private accommodation segment has grown much faster than travel overall,” he added.
With a continuously growing portfolio of alternative lodging units that currently stands at more than 1.1 million worldwide, the NextTrip.com platform is representative of Monaker Group’s focus on this market segment and its commitment to offering customers comprehensive travel solutions and personalized tours. The NextTrip.com platform is unique on the market at the moment, being the only one to offer travelers real-time booking and access to everything they need to organize their journeys down to the smallest details, from ALR options to hotels, rental car services, airlines, concierge and more. In addition to the NextTrip.com platform, Monaker Group offers a wide range of tourism services, including highly customizable tours and travel solutions, through its Maupintour subsidiary.
For more information, visit http://www.monakergroup.com
Twitter Reacts To Beyoncé’s 2017 Grammy Awards Performance
http://dtn.fm/d5e0T
Just under two weeks after announcing that she and husband Jay Z were expecting twins together five years after the birth of their first child, Beyoncé took the stage at the 2017 Grammy Awards on Sunday night.
Fans feared the very-pregnant songstress wouldn’t be able to deliver her usual high caliber performance during the award show. Their doubts were erased within minutes of her stepping foot on the stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Beyoncé combined stunning visuals and haunting vocals to wow all who were watching live and at home. She sang two songs — “Love Draught” and “Sandcastles” off her visual album “Lemonade” — as holograms, trick chairs and a group of talented dancers assisted. Twitter was filled with positive and positively hilarious reactions to Beyoncé’s performance.
Beyoncé’s show-stopping performance confirmed rumors circulating ahead of the show. TMZ reported that she was going to be taking it slower than usual during the 59th annual Grammy Awards. Sources told the publication she was “very pregnant” and did not want to confirm her performance until at least Saturday for fear she would not be able to take the stage. The anonymous tipsters told TMZ she would be using digital screens and other illusions to keep the energy high.
Click the link for complete article.
How to Use Twitter Advanced Search Like a Pro
http://dtn.fm/52FmC
Being one of the biggest social media platforms out there, Twitter hosts an overwhelming amount of content. However, just like any other medium, at times it becomes quite tough to filter this content or search for a specific tweet.
If you have invested hours looking for the right piece of information on Twitter, don’t worry! You are not the only one. When it comes to Twitter, we all face setbacks in trying to filter the most appropriate content. To make things easier for its users, Twitter has come up with a new feature called Twitter Advanced Search.
Click the link for complete article.
Facebook and Oculus are working on gloves for finger tracking in virtual reality
http://dtn.fm/2vhRX
Facebook CEO and Oculus VR owner Mark Zuckerberg jumped on the social network to talk about visiting the Oculus Research Lab in Redmond, Washington. In the update, he uploaded five photos that were taken during his visit, one of which shows Zuckerberg wearing gloves and appearing to shoot virtual spider webs like a certain wall-crawler we know.
“We’re working on new ways to bring your hands in virtual and augmented reality,” he said. “Wearing these gloves, you can draw, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot webs like Spider-Man. That’s what I’m doing here.”
The setup Zuckerberg is using to test the gloves appears to use OptiTrack’s Prime 17W motion capture camera, which cost $3,499. This camera includes a 70-degree field of view, a 360-frames-per-second capture rate, a 6mm “fast glass” lens, and a resolution of 1,664 x 1,088. Facebook may be using this camera instead of building its own to cut down on the cost of testing the prototype gloves.
Click the link for complete article.
Twitter Safety Updates Hide Abusive Tweets In Search And Replies
http://dtn.fm/Z0Bvq
Twitter is rolling out stronger measures to suppress abuse on its site. The move sees the platform take a more proactive approach by hiding offensive tweets from various sections of its site using machine learning systems.
Among the changes is a new "safe search" option that can be enabled by users that want to hide sensitive content from appearing in search results. The feature, which is currently only available on Twitter for the web, is automatically turned on for all users but can be disabled from within search.
To access the new option simply head into search and then click on the overflow button at the top right of the page. This will bring up a drop-down menu with "search settings" at the very top of the list: click on it and you'll be able to turn it off -- or leave it unchanged to keep it on -- and then click "save changes." Safe search will be available on Twitter for iOS and Android in the coming weeks.
The update brings to mind Google's SafeSearch filter, itself designed to enable people to block violent or adult images from appearing in search results.
Click the link for complete article.
Facebook takes search warrant challenge to NY's top court
http://dtn.fm/Z0Qb5
Facebook and Manhattan prosecutors went to New York state's highest court Tuesday to settle a legal dispute over search warrants for users' accounts, a closely watched case with big implications for online privacy.
An attorney for Facebook told the judges that it must be allowed to object when law enforcement seeks search warrants for its users' information. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. argued it is up to individual Facebook users to fight any effort to obtain personal information for criminal investigations.
Prosecutors sought search warrants in 2013 for the accounts of 381 people in connection with a disability benefits fraud case against New York City police and fire retirees.
The Menlo Park, California-based social media company challenged the warrants, but lower courts sided with prosecutors, ruling that Facebook didn't have legal standing to object since the target was information about possible suspects — not Facebook. Facebook turned over the data but has continued to contest the actions of prosecutors.
Facebook attorney Thomas Dupree said the search warrants were unprecedented in their scope. Facebook regularly works with law enforcement but has to be allowed to object when it feels a search warrant is overly broad, he said.
"This case involves the DA's seizure of the most personal and intimate information imaginable," Dupree said. "These are people's private thoughts and communications, on their lives, their identities, their families, their politics, their religion, their sexuality, all captured in the DA's dragnet."
Vance said anyone whose Facebook information is seized has the right to sue prosecutors for damages or challenge the admissibility of the evidence in court. He also noted that prosecutors must go before a judge before obtaining search warrants.
"Law enforcement is always going to be bumping up against people's privacy," he said. The search warrants for social media posts, he added, are "really no different than if we issued a search warrant into someone's house and took books and records or a car or a safe deposit box."
In the alleged disabilities fraud case against police and fire retirees, prosecutors sought the social media content in an attempt to show the retirees were leading active lives and lying about disabilities.
A decision is expected within a few months.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Turns to the Video Tape to Sell Effectively
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) turns to the video tape to sell its global inventory of alternative lodging rentals (ALR), because it believes that video is important to the decision making process. Research proves that reaching the younger generation, especially millennials, with top quality ads can be especially effective. Reaching these digital savvy viewers is “high risk, high reward,” survey taker Unruly (http://dtn.fm/um4Rw) finds.
In a February 2016 10-K filing with the SEC (http://dtn.fm/QJ9pq), Monaker reported that it had invested in thousands of hours of video footage shot in more than 30 countries around the world. Further, it said that it has some 15,000 clips of destination activities, cruises, and resorts. These travel videos have been shown on NextTrip.com, a travel portal focused on the ALR market. That site is owned by Monaker Group, Inc.
Video ads boost purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%, according to the study by Unruly. The video ad research company also found that millennials are 112% more likely to share ads they like than any other demographic group. Additionally, Unruly found that millennials are also the most likely to use ad blockers or put videos on mute if they find them of poor quality or inauthentic. Registering with younger viewers are “happiness and inspiration,” emotions which resonate strongly with millennials. With this in mind, the ads from Monaker Group capture enjoyable and special travel experiences in ALRs.
Bill Kerby, founder, chairman, and CEO of Monaker, says that the ALR industry is the fastest growing sector in travel, projected by industry experts to reach $169 billion by 2019.
Also, NextTrip.com enables potential travelers to upgrade to resorts and book through Maupintour, a luxury tour company with more than 65 years of experience in the travel industry, Monaker reported in the SEC filing.
Through its YouTube channel, the company noted in the 10-K that it has more than 16,000 hours of raw travel footage. It finds that selling its travel products is significantly more effective when videos can be seen in advance by the potential purchaser.
Although Monaker says that it has not filed for copyright protection for any particular content, it noted in the filing that it has registered several Internet domain names related to its business in order to protect its proprietary interests.
Monaker is a travel-driven, high technology company with inventory in alternative rentals. On its proprietary and partnership platforms, the company has built a video library, facilitated media distribution and developed industry relationships. These are elements Monaker believes are important to gaining a large audience of travelers in the ALR industry.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Turns to the Video Tape to Sell Effectively
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) turns to the video tape to sell its global inventory of alternative lodging rentals (ALR), because it believes that video is important to the decision making process. Research proves that reaching the younger generation, especially millennials, with top quality ads can be especially effective. Reaching these digital savvy viewers is “high risk, high reward,” survey taker Unruly (http://dtn.fm/um4Rw) finds.
In a February 2016 10-K filing with the SEC (http://dtn.fm/QJ9pq), Monaker reported that it had invested in thousands of hours of video footage shot in more than 30 countries around the world. Further, it said that it has some 15,000 clips of destination activities, cruises, and resorts. These travel videos have been shown on NextTrip.com, a travel portal focused on the ALR market. That site is owned by Monaker Group, Inc.
Video ads boost purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%, according to the study by Unruly. The video ad research company also found that millennials are 112% more likely to share ads they like than any other demographic group. Additionally, Unruly found that millennials are also the most likely to use ad blockers or put videos on mute if they find them of poor quality or inauthentic. Registering with younger viewers are “happiness and inspiration,” emotions which resonate strongly with millennials. With this in mind, the ads from Monaker Group capture enjoyable and special travel experiences in ALRs.
Bill Kerby, founder, chairman, and CEO of Monaker, says that the ALR industry is the fastest growing sector in travel, projected by industry experts to reach $169 billion by 2019.
Also, NextTrip.com enables potential travelers to upgrade to resorts and book through Maupintour, a luxury tour company with more than 65 years of experience in the travel industry, Monaker reported in the SEC filing.
Through its YouTube channel, the company noted in the 10-K that it has more than 16,000 hours of raw travel footage. It finds that selling its travel products is significantly more effective when videos can be seen in advance by the potential purchaser.
Although Monaker says that it has not filed for copyright protection for any particular content, it noted in the filing that it has registered several Internet domain names related to its business in order to protect its proprietary interests.
Monaker is a travel-driven, high technology company with inventory in alternative rentals. On its proprietary and partnership platforms, the company has built a video library, facilitated media distribution and developed industry relationships. These are elements Monaker believes are important to gaining a large audience of travelers in the ALR industry.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Twitter Update To Add GIFs Option On Gboard
http://dtn.fm/SJti9
Twitter’s next major update is something to look forward to. For one thing, the application will soon allow for direct searches for GIFs via Google’s keyboard, called Gboard. The beta build that is currently being tested has been leaked to confirm this upcoming feature.
According to Android Police, the next Twitter app update is expected to complement Android 7.1’s feature that enables users to directly insert GIFs into an application using a compatible keyboard. Though Android 7.1 already came with this feature, Twitter didn’t have support for this to work until recently when version 6.33.0-beta.556 was released. The beta build was recently found to support the new functionality.
The new Twitter beta was released on Saturday and it is available for download as an APK that is compatible with Android 4.1 and newer versions. Once the latest beta release is installed, the Twitter app will enable the functionality to search for GIFs on the Gboard keyboard. Inserting a GIF should then be as easy as tapping one from the search results. This feature works with both tweets and DMs, so users can go all out in sending GIFs to their pals or followers.
Click the link for complete article.
Facebook's Fight for User Privacy
http://dtn.fm/B5o7K
New York's highest court will weigh whether Facebook Inc. can legally challenge search warrants issued for the accounts of its users, a case that has been closely watched for its ramifications on law enforcement and digital privacy in the state.
The Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments Feb. 7 in a lawsuit brought by Facebook against the Manhattan district attorney's office.
The Manhattan district attorney's office received search warrants for the Facebook accounts of 381 people during a fraud investigation. Prosecutors charged 62 of the 381 account holders.
The case illustrates how courts grapple with interpreting old laws as technologies change, said Faiza Patel, an attorney at New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, which submitted a friend-of-the court brief supporting Facebook.
Click the link for complete article.
Facebook starts opening its black box to keep advertisers from avoiding Audience Network
http://dtn.fm/1zbHG
Late last May, GroupM’s head of paid social, Kieley Taylor, sent an email to the WPP-owned media agency network’s paid social teams in the US. She had just finished one of her regular check-ins with Facebook, during which she was told that any video ads bought through Facebook would now be automatically opted in to run across Audience Network, Facebook’s ad network of third-party sites and apps. Taylor’s message to her team was clear: Opt out now.
“Our hesitation to use Audience Network really comes from a place of complete lack of transparency,” Taylor said in an interview.
GroupM advises its clients and the agencies within its network against buying ads on Facebook’s Audience Network because Facebook does not tell advertisers where exactly those ads appear. When GroupM is paying for its clients’ ads to run somewhere, it expects to know exactly where they ran. And when those ads are running across an ad network, it expects to receive “at minimum a domain-level report,” said Taylor. So for GroupM, Facebook’s Audience Network inventory is “off the table because we can secure and validate inventory for any other partner to a greater extent,” she said.
Click the link for complete article.
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Helping People Visit Destinations Likely to Disappear
Travel to far and remote destinations is easier than it has ever been. Travel companies have not only made traveling accessible, but also more economical. People are now able to explore some of the remarkable destinations our world holds, including natural wonders and historical sites. However, some of these places are in danger of disappearing.
Climate change, over farming, natural erosion, pollution, urbanization and general exploitation, are just some of the causes for the potential loss of these places. Although environmental organizations recognize the threat and are putting in place procedures to maintain these destinations for as long as possible, they remain at risk. According to Business Insider (http://dtn.fm/ctV1K), some of these endangered destinations include the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Florida Everglades, and many other famous destinations.
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), a technology driven travel company, is making these destinations accessible through its subsidiary, Maupintour. Founded by Tom Maupin in the 50’s, Maupintour gives solo travelers and groups the chance to organize highly customizable private tours across the globe, including to threatened destinations.
Tours organized through Maupintour cover many extra features that, if organized separately, would cost much more, such as local guides, great accommodations, comprehensive tours, special events, entertainment, entrance fees, airport transfers, and hotel transfers.
The company organizes tours to Europe, Africa, Central and South America, Asia and India, Australia and New Zealand, as well as throughout the United States. Maupintour has the highest repeat rate in the industry, with some travelers taking up to 60 vacation tour packages with the company. Maupintour tours make natural and man-made wonders of the world accessible to travelers at an affordable price, while they are still there to see.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Helping People Visit Destinations Likely to Disappear
Travel to far and remote destinations is easier than it has ever been. Travel companies have not only made traveling accessible, but also more economical. People are now able to explore some of the remarkable destinations our world holds, including natural wonders and historical sites. However, some of these places are in danger of disappearing.
Climate change, over farming, natural erosion, pollution, urbanization and general exploitation, are just some of the causes for the potential loss of these places. Although environmental organizations recognize the threat and are putting in place procedures to maintain these destinations for as long as possible, they remain at risk. According to Business Insider (http://dtn.fm/ctV1K), some of these endangered destinations include the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Florida Everglades, and many other famous destinations.
Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI), a technology driven travel company, is making these destinations accessible through its subsidiary, Maupintour. Founded by Tom Maupin in the 50’s, Maupintour gives solo travelers and groups the chance to organize highly customizable private tours across the globe, including to threatened destinations.
Tours organized through Maupintour cover many extra features that, if organized separately, would cost much more, such as local guides, great accommodations, comprehensive tours, special events, entertainment, entrance fees, airport transfers, and hotel transfers.
The company organizes tours to Europe, Africa, Central and South America, Asia and India, Australia and New Zealand, as well as throughout the United States. Maupintour has the highest repeat rate in the industry, with some travelers taking up to 60 vacation tour packages with the company. Maupintour tours make natural and man-made wonders of the world accessible to travelers at an affordable price, while they are still there to see.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
Monaker Group, Inc. (MKGI) Announces Addition of Robert Post to Board of Directors
Technology-driven travel company Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) this morning announced the appointment of Robert Post, president and CEO of Cloud5 Communications and executive chairman of The Knowland Group, to its board of directors. Following this addition, the company’s board now includes six members, four of whom are serving independently.
“Bob’s appointment adds a tremendous wealth of senior-level experience, knowledge and accomplishments to our board,” Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group, stated in this morning’s news release. “We expect Bob to provide valuable guidance and insights as the company enters a pivotal period in its growth and development. This includes our near-term launch of the industry’s first-ever ‘real-time’ alternative lodging reservation system, which also offers mainstream travel products and services all on a single site.”
All told, Post brings more than two decades of experience in the travel and hospitality sectors to the Monaker team. In addition to his time with Cloud5, the largest provider of cloud-based telecommunications and high speed internet services to some of the hospitality industry’s most recognizable brands, Post previously served as chairman and CEO of TravelCLICK, a leading provider of hotel e-commerce solutions with operations spanning 140 countries. Under his guidance, TravelCLICK grew from $35 million in annual revenue to more than $200 million, achieving high double-digit profitability. Post also served as the CFO and VP of business development of OpenTable.com, which was eventually acquired by the Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN) for $2.6 billion.
For Monaker Group, the appointment of Robert Post as an independent addition to its board of directors is in line with previously announced intentions for a Nasdaq uplisting. Per Nasdaq listing requirements, the company will be required to maintain a majority of independent directors on its board in order to qualify for uplisting in the future.
Post’s appointment marks the second such announcement from Monaker Group during the first month of 2017. On January 5, the company announced the appointment of Simon Orange, the founding partner and chairman of CorpAcq, to its board. At the time of that appointment, CEO Bill Kerby noted that, while the addition of Orange to Monaker Group’s board of directors satisfied the listing requirements for an independent majority, the company planned to continue its “search and evaluation process to bring on additional board members” in an effort to strengthen its leadership and the composition of its board committees.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com
MKGI Announces Addition of Robert Post to Board of Directors
Technology-driven travel company Monaker Group, Inc. (OTCQB: MKGI) this morning announced the appointment of Robert Post, president and CEO of Cloud5 Communications and executive chairman of The Knowland Group, to its board of directors. Following this addition, the company’s board now includes six members, four of whom are serving independently.
“Bob’s appointment adds a tremendous wealth of senior-level experience, knowledge and accomplishments to our board,” Bill Kerby, chairman and CEO of Monaker Group, stated in this morning’s news release. “We expect Bob to provide valuable guidance and insights as the company enters a pivotal period in its growth and development. This includes our near-term launch of the industry’s first-ever ‘real-time’ alternative lodging reservation system, which also offers mainstream travel products and services all on a single site.”
All told, Post brings more than two decades of experience in the travel and hospitality sectors to the Monaker team. In addition to his time with Cloud5, the largest provider of cloud-based telecommunications and high speed internet services to some of the hospitality industry’s most recognizable brands, Post previously served as chairman and CEO of TravelCLICK, a leading provider of hotel e-commerce solutions with operations spanning 140 countries. Under his guidance, TravelCLICK grew from $35 million in annual revenue to more than $200 million, achieving high double-digit profitability. Post also served as the CFO and VP of business development of OpenTable.com, which was eventually acquired by the Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN) for $2.6 billion.
For Monaker Group, the appointment of Robert Post as an independent addition to its board of directors is in line with previously announced intentions for a Nasdaq uplisting. Per Nasdaq listing requirements, the company will be required to maintain a majority of independent directors on its board in order to qualify for uplisting in the future.
Post’s appointment marks the second such announcement from Monaker Group during the first month of 2017. On January 5, the company announced the appointment of Simon Orange, the founding partner and chairman of CorpAcq, to its board. At the time of that appointment, CEO Bill Kerby noted that, while the addition of Orange to Monaker Group’s board of directors satisfied the listing requirements for an independent majority, the company planned to continue its “search and evaluation process to bring on additional board members” in an effort to strengthen its leadership and the composition of its board committees.
For more information, visit www.MonakerGroup.com