On Thursday, Google announced it would acquire ITA, a travel software firm, and immediately launched the requisite website pro-actively lobbying to get the deal approved by regulators.

I shared the following POV on the implications of the Google ITA acquisition with Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost for her article, “Google Buys ITA Travel Software Co. For $700 Million Cash, Dings Bing.”

Let’s start with advantages to users, which is always how Google thinks about things. The future of search utility is not in links but in actions. In my book [Chapter 21: Future Proofing, to be exact] I talk about how the future is search-and-act engines or “app-ssistants” like Siri (which Apple bought) that allow you to give instructions rather than submit queries and deliver actions not just links. So for example, if you’re planning a trip you can just tell your app-ssistant, “Chicago to New York for pleasure” and it will fetch you an itinerary with airlines, hotel, car rental, dinner reservations, theater tickets, etc. all based on your saved preferences. In this example, a product like ITA is critical to gathering and organizing much of the data needed to complete the action.

For advertisers, the advantages are a little less obvious. Long-term, search-and-act engines will provide tremendous opportunities to brands that have digitized and distributed their assets [as outlined in Chapter 17: Show Off Your Assets] so app-ssistants can find them and include them in the actions they deliver. Short-term, ITA likely means more traffic to Google and, importantly, more commercial queries that advertisers love because they represent someone ready to buy, read: strong ROI. [More on this in Chapter 4: Mindset Matters.]

For Google, more commercial queries mean more ad revenue. Also, Bing has been playing up its strengths in travel with Farecast integration. This deal should give Google the decided edge and help it retain share.

Image Source: Channel Fever.net

For my first post, I thought I’d give a behind the scenes tour of the cribs I holed up in while working on my manuscript.

This was my desk at Resolution Media. I got the boot from my office in early ’09 when I stopped working at the firm full-time and moved into a consultant role. So I nabbed this quaint corner cube. I spent the week between Christmas and New Years here cranking away on Chapters 1-10. The agency was closed during that time so I was able to write uninterrupted. This desk now belongs to one Stacie Susens and that’s her decor you’re seeing adorning the cube. I didn’t think to take a picture of my set-up there before moving out. Needless to say, I didn’t keep it nearly as tidy as Ms. Susens.

This is my desk at Elevate Studios in Chicago. I moved into this office in February and wrote chapters 11-20 here. Check out my nifty exercise ball chair. It’s supposed to make you buff while you work. That’s if used correctly, though. I tend to do a lot of bouncing (much to the chagrin of the Elevater’s) and slouching. I also did a lot of pacing and loud keyboard clacking. (I use my entire left hand to type but only the index finger on my right. Don’t ask why… I did have a computer in elementary school but always cheated and looked at the keyboard during the typing tests.) Note the Jimmy Johns menu affixed to the bulletin board. As mentioned in the Acknowledgements, that was my go-to spot for eats but I really never varied from the #14 so not sure why I needed the menu.

I spent way too much time during my family vacation in Cancun the 2nd week in March working on this book. Although, I must say, this was by far the most inspiring place to write. Too bad I was writing about marketing and not more heady topics. Chapter 21 was hatched here and I did some serious tweaking to Chapters 1-20 during this trip. I was only able to make use of the balcony for a few hours each day because they’d start pumping the bass for aquatics exercise class around noon and keep the festivities rolling through bingo and on into happy hour. So I found a nice quiet spot in one of the restaurants where I could hole up and write undisturbed. That view was not much to speak of, though. Although the queso was pretty good looking.

This was me on the “thinking couch” at Elevate the day my manuscript was due. I printed out all 350 pages, curled up witha red pen and went to town with my “final” edits. (Yes, I had more than one Coke that day.) Somehow I managed to get the manuscript completed and off to my editors at 12:08 on April 1st, missing my deadline by only 8 minutes. Fortunately, McGraw-Hill didn’t give me much flack for being late. The book is currently going through the editing stages before being sent to layout and production. Release date is set for August 27th. Oh, and did I mention it’s now available for pre-order?!