In the process I will work out fresh content, fix loopholes and remove redundant or confusive elements. Dense, my culture blog, is closing for now, and new stuff is lined up. Incubator was a start, overhauling the CSS was a consequence. As always, your feedback is welcome.

I think this all makes perfectly sense. You probably came to the site because you wanted to look up a place. Your main interest is to look up information about a trip you are planning on, or to look up a couple of places you had in mind. At the same time you don't mind being allured to look into other places, because the site applies a well balanced mixture of push and pull. Commercial offers live in harmony with folksonomy.

Before creating a website like TravelPost, you have to ask yourself a couple of simple questions. And you have to be not afraid of the answers. Take them as your road map for marketing, branding and usability. Being honest to yourself and to your client can actually give you an advantage when your site hits the market of competing websites.

What are the most important questions?

1. Why do people come to travel-websites? To book a hotel right away, or to spend time traveling before the actual trip?
2. Before they will book a room in a hotel or resort, what will convince them to choose this particular offering over a different one?
3. Is pricing the only or most important issue for your visitors?

Pricing has a certain relevance if it comes to city traveling, weekend trips and short business trips. If you are traveling to a foreign country and you are staying there for more than one night, you want something decent, reliable, comfortable. And you care more about "what can I do in this neighbourhood" than about low rates.

Conclusion

Combining folksonomy with brand values is what makes the true art of creating conversation websites. The example of TravelPost shows how you can build a solid foundation for your branding platforms, by using best practice in design, user experience, and most of it all by not being afraid of putting people's opionions and commercial offers on the same page.

Being unobtrusive and not pushy about your offers is paramount. People have a tendency to accept ads (text and links) more easily once they are allured by your site content. Microsoft's Expedia, for an example, is considered a leader in travel websites. But if you compare the two examples, which one appears friendlier to you?

On Expedia, the most prominent element is "Plan your trip, book a flight and a hotel". That might be of importance to me at some point, but I first want to find out about the place I'm visiting. I could look it up at Wikipedia, but given its straight forward name, I would expect Expedia to give me all information I want, providing a great travel experience in itself.

Resources
• SimpleBits has helped redesigning TravelPost and creating a better user experience
• Microsoft Expedia
• TravelPost

Apple is an extremely focussed, minimalist-style company. It has a strong focus on direction and is obsessed with purity and simplicity, mainly because Steve Jobs and Johnathan Ives are Zen-driven gurus. If the CEO says "We have a simple product and I want a simple packaging", there is no room to argue about that.

Besides, Apple has a different market position than Microsoft. Microsoft creates mainly software products (I think their only hardware is a mouse), and naturally, Microsofts software is placed on a shelf of boxes where thousands of other titles are competing. So in that same shelf, you would never find an iPod placed. A software packaging is also very different, it has indeed bulleted text, it has features, vendor logos -- Apple software products are not much different in packaging from other vendors. It is still a little bit cleaner though.

The iPod is iconic, it stands out by itself as a product already. It is featured in Apple Stores mainly, or third party stores dedicated to Apple products, or at least in a corner with Apple products. People buying an iPod are getting one because they were looking for that Apple boot or that Apple Store. Standing in front of a shelf filled with Microsoft software boxes, these people simply don't think about iPods.

It is also true that Microsoft has a different selling philosophy than Apple. Microsoft allures people by making them feel secure that they choose the right product. Microsoft's brand language is "Look, I'm the mother of all software. I am the de facto standard, so you can't go wrong with me!". Looking at it that way, everything Microsoft adds to a packaging underlines this approach.

"What's the news" you will say, and you are right. Interaction is the very nature of the Web, and the user experience has always been important. And yet, it is the approach, a different point of focus that marks the revolution in Web 2.0.

From a technological point of view, many will agree that only now, the Web has emerged to the point where browsers offer a more or less consistent behaviour, based on modern standards (let's exclude Microsofts Internet Explorer for once). Right now, modern technologies like Ajax (ironically invented by Microsoft), PHP, XHTML and CSS are driving the Web engine and improve the overall user experience to a degree never achieved before. Second to that, the consistent use of Open Source technology standards finally enables people with grey cells to not only plan better user experience, but also to pull it off.

So Web 2.0 is indeed about you and me, the average user, and not only geeks with powerful computers. It is about enabling people to communicate with websites, to interact freely and in most cases in real time. But this only works if the technology behind it is consistent in its expected behaviour and flexible in versatile application.

What makes Web 2.0 special -- the very reason why someone gave it a name -- is, it is marking a new era of understanding and establishment. It is as if someone had drawn a line under a kind of beta testing phase of the Web. It is remarkable that Web 2.0 draws so big waves, given the fact it does not really come with a true invention. It is basically a summary of existing technologies driving an improved, more stable and higher capable Web, resulting in a more satisfying experience.

In many ways, Web 2.0 sums up what core is all about since it started out as an idea on the sketch board. Core is about you, the average user. It is about the core of everything, the message, the truth in it and the brand -- not only as a promotional tool but as something that lets people participate.

Every website designed by core, every consulting we do, each product we help our clients to give birth, contains a spark, the very core of what Web 2.0 emphasizes. In the end, our effort leads to a higher capable and more satisfying experience, by everyone involved: you, your clients and ourselves.