Were you a huge fan of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? Or maybe you just have a thing for geography? Well, Lufthansa totally understands and they're rekindling a bit of the Carmen Sandiago adrenaline with their second version of the geography trivia web game "Virtual Pilot."

In Virtual Pilot 1, you'd be given a city name and you'd have to click on a map in order to "land your plane" as close to there as possible. The first round showed city dots and country borders, the second round only had country borders, and the third round only gave you land masses to go by. We fared pretty well on it, but Virtual Pilot II is kicking our butt hardcore. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-03T15:59:21-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/12/134750/29

Lufthansa is announcing the launch of MySkyStatus, a new web service that lets you send live information about your flight status to your Facebook and Twitter streams. The setup is entirely straightforward - give them your account credentials, type in your flight information, and you're good to go. Regardless of what airline you're flying, the service will send updates like "Jaunted is now flying over Paris, France" to your accounts.

This seems like a neat way to keep friends and family abreast about where you are, plus status updates are supposed to be about your status. If you're over Paris that's what you'd be tweeting if you had cell phone access. So you might as well set up a service to do it for you. The messages even come with a link to a Google Maps mashup that shows your plane's location. ]]> Omri 2009-10-12T17:28:36-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/8/81933/7680

There were the good times and there were the bad, but most of all, there were the sleep-deprived times; today marks the end of the first-ever All-You-Can-Jet Pass from Jetblue. After today, the mini-population of AYCJers who've been residing in the skies this past month will return to solid ground, and to their own beds, although they may still dream for days that they're sleeping behind a departures board.

There's no doubt that Jetblue's $599 pass was a resounding success, earning them millions of dollars in publicity while they filled seats on flights that would have otherwise gone empty. Wired's Terminal Man was just one of the AYCJers who became a Jetblue ambassador by default, as everyone from NBC to local news stations to Wired readers came to visit him during layovers. We even find ourselves looking forward to reading the tweets of AYCJers, and now have to break our addiction to this, some of the best and most humorous twittering out there. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-10-08T09:33:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/8/102350/1905

Today is the day we have been waiting for since Jetblue announced in mid-August that they'd be selling an "All-You-Can-Jet" Pass for $599 for one month of unlimited travel on their routes; it's the first day of the thirty valid for travel on the pass. Somebody break out the bugle and play "Reveille" please so these jetters have a proper send-off?

Since the pass started selling like hotcakes, we've watched Facebook groups, Twitters and various other social media networks pop up to rally around those taking part in it. They are the AYCJ-ers, and their adventures begin now.

To follow the spontaneous folks—including one guy who refuses to leave the airports during his thirty day of non-stop travel—we've compiled a list of All-You-Can-Jet groups to follow: ]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-08T11:24:48-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/3/55628/07092

The Guatemala Tourism Board has become the latest tourism organization to go all-in on web marketing. The board's new "Last Minute" campaign tries to bring together potential travel customers with potential travel providers. Ads will be placed on Google and Facebook and aimed at users who are already searching for Guatemala-related topics, so it won't interrupt your Facebook zombie app or anything.

Users who click on the ads will be taken to a campaign-specific English/Spanish website. The site tries to go beyond the usual "come here because we're awesome" tourism site, linking the 70+ sponsoring travel companies with users. Offers run the gamut from accommodations to food to activities. The site will also include 25% off coupons for these amenities, plus car rentals and tours. ]]> Omri 2009-09-03T10:24:45-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/20/65531/1859

Did you snag one of the much-coveted All-You-Can-Jet Passes from Jetblue? If you did, congratulations and we want to hear all about it once you begin traveling in a few weeks. If you didn't, sorry but it's too late since Jetblue says that demand was way higher than they ever hoped, and therefore they ended sales of the pass early, closing it yesterday instead of August 21.

Ever since the pass was announced on August 12, the country (and aviation fiends like ourselves) have gone crazy over it, mapping dream routes in our heads and attempting to justify taking a month off of work. Some are actually doing it, like Seth Miller, an IT consultant whom Time describes as an "aerophile." He's mainly interested in the actual flying and airport visiting, and so, during one weekend, he'll fly from "New York to Ponce, Puerto Rico back to New York to Las Vegas to Long Beach, Calif. to Portland, Ore. back to Long Beach to Chicago to New York to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and back to New York one last time." ]]> JetSetCD 2009-08-20T09:29:38-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/3/5252/30973

Memo to booking and airline companies: despite how it sometimes might appear, we're on your side. Really we are. We want you to only do smart things. When you do not smart things you incur costs without producing revenue, creating shortfalls that you pass on to us. That means we travel less, which causes us to get just a wee bit claustrophobic, and without getting into too many details - everybody loses.

Shifting gears, the last few years have seen something of a trend among the 30 year old former frat boys who inhabit the classrooms of our nation's fine MBA programs. Specifically, if a project has a Facebook application or somehow involves Twitter, it's gold. Conversely, projects without Web 2.0 tie-ins are preemptively deemed failures. Proposals don't have to make sense. They just has to have lots of phrases like "viral advertising" and "user generated content."

Fast forward a few years and these supple minds are now consultants, randomly going from business to business telling middle managers to invest in Facebook apps. To which we can only respond the same way fashion blogs react when starlets show up to awards shows wearing formal shorts. Oh honey, no:]]> Omri 2009-08-05T09:04:30-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/