Some Thoughts on the Web 2.0 Awards

I chose "Travel" from the "Award Categories" list to explore in depth (although I also looked at "Music" and "Real Estate.") Of the three winners, I selected Real Travel (http://realtravel.com/) because it had a blog feature, where people could talk about their experiences in a particular travel destination. Of course, I chose Amelia Island as my first destination ... The blogs focused on the hotels/resorts that people stayed at and I didn't really learn anything new except that staying at the Ritz Carlton and Amelia Plantation required a really large amount of tipping (and that it might be a good idea to save up for that aspect of the trip!) There are links to several other sites, including Travelocity, which was specifically the tool for booking hotels. The only hotels that came up were the two mentioned above and the rest were in the "Jacksonville Area." Having been there, I knew that there were a lot more places to stay on Amelia Island. My conclusion after some more searching was that a website is only as useful as the quality of it's content, even if it is well-designed. Real Travel had some really cool features and it was designed well but the tools/links that it utilizes could use some improvement. (I found the same to be true for a real estate Web 2.0 winning site that I looked at: good ideas, good design but uneven results when it came to content.) Really great potential but not yet ready for practical application in a library setting!