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I am about to embark on a trip alone across Europe overland – mainly by train. It’s almost 15 years since I last made a similar trip. Many things have changes over this period – I’m older, have travelled a lot more and am now more likely to stay in hotels than camp rough – but the biggest change is the way that social media is helping me do things I could never do back then. On that first trip, I had no mobile phone and not even an email address. Now I have many tools at my disposal to help plan and do more.

1. Planning the trip

Then: 15 years ago my only planning tool were two big books – a set of European train timetables that I had to pour over to check if I could get from one place to another, and a Western European guidebook. I couldn’t find out anything about the journeys I might take except for when the trains would be, and I risked falling into the trap of only going to places in the guidebook. I could only plan, not book, and I put my faith in some timetables and 0ne guidebook.

Now: I have bought some guidebooks – but only for cities that I am planning to spend a lot of time in. My main planning tools this time have been online – a mix of more traditional tools (including the fantastic European train directory at The Man in Seat Sixty-One) to reviews sites (such as Tripadvisor), individual forums and blogs about certain destinations and even Twitter and Flickr. I’ve been able to research the different options, discover places I would never have found about in guidebooks and even check things such as what the overnight trains I am getting look like, what people say about them on Twitter and use these user reviews and images to decide when I want to travel in a seat, when in a couchette and when it is worth paying extra for a sleeper compartment.

2. Keeping people informed

Then: Without a mobile phone or email address the only way I could keep people informed was by finding a public phone box and calling home. I had an unwritten agreement that I would call home every five days to let people know where I was. I had left a rough plan with them and that was it. I don’t know, but I imagine there were some worried moments when I missed my planned call as I had to choose between queuing for a phone at a station in Rome and jumping on the train that evening to Sicily (I chose the latter!).

Now: This is an area of real change. Not only do I have a plan that some people can see on TripIt, but social media and mobile internet means I can inform individuals but also anybody who is interested in what I am doing, seeing and experiencing. And where I am. Twitter will let me update people in real time, tell them where I am and even share photos of what I am doing and seeing (if you’re interested you can follow me @mattrhodes). Foursquare is a great tool to allow me to quickly and easily share exactly where I am – the hotel, restaurant, station or beach I am on. People back home will know what I am doing and will be able to share the experiences I am having.

3. Keeping myself entertained

Then: On long train journeys and overnight you need ways to keep yourself entertained and distracted. Back then I had a MiniDisc player and a set of compilations I’d put together before I went. I had some books and then had to rely on meeting people who knew of things to do and things that were on in the destinations I visited. Or I had to rely on myself stumbling upon them – which once found me in a hard rock festival in Hungary…

Now: I’m still taking a lot of books, but rather than making my own compilations I am taking Spotify – and am crowd-sourcing a playlist so I can hear things I wouldn’t normally listen to. If you want to add some tracks to my list find it here: Make Matt a holiday playlist. I can use Twitter to find out what is on in destinations and what people think of them.

So what does this mean for the travel industry?

Social media is changing the way we travel. The way we plan, the way we book, the way we act when we are travelling and the way we report on it (in real-time and after the event). We are using review sites to book hotels and events. We are using Twitter and Flickr to find out what people really think of places we are going to or things we are going to do. We are using these same tools to report, often in real time, on what we are experiencing.

In this environment those in the travel industry need to take social media seriously, and find ways to make it work hard for them and their brand. They should be listening to what people are saying about them, their destinations and services and about their competitors. They should be identifying their advocates and dealing with those who are less positive about them online. They should use their experience and expertise to add real value to the discussions and debates in social media. And they should capitalise on the real-time discussions and reviews to showcase what people think of them, and also to start to service people in social media.

We’ve blogged before about how the travel industry can use social media and it is one of the industries where social media can make a real impact on a brand and a business. Right now, I am just grateful for the way social media has made planning and reporting on my travels much easier than 15 years ago – follow me to find out what I think of the places I visit!

Social media and social networks allow people to connect either because of a shared experience, a shared interest, concern, question or problem. Social networks, on one hand, are about connections – they allow people to connect and organise themselves and to keep in touch with people. Online communities, on the other hand, help connect people who share a similar experience, problem or situation.

In Haiti, both these types of social media have been helping victims. From giving them a voice and letting victims tell and share their stories, to providing tools to help find the missing, social media is a valuable tool in dealing with the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. There is much we can learn from this, many great inventions develop from crisis situations and looking at how people in Haiti are using social media.

Three examples of how Haitians are using social media stand out as great examples that we can learn from.

1. Providing a voice for victims

Too often, people object that social media and, specifically, tools like Twitter are full of people updating with seemingly meaningless statuses. This is not true. Twitter, specifically, allows people to share what they are doing or thinking at a particular time. These updates are not intended to be read by all or appreciated by all. But they are and they will be by some.

Twitter has proven to be a particularly important tool getting messages out in a crisis. Allowing those on the ground to inform those elsewhere about what is really happening. We saw this in Iran in the summer of 2009 and have posted before about the benefits (and challenges) of user-generated news.

For the victims of Haiti, social media has enabled them to share their story with the outside world. It makes them feel less isolated by providing them with a way to share what they are experiencing. And it provides us all with a real connection to people on the ground in an earthquake zone. Social media is a great way for people to share information and it really allows people to start to see and experience an event through the experiences of people who are there.

The kind of stories being shared include:

“Just experienced a MAJOR earthquake here in Port au Prince – walls were falling down. – we are ALL fine – pray for those in the slums” troylivesay

“The St Gerard Church has a school behind it that collapsed.I heard someone speaking from the rubble, feet were trapped he couldn’t get out” RAMhaiti

People in the streets are chanting as the night settles.” fredodupoux

2. Informing rescue attempts

Within hours of the earthquake hitting Haiti, victims and their families and friends started to organise themselves using social media tools. A huge task for aid agencies in crises like this is to compile and keep up-to-date a list of people who are missing. Tracking who is missing, who has been found and what their status is.

Social media has been helping with this task in two ways:

1. Building user-generated lists of the missing. Groups on Facebook has grown to list the missing – with hundreds of thousands of names gathered by people who are missing friends or family. Users update the information they know and together they crowd-source an up-to-date list of the missing
2. Co-ordinating rescue attempts. Twitter has provided a way for people who are missing to publicise where they are – sharing locations where they are trapped or from where they need rescuing. Using a common hashtag, the missing were able to attract rescuers to come and help them.

Social media is an especially useful tool when a large number of people each know a small piece of information, which when put together build the bigger picture. By getting users to tell us about the information they know and to keep this up-to-date, we can build a larger picture of what is really happening. This can be done with much less effort than trying to build a central picture from scratch.

3. Providing eyewitness content

The first images to emerge from Haiti on Tuesday this week, whilst most news agencies were still waiting for their correspondents to arrive in the country, came from mobile phones and were shared online. In a crisis situation like this, imagery and stories are critical to securing the donations needed to support rescue and relief attempts. And for both of these, time is of the essence. The sooner people donate money, the quicker support can be on the ground. Social media allowed imagery and videos to be shared and distributed more quickly and before some traditional news outlets were on location. It is these images that we have seen on social networks and across the news output and it is these that have prompted many people to donate and support the attempts to bring relief to the country.

Real eyewitness content does not replace balanced and informed reporting by traditional news organisations. But it does have a real role in communicating what is happening and letting people see what those on the ground are seeing. Social media allows these images and eyewitness stories to be spread more quickly than ever before. In a situation where time is critical, this is very important.

Three-quarters of Japanese social network users access the sites only from their mobile phones.

This observation comes from a survey conducted last year with almost 4,000 social network users in Japan by Mobile Marketing Data Labo. They found that 75.4% of respondents only accessed social networking sites from their mobile phone (and not from their PC). The number only accessing it from their PC (and not their mobile phone) was very low at just 2%.

This is a reflection on the mobile nature of the internet in Japan where 3G penetration stands at 95% of the market and 85% of customers have a data plan added to their contract. This is a much more developed mobile market than we see in Europe or North America and their use of mobile online services is world-leading.

These an other insights into the Japanese mobile social networking market is found in the great presentation below from Alexei Poliakov.

There is much that we can all learn from looking at the use of mobile internet, and the way it has influenced social networks in Japan. Whilst in other markets the growth in social networks sees a growth the likes of Twitter and Facebook, in Japan, homegrown social networks dominate. This is, in part, a result of the English-centric focus of these sites, at least initially. But also mobile social networking leads to a different type of site and different uses by consumers. In Japan, mixi and Mobage-town and Gree are incredibly successful social networks. Mixi has a reported 17 million users in Japan, compared with 1.4 million Facebook users and about half a million Japanese people on Twitter.

These social networks are very different in two main ways:

1. They put gaming either central to or highly within the user experience. Facebook and Twitter tend to be about content exchange or organisation whereas the Japanese social networks have a strong gaming element that attracts and connects users.
2. Premium content is often paid-for. Mixi, in particular, provides premium content and features at a fee to users and this is easily done by adding it to their mobile bill. (This trend explained the rumours that Twitter would charge for access in Japan)

Whilst it is unlikely that other markets will necessarily develop in the same way, it is interesting to see how these sites work and operate in Japan. An increasing penetration of 3G access and data-plan adoption in Europe, and the US, will see more and more people using their mobile as a major access point to the internet in 2010. And with social networking sites from Facebook to Twitter becoming more mobile friendly (such as the launch of push notifications on the iPhone from the Facebook app this week in the UK) it is likely that use of social networks from mobile devices will increase this year.

So we should learn more about what is happening in the more developed mobile markets like Japan. Whether it is simple things – such as brands allowing customers to complete a whole journey (from social networking site to purchased item) on convenient mobile platforms. Or more complex things – such as the adoption of paid-for add-ons to the mobile social networking experience. There is a lot for us to observe and a lot we should experiment with.

Here’s an idea I’ve ignored for a decade – virtual business cards.

Mashable just posted a list of 7 fantastic iphone business card apps. I had almost forgotten how in the late 90s there was a big expectation among early adopters that we’d all be switching from physical business cards to electronic ones.

I remember learning how to exchange business card details using my Palm V5. But I never used it. I never used it because it made people think I was weird, it took ages to try to connect and was just far more complicated than handing over a small card with my details.

Occasionally I exchange phone numbers accross mobile phones, but I can’t see the good old-fashioned business card being replaced by iPhone apps. If for no other reason than most people don’t have iPhones.

Am I missing something? Are the days of business-cards numbered for a good reason? Is social media going to kill the card?