Out with the old, in with the new, out with the new, in with the old

Tnooz was asked this week to participate in a roundtable discussion hosted by prominent Northern Irish blogger and author Mick Fealty, editor of Slugger O'Toole.

Fealty hosts a weekly show called DigitalLunch and this Friday it was the turn of tourism to take centre stage, with a focus on technology and how it is changing consumer behaviour and the industry.

So what, you might say - various Tnooz staff are on such panels and the like fairly regularly, right? They are.

What was different about this event is that the entire thing was hosted using one of the new Google Hangouts, essentially a meeting place with video for each participant and interactive functions so that those listening in can pose questions, etc.

For a fledgling (and free) product, Hangout is pretty smart, we think.

One of the participants during the discussion, Larry Fournillier, a chef from the Caribbean who uses technology to attract tourists to his cooking activity classes, says over time that Hangouts could be a better way to showcase a hotel or attraction to potential visitors over the web.

Whilst such an idea is not fully formed, he might be on to something, especially when Hangout hits mobiles and tablets in a useful way.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we (our reporter Linda Fox anyway) were glad to see that it's not just about iPads and apps in the world of modern aviation.

Fox's fellow reporter Sean O'Neill wrote this week about how pilots around the world are using various apps on tablet devices to help plan routes, calculate aircraft weight and fuel efficiency, etc.

Great.

Luckily for the old skoolers, refreshing to see some pilots still like to slap a map on the inside of their cockpit window when plotting their route out of a Spanish airport.