The good people, more precisely P.Ling, at Uptake’s Travel Industry Blog ranked me among their top 15 Hotel Blogs. Thank you P. Ling at Uptake!
For me a reason to look again at one of my favorite posts: Blogging Hotel Insiders. I had 40 Blogging hotel insiders. My choice was a bit wider on the one hand and a bit narrower on the other hand: I did not include some Travel Industry Blogs. In addition there are still a some to be added. So I updated my post and put it in the sidebar as one of my favorite posts.
Then, thanks to @CleverClogs of Clever Clogs – what’s in a name, see below:-) – I found ClusterUrl and as a test put the 15 mentioned by Uptake in a Cluster: Top 15 Hotel Blogs and Bloggers according to Uptake.
About ClusterUrl
ClusterUrl is a simple mash up to avoid having your browser open with umpteen screens. Instead you can put them in a Cluster and refer back to the cluster and share various links with your friends or readers. For the time being I have this one published at the bottom of my sidebar.
Then Amplify found me and had me fiddling around with it. Now what is Amplify? It is a Multi User WordPress blog where you can dump clippings of sites you are browsing for later reading or for sharing via Twitter. It has some nifty features and it is free. So it is a ClipLog or abbreviated a Clog. As a Dutchman, or inhabitant of Cloggieland as my foreign friends tend to tease me, this new term appeals to me. From now on I’m a Clogger. Look it up! Here is my little Amplify stream.
About Amplify
Amplify was developed by the same company that created Clipmarks.com. Clipmarks, based in New York City, is majority-owned and operated by its employees. Forbes Media holds a minority interest in the company. The Company’s philosophy on information sharing is comprised of three main principles: (i) people can do a better job than algorithms of filtering the massive amount of information that’s available on the web; (ii) serendipitous discovery is often more compelling than information organized by topic; and (iii) limiting the length of shared content allows people to learn about more topics than they would otherwise have time or patience for.Post Alia
Amplify was created to serve the needs of two audiences that are not the focus of Clipmarks.com: (i) Twitter users; and (ii) Groups.
Both have in common that they draw traffic away from your blog on the one hand. On the other hand it can draw traffic to your blog from the specific community….
The same problem you have with syndicating your content.
A pregnant example of problems with syndication is Uptake’s post. If I look at Technorati, it is not Uptake who links to me, but PhocusWright where they syndicated this post…although tecnorati is fast sliding in oblivion when it continues to behave so wobbly as it does now already for months..Apparently PhocusWright has a higher Technorati ranking than Uptake today… Nowadays WordPress uses Google for it’s track backs. So in my WP Dashboard Google gives the original track back. You see? I’ll never understand SEO….
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Russian Lace for a new Amsterdam Hotel Design Concept
I was just talking about the Dutch influencing the UK and the US in the 17nd century. But we also influenced the Russian Czar Peter the great who lived a couple of years in The Netherlands to learn the craft of ship building. The wooden Czar Peter house in Zaandam, north of Amsterdam where he lived is still a tourist attraction today.
This cultural bond with Russia has recently culminated in Russian president Medvedev opening the Amsterdam branch of the Russian St Petersburg Hermitage museum, the Hermitage Amsterdam together with our Queen Beatrix. In its first month it drew over 100,000 visitors, which is not bad for a medium sized museum.
Now I would like to introduce you to a young Russian Designer Dima Loginoff. He wants to bring Russian lace back to Amsterdam in the form of a concept of the Lace Hotel. I take it he has looked a bit to Dutch designer Marcel Wanders who also thinks lace. As I quoted in a prior “The future is back to knitting” and lace is the result of a sort of knitting isn’t it?
Lace-Hotel-Amsterdam-by-Dima Loginoff- Interior
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Confessions of a Hotelier: Two Brides – One (G)room…almost
Our small luxurious 3 suites hotel is the Siamese twin of our own terraced townhouse. It’s front door is always closed and I always receive our guests personally. Sometimes I receive several just married couples after their wedding party in the middle of the night (early in the morning). Also this time…
Couple 1 had the key already, because they had stayed the night before their wedding.
Couple 2 had not arrived yet.
It was approx 02.15 AM
I had fallen asleep in my chair…watching some night movie.
My wife was in bed already and woke me up: “Darling, I believe they’ve arrived. I believe I hear something next door”
I listened and said “No, I don’t hear anything… not possible…they didn’t ring the doorbell…I would have known”
A few moments later:
“Ring Ring” the telephone. “Yes we are Couple 2 and, err, I’m now taking a bath, but we thought this is kind of strange, because we believed we would be welcomed personally and we didn’t see anybody”
Me: “I’m glad you called! Yes you are right it is our intention to always welcome everybody personally!..I have several things here ready for you” (champagne and sandwiches that I subsequently served to the room)…
Turned out Couple 1 had checked themselves in and left the front door ajar without them or me noticing and Couple 2 had thought there was an electric door opener. Luckily they had taken the correct suite ….
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Books about the common roots of UK, US and Dutch societies
In my previous post I promised to share two books I’m currently reading.
Recently, on occasion of their return to Texas, we offered a farewell dinner to an expat couple that had resided with us as long stay guests. They concluded their stay in The Netherlands of over three years with the observation that there are more similarities in character between Americans and Dutch that they would have believed. They also pointed me to a recent book of Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World, that gives some background explanation.
It is an epic story about the discovery of New Amsterdam and it’s early years as a settlement of the Dutch West Indies Company (in Dutch Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie). The book is based on historic material kept under dust for ages, but popped up in Albany, New York, of all places. For over 25 years there sits a historian who is in the process of translating over 12,000 Dutch language documents dating back to the first half of the 17nd century. The Dutch were too tidy and destroyed most of their West India Company’s archives so it is a sort of wonder this new material popped up. It is known as The New Netherland Project or NNP. Do visit their site as they have a wealth of material!
I learned Englishman Henry Hudson discovered New Amsterdam on commission of the Dutch East India Company (VOC or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). On a former trip he had discovered Newfoundland on commission of the British Muscovy Company, in search of a northern passage to the India. He had hoped that via the rivers Hudson or Connecticut he could reach the great lakes and from there there was a passage to India.
When buying The Island at the Center of the World I stumbled on the book Going Dutch, How England Plundered Holland’s Glory, by English writer Lisa Jardine.
Coincidentally Robbert Russo penned an insightful column for the New York Times Going Dutch about how an American looks at Dutch society.
Lisa uses the subtitle more as a eye catcher than as a flag covering her cargo: She describes the early 17nd century more from a view of an art historian. How thinkers, architects, landscape architects, sculptors and painters from the low countries influenced the English courts. How members of the Royalists party got refuge in The Hague during Cromwell’s reign and how the various European courts especially those who were not in the Roman Catholic league like the Spanish were related, intermingled and intermarried and tried to cooperate in their struggle against the Spanish. All up to the year 1688 when William and Mary took over the English throne.
It is really fun to read the two books together. If you’re interested in Dutch, US and/or UK history both books are a must read!
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