Cool to see that Bing Maps now has another new app, the Taxi fare calculator. To use the app, simply jump to Bing Maps (http://www.bing.com/maps/), select the Map Apps option and look for Taxi fare calculator. then you enter the start and ending addresses for a pre-defined area of availability. To test the service I tried using a recent taxi ride that I took from the Omni Hotel, San Diego, CA to the airport. the suggested trip fare was $12.96… pretty darned close I’d have to say!! Although, if you happen to get in the same cab as the young Shmuck that picked me up, you’ll likely pay closer to $16 + tip – the reason?? Check out the route that this dude elected to take, obviously in an effort to bumb up the fare a couple of dollars… I knew exactly what the dude was up to but I was hardly in the mood to get into it with him, perhaps next time. See the map below, the RED line is the route he took me on, the green is how he actually should have done the trip. Next time I’ll use the Bing taxi fare calculator perhaps
Archives for August 3, 2010
A Social PR and Marketing Tip – Add a TweetMe line to your PR
There’s many different ways to participate in the “new media”. In addition to simply blasting out those lengthy PR releases, many companies are now become quite innovative, adding youtube videos with their press (personally I love this!) as well as including mentions of facebook fan pages and the all important Twitter account… these are no-brainers! A recent PR I received about a mobile health summit triggered something with me though, the PR company also included a handy “TweetMe” suggestion. simply put, they provided a short sentence (less than 140 characters) that those interested can easily copy/paste and Tweet in order to share the news with others… great idea!
So, the next time you pen a PR release and send it out for distribution, think about adding a section devoted to your company’s social media efforts and include links to your relevant social media resources and be sure to also include a TweetMe suggestion. The following is a sample that I read in the mHealth summit PR (notice the custom bit.ly link (for tracking stats) and the hashtag):
Tweet me: Mobiles instead of PCs? Bill #Gates to keynote #mHealth Summit Nov 8-10 Washington DC http://bit.ly/cpueKW #mHS10 #ICT4D #technology