Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Job: Online Redakteur(in) / Lektor(in) – freie Mitarbeit, Teilzeitjob (20-30 Std.), Arbeit von zu Hause, München

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

Wir suchen zur inhaltlichen Steuerung unserer Reise-Community eine(n) engagierte(n) und flexible(n) Online Redakteur(in)/Lektor(in). Ihre Aufgabe ist die Pflege unserer Community und die Betreuung (Rekrutierung, Kontaktpflege, Abrechnung) unserer Reiseredakteure.

Ihre Arbeit kann zum überwiegenden Teil von zu Hause aus erledigt werden. Zudem sind Sie in Ihrer Zeiteinteilung weitestgehend flexibel – mit Ausnahme einiger Terminsachen.  Sie sollten in München oder Umgebung wohnen, damit wir unkompliziert mit ihnen vor Ort Kontakt halten können.

Sie sind ein offener und kommunikativer Mensch, bringen ein Faible für Internet-Themen und Sprache mit und besitzen einen ehrlichen, lebensbejahenden Charakter. Dann passen Sie in unser kleines Team, das mit viel Herzblut unsere Reisecommunity vorantreibt.

Fühlen Sie sich angesprochen? Dann schicken Sie uns Ihre aussagekräftige Bewerbung an gf@cosmotourist.net.

Google testet – und breitet sich weiter aus!

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Heute Abend ist uns ein massiver Test in den Google Suchergebnissen aufgefallen. Die Lokalen Sucherergebnisse im Rahmen der Universal Search wurden dabei anders z.T auch massiver eingebunden.

Variante 1:

Die Map verdrängt rechts die Adsenseergebnisse und ein massiver Block in der Mitte verdrängt die organischen Ergebnisse. Links ist „places“ als Quernavigation ausgeklappt.

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Top 10 Städte in Europa

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

In London sind Hotels extrem teuer und gleichzeitig schmutzig, alt und renovierungsbedürftig.

Diese Einschätzung dürfte nichts neues sein und ist bei so ziemlich jedem London Besucher fest im Kopf verankert. Wir wollten es aber genauer Wissen und uns nicht nur auf Erzählungen bzw. unser eigenes Gefühl verlassen und haben in den letzten Tagen mehr als 90% aller Hotelbewertungen im deutsch und englischsprachigem Internet analysiert. Ergebnis ist eine Auswertung über alle wichtigen europäischen Städte nach Preis/Leistung, Service und Qualität der Zimmer:

Die Gewinner nach Service & Qualität sind:

1. Warschau
2. Dresden
3. Prag
4. Bremen
5. Istanbul
6. Salzburg
7. Berlin
8. Stuttgart
9. Budapest
10. Hannover

Wie wir finden sehr beachtlich, dass Deutschland so gut positioniert ist!

Die schlechtesten 10 Städte in Europa sind:

1. Birmingham
2. Manchester
3.  London
4. York
5. Kopenhagen
6. Paris
7. Brüssel
8. Amsterdam
9. Lyon
10. Mailand

Sicherlich bildet diese Auswertung nur Durchschnittswerte ab, gibt aber in unseren Augen doch ein interessantes Bild und gute Entscheidungshilfe für Städtereisende auf der Suche nach einem Reiseziel ab.

p.s. ein kleines Trostpflaster für Reisende, die in eine der Flop 10 Städte reisen “müssen”: Auch hier kann man durchaus gute Hotels finden, man muss nur etwas Glück haben oder die richtige Hotelsuchmaschine verwenden ;)

p.p.s. Wir würden gerne eine Top / Flop Serie mit weiteren Auswertungen starten, haben hier auch schon einige Ideen, sind aber für Input (z.B. in den Kommentaren) immer dankbar!

Das Sommer-Gewinnspiel:

Friday, June 4th, 2010

UPDATE: HIER SIND DIE GEWINNER


Ja Wahnsinn: Mit so einer zahlreichen Teilnahme hätten wir nie im Leben gerechnet und jetzt ist auch noch wirklich Sommer! Wir möchten uns bei allen, die dabei waren ganz herzlich bedanken. Wir haben derweil die Gewinner gezogen. Und die Glücklichen sind:

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Photos of Publishable Value on Cosmotourist

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Namibian Roads

With now more than 26,500 user photos, Cosmotourist has become a global photo album, with which you can spend hours, if not days looking through. But be warned, you are bound to be left with itchy feet and the urge to get travelling ! You will find photos like these here portraying stunning landscapes of poetic beauty, photos like this one here depicting sundrenched beaches, stunning shots of nature at its best, holiday moments of sheer delight and much much more…

The best photos in our opinion are those on the homepage under the rubric Top Photos. The photos featured here are those with the most positive user feedback. Even Random House, one of the leading international publishing groups, is impressed with the quality of photos featured on Cosmotourist. This has led them to search for photos on Cosmotourist for their travel guide books, as this request here to Timsaunders proves. Who knows perhaps one of your photos might end up in a travel guide book too?!

Sonnenuntergang in Alt-Jaffa

May’s Competition Winner Announced!

Friday, June 5th, 2009

We are pleased to be able to announce the winner of our competition in May for the most popular accommodation tip as Kristin5683. Congratulations Kristin, you are now 300$’s the richer! Your travel tip on the Chelsea Hotel in New York has most certainly struck a cord with many people who will no doubt try and pay the hotel a visit in the near future. So if you haven’t yet had a chance to read about the unique rock n’ roll history of this establishment, then here is your chance!

Keep an eye out for future competitions; after all you have to be in it, to win it!

Take care,

The Cosmotourist Team

The Dubious Methods of yelp.com

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Amazing but true, the American online newspaper East Bay Express has recently published an article about some rather shady goings on concerning the US wide online city guide www.yelp.com . The article concerns itself with the way in which user ratings can be manipulated. For example restaurants that are being portrayed in a bad light can pay yelp.com to remove negative ratings about their establishment. This makes a whole farce of the ethics published on the site, “real people writing real reviews.” Many of those yelp clients interviewed by the newspaper spoke of phone calls they had received from yelp that negatively reminded them of a “Mafia” protection racket.

But that’s not all, yelp apparently may also takes measures to keep showing the negative ratings of an establishment until it is finally forced to advertise and hence spend more money on yelp. Those that refuse may well find that their positive reviews then suddenly disappear.

It tends to be yelp employees and not members of the yelp community that add reviews to the site. And more often than not, the content of the reviews has more to do with the politics of the site than with the truth.

Such findings are certainly very serious and threaten the entire branch.

Take Every Party As It Comes!

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

In the Advent season many people find themselves having to attend yet another Christmas party and this is often enough the very last thing they want to do! However when it comes to the Cosmotourist Christmas party then it’s a very different story.

We have settled into the habit of having our party long after Christmas is over. This means that we have all survived the festive season and are generally well rested and ready for another celebration! This is at least the plan! Christoph one of the company founders and Inka his wife were the hosts this year and right up until our arrival they were still sorting out the kitchen in their new home. They were of course completely relaxed and not stressed at all-riggght! Respect that they managed to pull it off!

As the Sociologist Wilhelm Reich put it, “Love, work and knowledge are the roots of life” and “one ought to possess all of these things.” This was a reminder that we definitely took to heart that night.

The subject of work was very quickly dealt with at the party. 2008 was a very successful year and positively contributed to the development of our community. We agreed that there is still a heck of a lot to do, but with our ample motivation there is nothing to stop us! We discussed love in an occupational sense as to how it affects one’s travels. Should we have gone abroad more often in-spite of love interests and sweethearts? Did we make good enough use of our student days to travel the world? How would our lives had differed had we moved to Australia, Brazil or Scotland? And then last but not least, we touched upon the subject of knowledge. All of us contributed what we knew to discussions about correlations in world economy, questions about medical ethics, student fraternities, ways to self- awareness, esoterism in general and then finally we addressed the important subject as to who is responsible for the housework in a relationship. Who irons, who washes up? And with that we completed the circle; the roots of life somehow always come back to the subject of love. So what do you say, our Christmas party was in-fact a good effort wasn’t it?!

Best Wishes,

Gundula & colleagues

The skiing season is now in full swing!

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

Now that the Christmas season is over many of us are beginning to make plans for a winter/spring holiday away from it all in the mountains skiing or snowboarding. The choices are endless whether you choose a resort in France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, America, Canada or even places as extreme as Japan, Russia, New South Wales in Australia or Turkey!

Without a doubt most of the Alpine ski resorts have already had ample snow for the coming months. New Year provided nearly all of Switzerland with fresh new powder! Why not go skiing in Romania, admittedly not one of the most well known destinations but you could tie in a visit with Count Dracula at the same time! Mount Ruapehu on New Zealand’s North Island also boasts fabulous skiing but as Tim Saunders explains there is a twist, the mountain is an active volcano! Whistler is reputed to be one of the best resorts in the world but be warned once you go there you may find no other resort ever lives up to your new found expectations! Unlike for those who live in the heart of Europe it can often be difficult and expensive for those who live in the UK to go skiing but what very few know is that Scotland also has a few resorts such as Aviemore near Inverness. If your finances do prevent you from jetting off around the world why not find out if there is an artificial snow slope nearby?

Après ski is also an important aspect of any good skiing holiday. Rounding of an exhausting day’s skiing in a cosy hut with a glass of mulled wine in your hand while bopping about to cheesy pop music is an essential part of the snow scene. Most resorts have night clubs and bars to move onto after a day’s skiing, but be warned you may well be far too exhausted and lack the stamina to keep on partying all night long!

We would love to hear about your skiing holidays. What resorts can you recommend? If you too enjoy the thrill of a winter sports holiday then please share your experiences with us on cosmotourist.com!

And a further note, what with the latest tragic skiing accident over New Year in the Steiermark region in Austria where 2 people collided and one died due to head injuries please make sure to wear a helmet when out and about on the slopes. Otherwise there should be nothing stopping you from having a wonderful skiing holiday! Have fun wherever you may decide to hit the slopes!

A very merry Christmas from us all at Cosmotourist!

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Dear Cosmotourists,

Many thanks for all the wonderful travel tips that you have posted in the past year that have helped make Cosmotourist a growing fountain of knowledge for passionate travelers. Believe it or not we now have over 50,000 travel tips and more than 150,000 photos online! Such impressive statistics should make any globetrotter jump for joy!

The community has indeed developed at a rapid rate in the last year, not only in size but also in regard to improvements and usability. Many thanks for all your feedback that enabled us to do this! Of course we also have lots of resolutions and plans for the coming year 2009-so watch this space!

We would like to take this chance to wish you a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2009!

Your Cosmotourist Team