Mashable’s got the scoop on Delta’s latest Facebook foray — booking your trip directly off of the carrier’s Facebook page in order to share travel details with your friends. 

It’s an interesting idea and a valid way to perhaps get more fans to its page. It also makes perfect sense from a group trip-planning perspective — “Check out my Facebook pages to see my flight times, etc.”

However, Mashable brings up a good point regarding the service: will people really book on Facebook or continue to comparison shop via online travel agencies?  Will other carriers follow suit? Only time will tell…

-Sally

Gadling reported today about Hilton’s latest move to attract more loyalty customers by offering free hotel internet to guests based on their Hilton HHonors rewards status.

As business travelers sometimes spend more time using hotel internet than they do their own office’s internet, this is a great way for Hilton to capitalize on biz travelers who at least attempt to keep expense accounts to a minimum.  Sometimes the cost of internet for a week can be expensive as spending an extra night at the hotel — absurd!

Kudos, Hilton!

-Sally

Okay, okay, so that isn’t the point of this story…just a brief takeaway that I find absolutely fascinating.

The point is that love them or hate them, Starbucks has proven more than successful in utilizing social media to keep the brand continuously talked about through ongoing engagement.  While it’s obviously a mega-brand able to keep fans engaged, the Starbucks Facebook page is never stale.  There is always content, always an incentive to go into a shop and, most importantly, always a reason to check back in.

Congrats, Starbucks, on your 10 millionth follower…you’ll get Vin Diesel soon enough!

-Sally

P.S. You can send my free latte voucher to my office address.

As a frequent flier, this number doesn’t really surprise me.  On top of the fact that in-flight WiFi is a tad expensive, flights are the only time when you have a moment to be disconnected.  The friendly skies are truly a “BlackBerry black spot” and sometimes - whether traveling for business or for pleasure - we need to just disconnect (yes, watching a D-list movie on the new in-flight entertainment system counts as disconnecting…it’s mindless).     

It would be interesting to see if destinations start covering the costs of WiFi for their online-focused visitors (i.e. sporadically providing special access codes on destination partner airlines via Twitter to their followers), encouraging visitors to either use the time to post photos/insights about their trip or do some last-minute research before landing.

-Sally

Recess! 

We all say that we’re going to get out of the office more for good weather breaks and leave on time when the warm weather is around.  Finally someone has created an entire project out of coercing NYers out of their offices and into the summer sun for a much needed break.  Rejuvenate our workday energy levels?  Count me in!   

This “Take Back Your Lunch” project that kicks off tomorrow in Madison Square Park certainly has piqued my interest; and after working remotely last week from the free WiFi-filled Union Square in San Francisco, I have to say… I accomplished more and felt better about doing work having been outside most of the day while doing it. 

Just like everyone needs vacation, we all need a lunch/energy break that doesn’t involve the stale air of our air-conditioned offices, desks, emails and computers. 

I dare all NYC FourSquare users (and M Booth DigiSquad members) to do this over the next few weeks. See if you can get a Swarm badge in Madison Square Park!  The Shake Shack line is going to be impossible on Wednesdays this summer. 

-Sally

While the Big Dance has thus far proven to be Upset City (cry me a river, Kansas…guess you weren’t the top #1 seed after all), it’s certainly not surprising to hear how online viewership of the tournament is doing.   

CBS Sports and the NCAA have struck online gold, tempting more than 3 million viewers who watched over 3.4 million hours of live feeds on the first day of the tourney — a 20% increase over 2010.  Where was everyone last year? On calls in conference rooms?

On day one, visitors also clicked the hilarious ”Boss Button” more than 60% more times than they did during all of March Madness in 2009. The genius button automatically silences audio and puts up a “business-like” image without the user minimizing the browser window when bosses are heard lurking around the corner.  (I’m actually surprised they didn’t partner with Staples for this…it’s very reminiscent of the “Easy” button.)    

The MediaPost article doesn’t even get into the Twitter conversations going on because of the tournament madness.  Just by tweet-plaining about what CBS Sports wasn’t airing Friday night, I picked up a great new following of ‘Cuse fans equally frustrated that the network wasn’t showing us whipping Vermont.

It will be interesting to see how the site traffic fares as the tournament continues, now that the games will mostly be shown in the late afternoon or early evening when fans are either at happy hour or home in front of the TV. They’ll certainly keep seeing my traffic as I float back to gaze at our standings in the brackets and think of the good ole days with Melo, G’Mac, and our National Championship win.

-Sally (President of the Unofficial “Ex’Cuse Me But Orange You Jealous We’re #1” Syracuse Fan Club)

Thinking of hopping on a jet tomorrow (March 9) or Wednesday (March 10) but haven’t booked your flight?

In case you have the sudden urge to travel to Buffalo, Rochester, or maybe even Burlington, JetBlue is offering $10 fares for travelers who book tonight by 11:59pm CST to tout its 10th anniversary in the air; to be fair, you can also go to cooler (or shall I say warmer) destinations like West Palm Beach.

For those of us who can’t request vacation days with less than 24 hours notice, JetBlue will be tweeting all kinds of giveaways on 3/10, so hopefully we can take advantage of this milestone anniversary in that regard: @jetblue.

-Sally

Gadling reported today on Kimpton Hotels’ “Sweet Tax Relief” deal that will be implemented in April.  All guests who stay with the hotel chain in April will not pay room taxes; Kimpton will take care of it all.  And if you’re afraid your tax return won’t be as large as you’d like…you can eat at Kimpton’s in-hotel restaurants to save yourself some dough on food taxes, as they’ll pick those up for guests as well.

I don’t know if I’m more excited about the no taxes or the free Sugar Daddy, PayDay, and 100 Grand candy bars available for guests through the month.

-Sally

In a brilliant online move, South Africa Tourism has partnered with the “dancing while traveling” phenomenon Matt Harding (a.k.a. “Dancing Matt”) to promote the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

You may know Matt from the videos of his ridiculously embarrassing dance moves that got him tons of sponsored trips around the world to dance in high-profile places and post his dancing videos online. South Africa Tourism signed him on board to encourage online users to submit videos of themselves dancing the Diski - a silly dance inspired by the slick moves of South Africa’s soccer team.  The best Diskier diskies his or her way to a World Cup Soccer match in Cape Town, sponsored by South African Airways.

Matt’s video - already taped - airs on YouTube this coming Friday (March 5) and instructs viewers on how to dance the Diski as he travels through portions of the surrounding Capetown area.

Just another example of a high-profile destination understanding how to have a little fun and put its best foot forward…while diski-ing.

-Sally

Chicago can now claim the title of being the first city/tourism office to have a presence on Foursquare. The city’s new foray into Foursquare is a great example of how destinations can utilize social media to further engage their visitors by introducing them to off-the-beaten-path or quirky-yet-memorable spots that are probably not outlined in their traditional guidebooks.

I’m certainly looking forward to checking out the Chick Flick badge next time I’m in Chi-town!

-Sally

Oh, Radian6…how you’ve fallen victim to the ploys of MTV’s latest garbage truck.  Now visitors to MTV’s Jersey Shore site have just another way to see how “cool” the Jersey Shore cast is, through Radian6’s Twitter Tracker.

When I just tried to visit the site, it went black…obviously knowledgeable about the fact I would soon mock it.  When Joe from PRNewser checked, there were only 21 recent tweets about Snooki…I wonder if those were the same 21 people planning to attend Turtle Bay’s $1 Beer Wednesday’s with the Jersey Shore cast in NYC last night (yes, it’s shameful that I somehow got on that bar e-mail distribution list).

I hope Radian6 starts a Twitter Tracker for tweets solely about the absurdity of Jersey Shore. Maybe then, the heads of this ridiculous cast will finally explode and us actual NJ natives - who love our beautiful shore (not Seaside) - can have the last laugh.

-Sally

Mandalay Bay is taking “What happens in Vegas…” to the next level by prompting users to upload photos or video of their “most untamed moments” to its Facebook fan page for a chance to win a weekend with friends at Mandalay Bay for New Year’s Eve.

It seems like a pretty sweet deal, with roundtrip airfare and accommodations, tickets to a Black Eyed Peas concert, VIP access to parties, a $1,000 food and beverage credit and a tour of the Mandalay Bay Shark Aquarium by its curator (eh).

I wonder if my untamed moment of disgust while watching Jersey Shore this weekend could be in the running to win!

-Sally

Gadling posted today about a cool new feature from Kimpton Hotels that urges members of the hotel’s frequent stay program, InTouch, to enter more personality details than just name and e-mail address when registering online.

This is a cool little survey-esque feature helps keep the brand in line with its ever popular fresh-faced approach to hospitality.  The option to choose your preferred floor level and pillow/headrest is definitely appealing when booking travel arrangements.

I wonder how quickly I’d receive an invitation for a day on the water from the Kimpton concierge if I filled in the line that says “If I wasn’t working I’d be….sailing.”

-Sally

Here’s a great concept for travelers who don’t feel like figuring out public transit from the airport, but are too cheap to hail a cab.

Taxi2 (a “co-innovation with Virgin Atlantic”) is a site where travelers can register their flights on Virgin Atlantic or other carriers and be partnered up with another traveler who is looking to get to the same area when leaving the airport.  Partners are paired up on the site and find each other by printing a nifty sign to hold up after agreeing upon a meeting point (there is actually a “How do I fold the ticket?” question on the FAQs page of the site).

This is definitely a cool concept and it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the States.  SuperShuttle, beware….

-Sally

Virgin Atlantic has released a “Flying Without Fear” iPhone app for travelers wary of flying high in the sky.  The “course” is loaded with commentary from Richard Branson - who apparently states the facts over the fictions associated with flying  - and offers exercises for relaxing while on the plane.

Not sure what is more shocking…the 98 percent success rate of the program or the fact that Whoopi Goldberg hasn’t flown in 13 years!

Honestly, they didn’t have to develop an iPhone app for this…they could just upgrade panicky fliers to business class, and I guarantee their fears would evaporate by 100 percent.

-Sally