World’s First Twitter Hotel

Hi ya! Nice to see you today. Say...are you familiar with the term 'hashmark'? First, fill your mug with some freshly roasted and brewed coffee and accompany it with a delectable virtual treat of your choice. Then I'll help you with 'new generation speak'. 

Hashmark? For me that was something the corn beef left on my shirt. Ah, but the new generation keeps inventing new terms or using old ones for different things, don't they? This (#) is a hashmark. It used to be called a 'pound' sign. What do I know. Not keeping up with the new generation? Probably not, eh. Twitter? Something birds do in trees and girls do in bars, eh... Well if you're Twitter mad, here's a hotel for ya...

If you’re one of those people who can’t stop tweeting even when they are on vacation, you might find the world’s first Twitter-themed hotel, in Magaluf, Spain, to be the perfect summer destination.

Ever-growing customer demands, the need for diversity and the increasing number of social media addicts all over the world have inspired Meliá Hotels International, the leading hotel chain in Spain, to create the world’s first ever Twitter hotel. Located in Magaluf, Mallorca, the @SolWaveHouse Hotel allows guests to interact with its staff and other tourists via text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”.

The hotel’s General Manager, Gonzalo Echevarría, says “the hotel takes a new step in meeting the expectations of an increasingly experiential and social customer profile, through new technologies.” 

At the heart of this social-media-themed hotel is #SocialWave, a virtual community accessible only from its wifi via smartphone, tablet or computer. Once they’ve registered with their Twitter accounts, guests can use #SocialWave to connect with other tourists, chat, share photos and even flirt by sending virtual kisses.

There’s a special hashtag for pretty much everything, and two Twitter Concierges are always standing by to meet guest requests via Twitter and generate conversation in this virtual community.

And now a new generation question and answer: 

Q: I have a number of Facebook friends who feed their Tweets to their Facebook status updates (is that enough Web 2.0 references in one sentence?), and I’ve wondered about the meaning of the hash mark (#) that people include in their Tweets. For example “I was talking on my #iPhone…” or “Going to a #Toronto Media Women event…”. 

A:  In brief, the hash marks are a sort of keyword tag in Twitter, and if you’re willing to sacrifice one of your precious 140 characters, the term that you tag with the hash mark will then show up on the hashtags website. Once you’ve visited the hashtags website, you can then add the decidedly Web 2.0 term “real-time news community” to your vocabulary!

I hope that cleared it up for you...(snicker...snicker)

Okay! I admit it. I do have a Twitter account and two Facebook ones plus LinkedIn and a couple more social ones. Strictly business (usually) though I do occasionally keep in touch with friends in Thailand, Australia, England and the rest of the known world.

# over and out, eh! Ten-four good buddy! See you on the flip side! Let the young'uns figure those out!

Bob