Pleasure and Pain

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      5 Aug 2011

      Pleasure: Airbnb

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      Gushing fan-girl post alert!


      Man I freakin' LOVE this site. I love the idea behind  it (so much so I'm booked into a une apart-a-monte in Paris in August) but most of all I go gooey at the experience of using the site.

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      Whilst the premise of the company is reasonably simple to understand they have gone out of their way to make an excellent video which is reassuring and makes life seem like one big adventure that you, yes YOU can enjoy. I wanted to go on holiday with that chick there and then because she was so convincing and I've very much chosen my side of the fence.

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      My ouber favourite page though is the search results page and all the different ways you could ever want to interact with them. Sorting by recommendation, price, distance and newest. Then on the right filtering the type of accommodation, price filters and neighbourhoods and showing the number of results relevant to each on the right. I think the most useful thing is the map though, you can determine whether the map shows the list of accommodation of the accommodation reflects the area being shown in the map. This works so well and my only niggle is that the map could do with being a bit bigger as the location pins can cover map details that you need to see: road names for example!

      The 360 street video is a sexy touch too and saves traipsing off to google maps every 2 minutes to see how many crackheads are on the streets of the area you're looking at.

      Now, where's my biggest bag for looting the place?

       

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      5 Aug 2011

      Pleasure: National Rail Enquiries

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      Wow, they've been busy bees over at National Rail Enquiries. This site site used to be the biggest pain in the ass to use and went well beyond the point of credulity in the amount of time it took them to sort it out. Must have been leaves on the internet. Anyway, they pulled their fingers out so let's have a look at some highlights.

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      Searching for a station by postcode. This is a handy little tool for finding the nearest station to your destination. Me likey.

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      Finally National Rail realise we might choose our tickets based on price as-well as time. So thanks for including the ticket price on the same page as the train times thus reducing the element of surprise when whacked with an extortionate train ticket. Now you know exactly how much you're being fleeced for right away. Relief.

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      Now this is sexy. It's a tool for admitting defeat but in an adorable self effacing way like when a comedian is self deprecating and it makes you fancy them a bit. Er anyway…the tool allows you to plan your journey then enter your contact details in order to receive notifications (via text, email or twitter) if your train is cancelled or delayed. That's actually really helpful (considering the state of British Rail) and must have been a bitch to build so kudos for that. Now make the trains run on time and I’ll be happy.


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