Of course, as my colleague Erick Schonfeld pointed out, for this to work, Loopt needs to get enough deals requested and turned on for this to become a viable model for Loopt. Not to mention there’s some friction when considering that not many people have heard about Loopt, let alone think of it as a daily deals provider. And then there’s the issue of building a sizable salesforce.

There was some skepticism in the comment section at the end of Erick’s post over Loopt’s new direction, and some made the good point that user-generated deals have been tried before, without a lot of success — not to mention that it remains to be seen whether or not users will be willing to wait for deals to be approved. We do love our instant gratification. There’s certainly something to be said for the growing interest in the combination of location-based-services and daily deals, even if the LBS space is brimming.

Today, mere hours after announcing U-Deals, Loopt took the first step towards silencing its critics (though admittedly it still has a long way to go before that silence is permanent), as its first U-Deal sold out in under an hour. 48 minutes, to be precise. The first U-Deal, made in partnership with Virgin America, offered $35 for a Virgin America ticket voucher valued at $100. 500 deals were offered, and 500 deals sold in 48 minutes. Not too shabby.

Discounts on airfare are definitely in demand with the high price of tickets today, so this was no doubt a great place to start. Especially with Virgin America. But it will be interesting to see if U-Deals can sustain relevant deals of this kind when the names aren’t quite as big. If so, there could be great things ahead for Loopt’s new service. We’ll have to wait and see.

But for now, it’s probably fair for Loopt to say, “How do you like ‘dem apples?”

For now.

Air travel promises to become cleaner, if industry actions ahead of the huge, annual Paris Airshow are any indication…

Branson Still Backing Biofuels

Virgin America— a company that’s been reporting on its own greenhouse gas emissions since 2009— ordered $1.4 billion worth of new, super fuel-efficient engines from CFM International the companies announced on Wednesday. The move should help keep energy costs down, and reduce the negative environmental impacts of air travel by Virgin America as the company triples the size of its fleets, as promised back in January.

According to a joint press statement from the companies, CFM’s LEAP Engine will power 30, brand new Airbus A320 aircraft slated for delivery to Virgin America in 2016, and CFM’s 56-5B engines will power 30 of Virgin America’s current-edition Airbus A320-line aircraft.

Promoting the deal, CFM Engine and its parent companies GE and Snecma, agreed to purchase carbon offsets via Carbonfund.org for the first 5,000 flights booked on Virgin America online, following the announcement. Virgin America also threw a one-day fare sale.

Virgin America claims that in pairing the A320neo and the LEAP engine, it will deliver 15 percent better fuel efficiency and 50 percent greater reductions in NOx emissions, over levels that environmental regulators require today. The company also forecasts that it will save $1.9 million per aircraft per year in fuel costs at current fuel prices.

It’s worth noting that while the airline bets on efficiency technology, it has also invested in biofuels. The company tested its first flights using at least some biofuel in 2008 (as TriplePundit reported then).

Sir Richard Branson, famed founder of the Virgin group of companies, also backed Gevo a biofuels company that went public back in February. Virgin plans to use at least ten percent drop-in biofuels, or plant-based fuels that work with existing engines, by 2020.

Boeing Going To Paris On Camelina-based Biofuels

Jet biofuels made by Honeywell UOP from a non-food crop, camelina plants, will power a Boeing 747-8 freighter en route to the Paris Air Show on June 20th. The companies announced their plans today, while members of the U.S. house and senate were pushing to end ethanol subsidies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack was campaigning to save the subsidies which bring money to farms large and small.

The Boeing plane will use not corn ethanol, of course, but a blend of 15 percent camelina-based biofuel, mixed with 85 percent kerosene jet fuel, which is the traditional jet fuel (a.k.a. Jet A). Boeing Captains Keith Otsuka and Rick Braun, along with Cargolux Captain Sten Rossby will pilot the historic 5,000-mile flight.

It’s kind of funny how Boeing is backing the use of plant-based fuels, here.

The company is still struggling to get its new line of efficient 787 Dreamliner planes (image, above) to market. These aircraft are supposed to burn 20 percent less fuel than other passenger planes of their size, and are lighter with more cargo space.

As Katie Johnston Chase at the Boston Globe recently reported: “The 787 is in the process of being certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and is expected to be delivered to its first airline, All Nippon Airways Co., in August or September. A total of 56 airlines, including United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, have placed orders for the 787.”

Image 1: Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner first flight, via Dave Sizer (CC)

Image 2: Camelia plant, via Matt Lavin (CC)

Yes, beginning today when the integration goes fully live, you’ll be able to earn reward points at venues around the world simply by taking a picture and sharing it on Instagram. This may mean hotel points, air miles, or other benefits at the over 10,000 places Topguest currently works with. All you have to do is link up Topguest to your Instagram account (via their new API) and make sure your picture is geotagged at the venue.

To celebrate the launch, Virgin America is launching a special competition. The most-liked Instagram photos taken at various Virgin America-related venues (like airport terminals) will win 1,000 bonus Elevate points (their frequent flyer program). They’ll be giving this reward away on a weekly basis. For context, regular Instagrams at Virgin America spots will earn 25 points.

From Topguest’s perspective, the Instagram partnership is an expansion of a good idea and interesting model. “This isn’t about deals or specials. What we’re doing on the enterprise side for our customers is actually pretty unique — in a way that’s explicitly opt-in for the user —we’re merging the user tables from all these disparate social networks with the member tables for a valuable but old-fashioned/outdated industry: traditional loyalty programs, starting with the travel space. Social activity mapped to loyalty program numbers unlocks a lot of new value for our market,” co-founder Geoff Lewis says.

For Instagram, this is an interesting step for the photo service. They’ve often said that they aim to connect users to the real world through their pictures, and this is certainly a unique way to do that. Some may worry that this will lead to pictures that get taken simply to earn points, but the fact of the matter is that people are taking pictures at these venues anyway. What’s the last thing I do before I’m about to take off on a flight? Send an Instagram out. Now I’ll just earn points for it.

Google is going to make a lot of frequent flyers, and Virgin America, happy this holiday season. As a gift to people who fly on Virgin America’s WiFi-equipped planes, Google will be footing the bill for everybody on board between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010.

For Google, this is a smart marketing move because it generates tons of good will among everyone who flies Virgin America. But Google is really giving a gift to Virgin America in the form of yet one more incentive to fly its planes over competitors’. Will American Airlines and others with WiFi on board have to respond with their own freebie giveaways? I hope so.

Not that I mind paying the $13 per flight to use WiFi on Virgin America flights. In fact, I go out of my way to try to fly on Virgin America, just so that I don’t waste 6 hours going from coast to coast. But giving it away free makes it even more appealing. In fact, as I’ve suggested in the past, I wonder if Virgin America would be better off giving the WiFi away for “free” to everyone on board regularly, but charging more per flight. I’d certainly be willing to pay $25 to $50 more per flight if I knew there was WiFi. But that’s just me.

The only thing that worries me is whether the in-flight WiFi system can handle everyone on board surfing the Web at the same time. At least with the $13 fee, there is a natural cap to how many people use it at once.

Social Media has evolved beyond a series of platforms that enable content publishing, sharing, and discovery into a genuine, peer-to-peer looking glass into the real world conversations that affect the perception, engagement, and overall direction of the brands we represent.

Socialized media didn’t invent “conversations,” it simply organized and amplified them and established an opportunity for learning and collaboration.

Twitter and Twitter Search have ushered in a new genre of not only communications and associated search technology, but also dedicated ecosystems that transform and support how we as consumers share and discover relevant information in real-time.

Online discussions, rants, and observations are either alarming (and motivating) brand managers or fooling them into unforeseen enthrallment. But the reality is that real-time dialogue is fueling connections and perceptions in the statusphere, blogopsphere, online communities, and the social web in general. It’s this swelling tsunami of chatter that will only intensify and heighten as it forces a new genre of Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM). Social CRM is no longer an option. It necessitates brand involvement to proactively share answers, solve problems, establish authority, and build relationships and loyalty, one tweet, blog post, update, and “like,” at a time.

In the world of business, social media, led by Twitter, is forcing companies to augment the offshoring of reactive customer service with the nearshoring of proactive customer engagement. The conversations that power social media are sparking a sense of urgency to identify influential voices and talk to customers in a place and time of their choosing (generally, in public and online).

For example, on Friday at during a panel at the CrunchUp on Real Time Business, Porter Gale, vice president of marketing for Virgin America, made it clear that Virgin America understands the promise, prospect, and value of listening and responding to the social stream.

Erick Schonfeld, who was moderating, asked Porter how her team mines Twitter for the perception of the brand and also for determining how they contact customers.

Porter revealed that the Virgin America team is small and applies roughly the equivalent of 1.5 people to monitoring and engaging on Twitter and other social networks. To her and the team, social media is representative of not only a listening system, but also a complete engagement channel. The word “marketing” doesn’t even enter the mix.

With more than 20,000 followers on Twitter, Virgin America is galvanizing a vibrant and active community of people who will respond in “Twitter time,” thus alleviating the modest team from having to engage in every discussion, whether it’s positive or negative.

The most common example Porter shared was a response to the question, “Should I fly Virgin?”

“The community closes the sale,” exclaimed Porter.

She also shared a story of how Virgin America invests in the good will of customers, simply by publicly acknowledging and supporting them in the same channels where they’re communicating.

During one flight, a woman who just graduated medical school to become a doctor, had tweeted her excitement about graduating and also flying @virginamerica. Instead of simply responding with a congratulatory Tweet, Porter and her team retweeted and asked someone on the flight to buy her a drink (the benefits of offering inflight wifi).

To her surprise, Porter triggered an immediate response, “Row 11 is going to buy her a drink.” And, to her further astonishment, the person who sent that Tweet was live in the audience at the Real-Time stream event.

Alexia Tsotsis, tech writer at the LA Weekly, shouted from the first row, “That was me!”

Everyone in the audience was a witness to a vivid demonstration of how interaction online extends into real world experiences.

More impressive is Virgin America’s use of the social Web for real-time customer service. They’re actively monitoring issues, frustrations, and recommendations to solve challenges as they arise. In several such instances, Virgin America has used Twitter as a real-time guest service recovery system in flight to address concerns and problems by contacting service staff in the air to alert them to issues – again, the perils and associated benefits of offering inflight WiFi.

Earlier in the day, Peoplebrowsr (disclosure: I am an advisor) showed a demo in which airlines were ranked by the sentiment expressed about each brand on Twitter, and Virgin America was on top. Peoplebrowsr highlighted the ability to analyze conversational sentiment by industry through the alignment of positive, neutral, and negative conversations and perception by brand.

Ross Mayfield, CEO and founder of Socialtext, discussed the nature of the social dialogue enterprises are being pulled into and how conversations require more than one person or department to engage. SocialText offers a dashboard for enterprises that wish to collaborate internally with coworkers and externally with customers and stakeholders.

Ross referenced the engagement iceberg, where he observes only a small portion of customer conversations and engagement as truly visible, with most occurring beneath the water line and thus, out of view.

He’ s right. In my research and experience, we’ve identified that every online conversation worthy of response directly matched specific divisions within an organization and usually rank in this order:

1. Support
2. PR
3. Marketing
4. Sales

It highlights the reality that every department eventually needs to socialize.

Ross then asked his fellow panel members as well as the audience, “Who’s going to own Social Media and the process of responding?”

My answer: No one.

Social Media is, for the time being, tuning-in new channels of influence to incorporate into the brand and marketing mix.  While it takes a station manager time to receive the signals and in turn, coordinate outward broadcasts, it is the divisions within each organization that will need to shift from an introspective support mode to an extrospective group of proactive collaborators.

But as Ross cautioned businesses and eager social media teams, “Before they collaborate with the community, they have to collaborate with themselves.”

If responsibilities and workflow isn’t established and most importantly, if guidelines aren’t drafted and disseminated company-wide, the intention of helping influential customers and advocates can quickly transcend into social, and very public, chaos.

We need rules of engagement.

As Erick pointed out in the discussion, “It used to be unhappy customers who would call into customer service lines to express frustration. Now if businesses don’t immediately respond with a resolution and nip these issues in the bud, they have the potential of spreading and getting out of control. At the same time, companies need to identify and amplify praise as it happens.”

Virgin America’s Porter Gale is trying to rally her team as well as the other departments that are affected by real-time conversations and the issues they raise. She hosts brownbag lunches, where PR, customer service, and other teammates discuss what’s happening with Twitter and other social networks. They also share and review strategies and tactics to teach and learn from each other based on their experiences.

There are social networks, and there are tools with which to identify conversations and facilitate interaction, but everyone agreed, that in the world of new service and marketing, we need to improve the literacy and education among the teams who occupy the front lines.

The “now” web is powerful. It’s building new bridges, networks, and channels. It’s absolutely changing the way people communicate, research, and ultimately make decisions.

Yes, the real-time Web is powered by conversations. But, what’s important to remember, is that conversations are personal and therefore sacred.
Broadcasting messages, or even worse, sponsored messages as a form of resolution or participation is foolhardy.

Companies such as Pizza Hut that relegate Twitter interaction to a summer “Twintern” will indubitably get what they pay for. We’ve already witnessed the public backlash when a twintern abuses Twitter on behalf of an unsuspecting brand. #habitat

The point is that it’s not whether or not an intern or junior staffer on the marketing and communications team is competent or incompetent. The reality is that businesses should view the role of engaging with customers, prospects and influencers as a strategic competitive advantage as well as an earned privilege.

As panelist Maynard Webb of LiveOps pointed out, “A brand can get damaged faster than ever nowadays.”

The true shift represented by the social and real-time Web is not simply the ability to surface relevant conversations as they happen, it represents the opportunity to learn from public sentiment and create a more aware and adaptive organization that leads communities through action.

Monitoring the conversation is not enough.  Brands need to jump in, but in a professional way.

Whether we realize it or not, there’s a race going on in the skies above us. With the advent of wireless Internet access creeping into what once our sanctuary of solitude at 37,000 feet has now become a domain for self-righteous dingbats to livestream their flights for all to see.

Leading the way is Virgin America who announced today that they are the first airline in all the land to offer Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service on every single flight. To mark the occasion an air-to-ground Skype video call will take place with thee Oprah Winfrey herself and will air on Thursday the 21st. VoIP calls aren’t allowed on any Virgin America flight, but, you know, you can’t say no to Oprah or she’ll eat you.

Pricing for Gogo on Virgin America flights start at $7.95 for handheld devices, $9.95 for flights less than three hours and $12.95 for anything over. If you’re on a red-eye then need only muster up $5.95, which is a steal for those on transcon flights.

A few weeks back I hopped onto my first Virgin America flight with Aircell’s Gogo service on-board. It wasn’t the first time I’ve reviewed Gogo and if you recall I was on the first commercial Gogo flight with American Air. The plan was to interview James Weatherson, Virgin America’s inflight entertainment engineer, while I was up in the air, but there was a scheduling mix up and the interview never went down. So we opted to do it the old fashioned way. Below is my brief conversation with James about Red and where it’s headed.

CrunchGear: Other than some content changes, I haven’t seen a whole lot of new stuff for Red. What can we expect to see this year from VX?

James Weatherson: Actually, we’re now right in the middle of a Red software upgrade that will allow us to create an even more robust entertainment content platform at every seat. Our platform is actually pretty new and ambitious for a system at 37,000 feet in-flight, so the upgrades that will go live this Summer are mainly focused on improving functionality, reliability and the speed of the Linux-based system. We’re aiming to increase the speed of the system and usability, as well as allow us to further build out the content platform. So we’re planning more video games, movies and other content in the latter half of 2009 thanks to these upgrades. And we’re also making some changes that came as suggestions from guests who emailed us in-flight via the Red feedback in-box, like being able to listen to your music play-list and play video games at the same time and giving business travelers receipts for their food – so when they swipe their credit card at their seat, they’re emailed a receipt. You’ll be able to do that as of June. The former is a relief for me, as the sound effects on DOOM for some reason get super annoying when you reach hour three of a transcon flight.

CG: Are the shopping and book services going live this year?

JW: Yep, once we get these software upgrades in place we plan to go live with the Shop platform in late 2009, with the Read section to follow. Stay tuned.

CG: I heard a nasty rumor that VX was thinking of getting rid of the touch-screens because the majority of passengers don’t know how to use a touch-screen. Any truth to that?

JW: No, we don’t plan to go retro on you on Red. Most of our guests are pretty tech-savvy and a lot of them have an iphone or other touchscreen PDA on them when they fly, so they work the system just fine. We do actually mention the importance of a “soft touch” in both our in-flight guide (attached) about the Red system and our flight teams also mention it when they explain how the system works. It has not really been a problem, but the interface just works better with light tapping, as opposed to thumping – just like an itouch or iphone. However, we are disabling the touch-screen on the games only, as the remotes just work better – that change goes live with our Summer upgrades in June.

CG: Maybe VX should make a video for people to watch that shows them how to use the touch-screen. I know I can’t stand people who sit behind me and punch the screen. What do you think?

JW: I like the video idea! We’ve got a depiction of that in our in-flight guide (PDF), and the caricature is of our head of web marketing, Jen Larson, because it is her pet peeve. If we do a video, we got to think of an appropriate spokesperson who could demonstrate that almost anyone can use Red. Maybe a Miss USA contestant?

CG: Anything else we can look forward to that you can talk about?

JW: We’re focusing pretty aggressively on our fleet-wide WiFi roll-out. We’ll be the first and only airline to have it on every single flight by this Memorial Day (it is now on 24 of 28 planes). And we just became the first airline to offer absinthe in-flight. Although, on second thought: the image of guests twittering at 37,000 ft while drinking absinthe is somewhat disturbing.

Come chat with me on Ustream on my Virgin America flight and watch people walk by! I’ll be turning on my camera every hour or so and I’ll be chatting live from 35,000 feet.

I’ll also be IMing with Virgin America’s IFE engineer James Weatherson around 6PM PT today and I’ll post a transcript. He’s in charge of the Red entertainment system on-board all VA flights and we’ll find out what we can expect to see from the in-flight entertainment system this year.

If you have any questions you’d like me to ask him, feel free to leave a comment.

Update: If you feel like chatting on AIM then hit me up at crunchtips, kids.

Update 2: James wasn’t able to join us, so we’re going off the air. We’ll update if he manages to get online. Otherwise, we’ll have an in-person interview later this week.

http://www.ustream.tv/IrcClient.swf

Virgin America

It’s not every day we get a chance to sit down with one of the world’s richest and most industrious men. Actually, Sir Richard is only the 236th richest person in the world according to Forbes. I thought he’d be higher. *shrug* Anyway, we had the esteemed pleasure of taking Sir Richard’s IM interview virginity last week as he was jetting back to his private island, Necker.

CBS’ The Early Show’s Dave Price was also onboard to broadcast weather updates from a Virgin American flight and kept pulling Sir Richard into one segment after another. It got to be really annoying after a while.

Sir Richard: Richard here. This is pretty cool!

CG: Good morning, Sir Richard!

Sir Richard: Communicating with you from 35,000 feet.

CG: That’s exciting.

Sir Richard: Nice to meet you again.

CG: Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with me this morning. First things first. What was with your outfit yesterday at the Boston launch for Virgin America? We’re all dying to know.

Sir Richard: I was invited by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding to appear on their Saturday show. But back on Necker then so decided that the San Francisco flight was the most appropriate place to audition for the next time I’m in town.

CG: Where are you now? Where are you off to?

Sir Richard: seat 1A. About to do a wing walk.

CG: Heh.

Sir Richard: Off to an environmental conference on Necker. Setting up a carbon war room. Strange place to announce that on a plane! Burning up a lot of fuel.

CG: What gadgets are you carrying with you, Sir Richard?

Sir Richard: I’ve got a Virgin Mobile UK phone and a BlackBerry.

CG: So it’s fashion week here in NYC and my better half asked me to ask you this. Would you consider partnering with emerging designers to produce VA uniforms or apparel?

Sir Richard: Funny you should mention that. CBS’ early show is coming back onboard in March and we thought we’d do a fashion show with new uniform ideas and maybe the history of flight uniforms.

CG: Why don’t you consider routes such as Charlotte to Cleveland worthy of VA’s great service?

Sir Richard: sorry — Dave Price is talking to me. I think I have to go — we are about to shoot the next segment.

[That bastard Dave Price.

A few minutes later…]

CG: Speaking of environmental issues. How is the Virgin group adapting to the changing climate? How was the bio-fuel flight? How committed is the Virgin group to green tech or is it all talk? Will your commitment expand to your luxury liners, balloons, etc.?

Sir Richard: We are very committed to cleaning up our dirty fuels business. Thank you for mentioning the bio fuels flight; we are also flying planes made of carbon composite. And we started an investment fund called Virgin Green Fund that invests in clean tech. One of them is Solyndra, which I am sure will be one of the largest solar companies in the US over the next three years
A flight attendant is on my lap right now. We are getting ready to do another segment.

CG: You’re a lucky man.

[A few minutes later…]

CG: Would you mind elaborating a bit further?

Sir Richard: The airlines will continue to do what they can to offset their carbon footprints, make progress in developing alternative fuels, and work with partners that are environmentally responsible. Each of them is committed to contributing all of their profits into clean energy investments. On that front, I already mentioned that Virgin Group has a stake in Virgin Green Fund, which raised funds and is now making investments in clean technology. Again, one of them is a low cost solar panel company called Solyndra, which will be one of the largest solar companies in the US in the next three years. The other area of growth is likely to be the energy storage side – electricity can be sent from California to New York with minimal loss but right now it can’t be efficiently stored for more than a few hours. With innovation on that side, the way we think about energy storage will change significantly.

CG: Will Atlantic implement in-flight wi-fi or cell phone service (like British Airways has done)?

Sir Richard: BA are only doing in-flight wifi for data, not voice, on their yet-to-be launched service from London City Airport. Virgin Atlantic will announce wifi in due course, but we’re not likely to do cell phone service as I don’t think our long-haul flight passengers would appreciate it. Would you?

CG: I’d end up punching them in the face.

Sir Richard: Me too! (JK. That’s just me, Peter, joshing around. Sir Richard didn’t actually say that.)

CG: I know you folks are about to land, so here’s one last question.

CG: How have you revised strategy, particularly Virgin America’s, to accommodate the dismal status of the economy?

Sir Richard: When you offer a better product than your competitors – and at the best price — you’re going to do well, even in a downturn. That said, Virgin America has some key strengths in this climate: a fuel efficient new fleet, a streamlined low cost business structure, and the best and most friendly employees you’ll ever meet. Virgin America is also growing; right now, you don’t want to be worried about shedding 1/3 of a clunky old fleet and network. They’re also continuing to focus on the customer — which is the first thing the other guys start neglecting. People aren’t going to stop flying; they’re going to look for a better value, and that’s what Virgin America does best. Also, Virgin America have got a revenue platform in RED and the GOGO wifi service. Customers are willing to pay more for a good product – they’ve seen this with cocktails, food, and a third of some flights paying for Internet access.
note: Virgin America will be the first domestic airline to offer wifi fleetwide by the second quarter.

CG: Oh, one last question. Can I come visit you on Necker Island? I saw it on Cribs.

*crickets*

Doug Aamoth reporting from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Today in the B terminal I saw some good-looking New England Patriots cheerleaders, a good-looking Maria Menounos, and then everything went all haywire when two guys in bumblebee tutus showed up followed by Richard Branson dressed like a patriotic psychiatrist’s wet dream.

Check out the video above and the photos below for all the delightful hoopla. Virgin will be flying three daily roundtrips between LA and Boston and two daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Boston with Wi-Fi on every flight and fares starting at $109.

Virgin America [VirginAmerica.com]

Like this video? View more here…

Virgin America, my favorite domestic airline, is launching service to and from Boston today with three daily routes from LA and two daily routes from San Francisco. This is important for those traveling between Boston and California because all flights to and from Boston are equipped with Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service.

In anticipation of the Boston launch, Virgin America asked Boston residents to nominate a non-profit agency in the area that was doing good and changing things for the better. And tonight in Boston, Sir Richard Branson will donate $25,000 on behalf of Virgin Unite (the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group).

Virgin America’s and Virgin Unite’s selected non-profits:
v Green for All is committed to building a green economy that will help lift people out of poverty. The group focuses on connecting underserved communities to the emerging green economy through job creation and training, including projects in New Bedford. http://www.greenforall.org/

v KIPP Academy Lynn is a free public middle school modeled on the nationally recognized, tested and proven Knowledge is Power Program, a network of not-for-profit charter schools that prepares underserved kids for college. Virgin America has been a KIPP partner since 2007. http://www.kipplynn.org/about.php

v StandUp For Kids, Boston is a national all volunteer non-profit that has been active for 19 years, and works in the Boston area to get kids off the streets and to make a difference in the lives of at-risk and homeless youth. http://www.standupforkids.org/local/massachusetts/Boston

The top voted “revolutionary” non-profit on www.revolutiontakesflight.com:
v The Friendship Circle of Sharon teams up teens with special needs children. Now in its 15th year, the non-profit is powered by hundreds of teens who volunteer their time to engage special needs children in a wide range of activities and to provide their parents with respite and support. http://www.sharonfriends.org/

The runner-up in the popular vote was Boston Medical Center’s pediatric at-risk unit, the SPARK Center, which offers comprehensive, state-of-the-art medical care for Boston’s most at-risk children. www.bmc.org/spark

The following aircrafts are Wi-Fi-enabled:

638
529
530
521
522
526
629
525
527

Also, here’s video from the Boston press conference…

I don’t know about you guys, but $109 for a flight from NYC to the west coast is dirt-cheap. Sure, airline flights are neither gadget-y nor gear-y, but VA has Wi-Fi-enabled flights and Doom on-board. Just book your transcon flight by February 17th and fly by April 1st. Virgin America flies from NYC’s JFK to Las Vegas, San Diego, Las Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

For those traveling between LAX and JFK, you’ll be happy to know that VA is offering flights between June 17th and July 22nd for only $105 each way. Score!

Virgin America

Our buds over at Jaunted just gave us the heads up that Virgin America will begin rolling out Aircell‘s Gogo service, which we reviewed back in August, on November 22. The “beta” flight will take off from SFO, VA’s HQ, to JFK. Virgin plans to roll out the in-flight broadband service on one plane per week with a full rollout scheduled by March 2009. Oh, and they won’t be filtering the service either. The RED system will eventually be wired in as well, but we won’t see that happen until later on in 2009.

Heh. Not really. But I am bummed out because I missed Virgin America’s first “Superfly Wednesdays” from NYC to LA because I’m sick. As most of you know already, VA’s in-flight entertainment system, RED, allows seat-to-seat messaging and this would have been the perfect opportunity for me to send a little message to Jaslene Gonzalez, a previous winner of America’s Next Top Model, and tell her how much I think she’s a biotch (she’s in the middle). But I’d tell Caridee English, also a previous winner of ANTM, how hot she is (the one on the left). I have no idea who Whitney Cunningham (on the right) is, but she was, apparently, a contestant.

There are four more SW’s scheduled so I suggest you jump on a flight and check it out. Mix, mingle and network your little heart out in LA, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

It’s that time of the year, again. School’s out, for some, and it’s time for a vacation with the family. The cost of airfare seems to be quite horrendous as of late so you might as well take advantage of what you can. Virgin America, my personal favorite, is having a short and sweet sale on airfare until May 23, but you’ll have to travel by June 25 to take advantage. They currently fly to Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, NYC’s JFK, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. You may not have a reason to fly right now, but it never hurts to look because you never know.

I’m sitting in the Virgin America gate at JFK waiting for my flight to Seattle and I come across this tidbit of news. I’m both stoked and bummed at the same time. I’m stoked because this is a pretty rad deal for Mariner’s fans and I grew up rooting for them, which explains my hatred for the Yankees, but I’m bummed because I forgot my DS at home.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Nintendo Fan Network, it’s a network for DS owners at the ballpark that gives you player stats for the home and away teams, MLB updates, and SMS/chat service with other DSers in the stadium. You can also order food, watch live video, listen to radio coverage from KOMO and compete against others in mini-games and trivia. A new feature launching this weekend is Pitch Effect, which will let fans see the trajectory of each pitch, speed and placement.

It was tested last year and fans had to pay $5, which is probably the cheapest thing you’ll find at the ballpark, but its free this season. Awesome. Someone in Seattle want to take me to a game and let me borrow your DS?

Once again, Virgin America is having a bonanza on airfare until the 25th so long as you fly by June 11th. So cash in now and fly on the dopest gadget-friendly airline in the US. Yours truly will be boarding a VA flight Wednesday morning for Seattle and I can’t wait. To refresh, VA flies into and out of Seattle, NYC, LA, SF, DC and SD.

Today, we’re interviewing Charles Ogilvie, the Director of Inflight Entertainment and designer of RED.

CG: Why did you pick linux for RED?

CO: Linux is very stable and agile. We were able to pare down the embedded seat-back side to only the libraries we need, license a container app and then write the code needed to tie everything together

Which distribution are you using?
Flavors of Red Hat & Fedora (we have embedded seat-back units, seat & distribution boxes and a head-end that consists of some file servers)

How long was it in testing?
We’ve been developing it for 4 years and it has gone through numerous iterations. Before a new version is released, it is tested on a simulation rack

Did Microsoft approach you about running Windows on the back end?
We’ve talked with a lot of software vendors.

What was the hardest part about creating the system? Was it the software? The hardware?
The hardest part is maintaining agility. The beauty of the architecture is that we can continue to move forward, innovate and constantly look for additional areas to add new, unprecedented functionality like our inflight food ordering system or seat-to-seat chat.

Why don’t more people use Linux in high traffic situations like this?
I don’t know. They should.

How often does it crash? The Linux machines, not the planes…
Resets or reboots occur in different areas. Because we are trying different open source games, we do notice issues with porting them for example. Over time, we work through those issues. Our inflight team members (flight attendants) have the ability to reboot seats. The seat units also monitor themselves and can reset themselves if they freeze or lose connectivity (a heart-beat) with the head-end.

What’s the deal with the in-flight chat? Why was that included? Have people connected through that?
Seat-to-seat chat and TV-Chat are some of the most fun features we have. We’ve had everything from people striking up great conversations with other guests in chats to groups using it laugh and have fun while watching the same program. The whole idea behind it is to allow a sense of community to take place in a typically confined, airborne environment. I cannot wait for broadband and the chance for our passengers to chat with the ground

What’s in store for the future besides in-flight Wi-Fi?
The ability to compose a music-video playlist is pretty cool and on the horizon. The READ section is also awesome in that it takes what is typically a bunch of wasted trees (excess newspapers, periodicals) and allows us to be more environmentally friendly and timely with things like news/event info/sports/entertainment etc.