From Kelowna International Airport to...

I am very excited to welcome you back on board! Today, we will depart from British Columbia's Kelowna International Airport with an, as usual, unknown destination. Just a quick announcement before we take-off: as you may have noticed our departures indicator was out of order for the last two days, but the problem is now fixed and you can go back and remember our previous flights' itineraries (titles).

Harriet's post today, mmm... donuts at Kelowna International Airport, is about a new exhibition, which will be taking place at the departures area of the airport from November 8, 2010 till May 9, 2011. The John Hall: Sweetness and Light exhibition will be featuring two large paintings, one full of licorice candies and the other filled with doughnuts. The artist behind these delicious paintings is John Hall, a Kelowna-based realist painter.

Got hungry? I did... It's amazing how pictures and more specifically photos can generate certain feelings. Words can of course generate feelings too, but it is much harder. You have to be an expert in the use of words in order to be able to transmit feelings through your writing. On the other hand, you can have the same result with a picture, which is much easier. I believe that pictures fit perfectly in the blog medium. Writing online is not just about writing. It is about the whole experience of online reading. A well-written blog includes pictures, videos, and links; it enhances interactivity. Harriet's blog Stuck at the Airport is, I believe, an example of a well-written blog. It includes a lot of pictures, sometimes videos, and many links. In general, the blog's graphics work aesthetically very well. They are not overwhelming, neither boring. The blog can be characterized clean and engaging.

A quite old article named "Mirror, Mirror On the Web," which was published in The Nation in 2007, talks about how the era of Web 2.0 has found people celebrating as the most special person in their lives no other than themselves. Harriet, following the trend, definitely celebrates herself in her blog. Or should I say promotes herself? Whoever follows Harriet can, apart from reading her blog, buy her books, find her USAToday Airport Guides, read some of her columns on USAToday.com, follow her on Twitter, and find her on Facebook. All that on top of the typical "More About Me" section that bloggers have. And that is not necessarily bad. I suppose I would also grab every opportunity to promote myself. Isn't it funny though how "promote myself" sounds so much better than "celebrate myself?"


Apart from the Harriet brand there are also some other advertisers. The advertisements on the blog are certainly not a lot. The ads are classic Google AdSense ads and they are placed at the right sidebar and at the very bottom. The advertisers are mostly local and promote among other coupons, car rentals, and travel websites. Apart from the Google ads there are also advertisers that appear at the end of the right sidebar, under the title "Advertisers." These ads seem completely incorporated in the blog and promote cheap airport parking and airport parking connections. In my opinion, it is really nice that the blog isn't bombarded by ads, because that gives it a cleaner look. The ads that already exist are not very engaging and it seems weird to me that travel related brands haven't discovered this blog, that ranks fifth in Google, in order to take advantage of it.

Time has passed so quickly that I almost forgot that we are ready to start our landing procedure. I hope you enjoyed the flight and I will be more than happy to see you again on board. Enjoy yourselves!