Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Delta Airlines announced on Monday that it’s offering free in-flight Wi-Fi for passengers — so long as they’re using it to access e-commerce giant Amazon.

Travelers onboard all Delta and Delta Connection flights with Wi-Fi connectivity will be able to visit and shop at Amazon.com and Amazonwireless.com free of charge. The move is a part of Delta’s efforts to invest more than $2 billion in enhanced global products, services and airport facilities through 2013.

To access the site, travelers can open their Internet browser on laptops and mobile devices to connect to the airline’s Wi-Fi portal, Delta Connect. The platform — powered by on-board wireless provider Gogo — also provides free access to real-time travel information, news content from The Wall Street Journal and People magazine, shopping deals and entertainment options. Passengers still have to pay to have full range of the Internet on flights.

“Delta continues to offer new technology and innovation that delivers on our customer preferences while they travel with us,” said Bob Kupbens, Delta’s vice president of marketing and digital commerce, in a statement. “Our customers enjoy our free content options in-flight and free access to Amazon provides a convenient way to shop online at 30,000 feet for things they want on the ground.”

Delta says it operates the world’s largest Wi-Fi-equipped fleet of aircraft, including its entire fleet of 550 domestic mainline aircraft. In total, more than 800 Delta aircraft are equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi service.

Do you think more airlines will partner with retailers to offer access to their sites while flying? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, youngvet

Airlines flying in Europe are finding different ways for handling the new emission trading scheme that took effect at the beginning of the year. While many airlines in North American and Asia continue to question the validity of the requirements to purchase carbon credits, several European carriers are developing plans for buying and trading carbon credits.

Germany’s Lufthansa told Reuters it has been continuously buying up credits on the open market. Currently carbon credits in Europe are at bargain prices. The price is about half of what it was in 2010 at roughly 7 Euros per ton of carbon. The requirement to buy carbon credits is effectively a tax to provide an economic incentive to minimize emissions of C02 by the airlines.

As of January 1, airlines flying to and from EU airports must have enough carbon credits to cover the emissions from their flights. The airlines join power and industrial plants in the EU that have been submitting carbon credits since 2005. Under the plan the airlines are given a number of free carbon credits to cover some of their operations, they must acquire the remaining credits either through trade or purchase.

Members of the Star Alliance group which includes United and Lufthansa told Reuters they will likely use a broker to help members buy credits on the open market at discounted rates. Airlines in the rival SkyTeam including Air France and Delta are expected to trade internally with members of the airline group to acquire some of the needed credits, purchasing the rest on the market.

Some United States carriers have already said they will be adding a surcharge to cover the cost of the credits.

A representative of Air France told Reuters the fleet will receive a free allocation of about 12.6 million tons of credit, but it expects to emit between 16-17 million tons for 2012.

Both Air France and Lufthansa say they are buying credits directly from a Paris based exchange known as BlueNext.

In the coming  years airlines are expected to begin hedging and trading carbon credits in much the same way they do with jet fuel today. Buying and trading of carbon credits is expected to pick up dramatically this year as the airlines will be required to submit their credits against the free allocations.

Photo: Lufthansa

Two airlines have announced they are raising fares to cover the cost of Europe’s new carbon trading plan, effectively passing the expense of the program on to consumers.

The move comes just days after the European Union expanded its emission trading system, which has since 2005 imposed pollution quotas on more than 11,000 utilities and manufacturers, to include airlines. As of January 1, any airline arriving at or departing from the EU must have sufficient carbon credits or pay a fine.

International carriers will be given emission permits making up 85 percent of the industry cap in 2012 and will have to buy the remaining 15 percent at auction, Reuters reports. According to the International Air Transport Association, the EU’s emission trading system could cost airlines $1.6 billion this year.

Delta Airlines, the world’s second-largest carrier in terms of passengers carried, said this week it will add $6 to the cost of a round-trip ticket to Europe to cover its anticipated carbon costs. Lufthansa said it will add a surcharge, but didn’t specify how much. According to the Associated Press, the airline says it will have to buy one-third of the certificates it expects to need this year.

The emissions quotas are part of the EU’s effort to curb carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the impact of global climate change.

The rules require all flights into and out of the EU to have sufficient credits to cover the entire duration of the flight, regardless of where it originated. This has outraged many foreign carriers, who say it is unfair for the EU to impose what is, effectively, a tax on that portion of a flight beyond EU airspace. Under the plan, a carrier flying from Los Angeles to Paris would be charged many more carbon credits than a carrier flying from Rome to Paris, even though the latter flight spends more time over Europe.

Several U.S. and Canadian airlines have joined more than 40 nations opposing the EU plan. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation prohibiting domestic carriers from participating in the program.

But late last month the European Court of Justice threw out a challenge to the law, saying the “emissions trading scheme is valid,” according to the Agence France Presse.

Now China is saying bluntly it will not pay the charges, which airlines must begin paying in March, 2013. The China Air Transportation Association is pressuring the EU to drop the plan, calling its action a unilateral move that does not represent a global effort.

“China will not cooperate with the European Union on the ETS” the CATA’s Chai Haibo told Reuters, “so Chinese airlines will not impose surcharges on customers relating to the emissions tax.”

India, too, may attempt to scuttle the plan, according to Reuters.

The kerfuffle comes as the airline industry continues its campaign to curb fuel consumption and, by extension, emissions. New aircraft and engine designs, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A320NEO promise to dramatically reduce airline emissions.

But the EU wants deeper cuts in airline emissions, which have increased dramatically over the continent in recent decades. The global airline industry contributes roughly 2 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions created by human activity. Recent improvements in airplane efficiency have not been able to keep up with increased demand for aircraft and air travel. This means the percentage of emissions from the airlines is likely to grow in the coming years.

Photo: Delta

SpaceX is poised to take a giant leap with the biggest rocket since the Saturn V carried men to the moon, and it could blast off by early 2013.

Elon Musk’s private space startup announced Tuesday that the 22-story Falcon Heavy will carry more than 117,000 pounds into low Earth orbit, giving it twice the lift capability of the space shuttle or the Delta IV heavy rocket built by Boeing–Lockheed Martin. Musk says it’ll be far cheaper, too.

“It’s more capability than any vehicle in history apart from the Saturn V,” Musk told reporters. “It opens up a range of possibilities for government and commercial space missions that simply aren’t present with the current lifting capacity.”

Musk, the CEO of Space Exploration Technologies, says the first launch will happen soon after the Falcon Heavy arrives at the company’s launch complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, late next year.

He estimates launching the 227-foot-tall rocket at $80 to $125 million, less than one-third the cost of the Delta IV and roughly one-tenth that of the space shuttle. If SpaceX stays within that cost, the Falcon Heavy will deliver payloads at the $1,000-per-pound benchmark long sought by the space industry.

“It’s not so mythical anymore,” Musk told reporters in Washington, D.C. He believes SpaceX will find customers eager to use the rocket. Analysts say he may be right.

“SpaceX has established credibility in the commercial market and with NASA,” Tim Farrar, president of consulting and research firm Telecom, Media & Finance Associates, told the Los Angeles Times. “The Falcon Heavy is going to open more markets.”

The cost savings comes as budgets for NASA and the Pentagon face increasing pressure and the government increasingly looks to the private sector to assist its space programs. SpaceX already has contracts with NASA to use the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station as early as the end of this year.

It’s also another big step forward for Musk and SpaceX. The Falcon 9 became the first commercial vehicle to launch a spacecraft into orbit and have it return to Earth safely.

SpaceX also has contracts to deliver commercial satellites to orbit — including a $492 million deal with telecommunications firm Iridium Communications — but does not have any military contracts yet. So far, the military relies solely on United Launch Alliance, a collaboration between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The relatively cheap cost of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy may help SpaceX break that monopoly. Musk has said the Air Force is interested in having SpaceX delivering payloads to orbit.

“There’s no point in matching the competition,” Musk said. “We want to steamroll them. We’re trying to make this a complete no-brainer.”

The Falcon Heavy will be used for cargo missions at first, but Musk said it is designed to meet NASA’s human-rating standards — opening the door to missions to the moon or even Mars.

It is also being designed with reliability in mind. The first stage consists of three nine-engine cores. They are the same cores used to power the Falcon 9. The 27 engines will provide 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and the mission can continue even if multiple engines fail.

The Saturn V that delivered 12 men to the moon — and another 15 to lunar orbit — could carry 262,000 pounds to low Earth orbit. Musk noted a mission to the moon could be staged with a pair of Falcon Heavy launches.

After an initial launch at Vandenberg, SpaceX says the Falcon Heavy should make its first launches from Cape Canaveral in late 2013 or early 2014.

Images: SpaceX

Have you noticed how upbeat the ads for airlines and banks are?

Judging from the billboards and the newspaper ads, you might be led to believe that Delta is actually a better airline, one that cares. Or that your bank has flexible people eager to bend the rules to help you succeed.

At one level, this is good advertising, because it tells a story that resonates. We want Delta to be the airline it says it is, and so we give them a try.

The problem is this: ads like this actually decrease user satisfaction. If the ad leads to expect one thing and we don’t get it, we’re more disappointed than if we had gone in with no real expectations at all. Why this matters: if word of mouth is the real advertising, then what you’ve done is use old-school ad techniques to actually undercut any chance you have to generate new-school results.

So much better to invest that same money in delighting and embracing the customers you already have.

In a move that may signal the arrival of social media as a player on Madison Avenue, Jon Bond, one of the founders of large traditional agency Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners, is becoming CEO of social media shop Big Fuel.

Bond, who co-founded KB in 1987, will replace Big Fuel founder and CEO Avi Savar, who will focus on the agency’s growth and drive its creative vision, Savar says.

The move, announced today, comes as Big Fuel recently took control of all of General Motors’ social media marketing and opened a Detroit office to service the account. Big Fuel’s other clients include McDonald’s, Fisher-Price, Budweiser and Colgate-Palmolive.

Bond says that social media is coming into its own. “I think this is the fourth seat,” says Bond of social media, “next to the media agency, the digital agency and the branding agency. I’d say make room.” Bond says Big Fuel’s mixture of strong creative and distribution drew him to the agency. “The winning formula is buzz plus scale and they’ve got that,” Bond says.

Bond left KB in early 2010, a year after advertising holding company MDC Partners had bought a controlling interest the agency (now known as Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners). Over the years, Bond had helped put together a client roster including Delta, Target, BMW and Wendy’s. Since leaving KB, he has served as an investor and advisor to several new media firms, including Klout and crowd-sourcing agency Victors & Spoils.

Garth Holsinger, vice president of global sales and business development for Klout, says although social media shops are hot right now, they need someone with Bond’s expertise. “Big Fuel needs the Jon Bonds of this world because they still wield a lot of influence,” says Holsinger. “It’s smart of them to bring in those relationships with clients.”

To further Big Fuel’s growth, the agency has also retained investment bank The Jordan Edmiston Group, which will help Big Fuel enter new markets.

Starting April 5th, and for a limited time only during the month of April, about 60 TerraCycle items, including a bunch of brand new things never seen before, will be available in every single Wal-Mart across the country (3,500 locations) in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this year. The products will be sold right next to the original items they are made from. Kites made from Cheetos wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips and backpacks made from drink pouches will be sold next to boxes of Capri Sun. This will help educate consumers about resource conservation and give millions of students who participate in TerraCycle’s Brigades, an opportunity to see their collection efforts come to life!

Some of the products include:
Eco-Kite: The world’s first standard Delta Kite to be made from food wrappers! These brightly colored kites are made from waste packaging of popular brands like M&M’s, Skittles, Frito-Lay and Oreo and look great flying at the beach or above your picnic. Cookie wrappers, chip bags and candy wrappers are made strong and light to protect your snacks, which makes them an ideal material to make these affordable, fun kites. So make an statement when you go fly a kite: that you can snack and help the planet! TerraCycle pays schools and non-profits nationwide to collect used packaging, join the 60,000 other groups collecting at here.

Kids Growing Kit: Teach kids about gardening and the environment at the same time with the TerraCycle Kid’s Growing Kits for Vegetables, Flowers or Herbs. The Kits use upcycled Stonyfield Yogurt Cups as planting pots and TerraCycle’s famous Worm Poop mixed with compost for the growing medium. The Kits come with growing instructions and the cardboard tray holding it all together is even embedded with the seeds needed to start the plants. Almost no part of these kits is waste and they come with everything you need to start growing right away. Stonyfield and TerraCycle run a free collection program that pays organizations 3 cents for every used Yogurt Cup they collect.

Printed Totes and Wristlets: For the first time, TerraCycle is proud to introduce a full line of bags made from upcycled food wrappers that are reserved to show the white or silver side, instead of the branded side with logos. Frito-Lay wrappers are turned inside out and have a variety of patterns ranging from flowers to skulls printed on each side. With handles and trim selected to match the patterns, no one will even know these bags are made from waste, until you tell them of course! The line includes a variety of tote bags, wristlets and clutches.

Notebooks, Folders, Pencil Cases and Journals: TerraCycle makes a full line of Journals, Folders and Notebooks made from used Mars candy wrappers from favorite brands like Skittles and M&M’s, as well as, Capri Sun drink pouches. These unique, bright items are great for school or personal use. Made from waste wrappers, all of TerraCycle school products have a drastically smaller carbon footprint than traditional products and are still just as affordable and fashionable as any other item!

Accessories Bags: This range of bags includes everything from camera and shoulder bags to backpacks and lunchboxes. Made from a variety of upcycled wrappers including Mars candy wrappers, Frito-Lay wrappers and Capri Sun drink pouches. The items are made from the same wrappers that will cover the very food they may hold on the way to school or work! All made with trim and handles which match the original logos product these bags are as fun and fashionable as they are eco-friendly!

Check out the blog contest here.

L2R: Chris Brogan, Scott Gould, Joanne Jacobs, Jon Akwue, Olivier Blanchard, John bell, Drew Ellis, Yann Gourvennec – photo by Benjamin Ellis

There is so much I want to write about the #LikeMinds conference and summit that I could go on for weeks. (And I may yet.) For now, all I can do is give you a glimpse of what is to come, and promise you a deluge of strategic, operational, and tactical insights into how to deploy, integrate and manage social communications.

Feel free to keep calling it Social Media if you must, but I am moving on to “Social Communications” until I find a better term.

Why the change in vernacular? Two reasons: 1. Terminology matters. Using the right words is important. 2. It never was about the media. Not for one second. The reason why so many people are confused about this, from integration and strategy to implementation, management and measurement is because of the focus on the media. Stop. Just stop. Think. Refocus. What are we talking about here? (Trust me, it isn’t the media.)

And if this is the part where you expect me to say “it isn’t about the media, it’s about people,” you’re only half right. Cliches aside, it’s about people, sure. It’s about a lot of things, really. It. But at its most basic level, all we have been talking about is communications. That’s it. Twitter, Facebook, the internet, mobile, all the technology, the media, the platforms, they’re things. They’re boxes. Pipes and wires and glass. There’s a bigger picture here that is tool-agnostic, universal, and easy to understand, define and reframe if we just take a couple of steps back and change our perspective by a fraction of a degree (which is what we did at the Summit.)

This stuff really isn’t brain surgery. How Social Communications can be engineered into your organization, it’s a lot of moving parts, sure, and it’s hard work if you want to do it right, but it doesn’t take quantum physicists to deconstruct the processes, methodologies and best practices. If Likeminds proved anything, it’s that beyond the presentations and show-and-tell sessions common to most “Social Media” conferences, when people who work in the Social Communications enablement space 150 hours a week get together to work out the kinks, the kinks get worked out.

Incidentally, perhaps the reason why so many companies and so many would-be consultants and “gurus” are still confused about how this all works is because we’ve been using the wrong terminology all along. How can you understand something you can’t even properly name?

Social Communications it is, then. For now. It isn’t a big leap really, but try it on for size. Drive it around for a few days, see if it grows on you. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll keep trying.

I don’t have time to write a real post before catching my flight back to the US. I leave Bovey Castle in Dartmoor before dawn to catch a train from Exeter to London. Then it’s the Heathrow Express, then Delta to ATL and ATL to GSP. So I can’t share videos, pictures and thoughts with you yet. And my presentation from the conference will be available on Slideshare in a few days, so hang tight. I need to add some commentary to it before I upload it.

Until then, you can get caught up on videos, photos and insights from the Like Minds conference here and here. Among the keynote speakers: Ogilvy Worldwide’s John Bell, Chris Brogan, Orange’s Yann Gourvennec, Joanne Jacobs and Jonathan Akwue, who are all brilliant beyond words. No matter what presentation you watch, trust me, you’ll learn something valuable.

One last thought I want to leave you with before I go try and grab a few hours of sleep before my early ride out of here: We’re going to crack this nut wide open for you. Social Communications, the whole bit, we’re going to lay it out for you, piece by piece, brick by brick. The white paper that will come out of this summit will outline a lot of it for you. Much more than we expected. The level of clarity we reached through the exercise surprised me, frankly. That’s what happens when the right people sit together and focus on the right things long enough to get something done. Why we don’t do it more, I don’t know.

So hang tight, get caught up on all of the #LikeMinds content, and I will be back with more updates throughout the week.

Oh, and please help me spread the word about Red Chair Portland on March 11 and 12. I am updating my deck to include some of the key findings and insights our group worked out during the summit, so… it might even be worth flying into PDX for this one.

Cheers,

Olivier