Cool Hotels in the World

A friend of mine has recently launched a new website called CoolHotels.in

As the name implies, it is a website that ranks hotels in different destinations by how cool they are. Perhaps it sounds obscure, but actually a lot of travelers are looking for hotels that are... well, cool.

Preferably, not just a little cool, but actually the coolest. 

Check out the coolest hotels in London, San Francisco, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Paris. You will find some really nice hotels.

I think this website looks really nice. Hope you like it too!

Team Ted Valentin

Hi! My name is Ted Valentin. I'm an internet entrepreneur and the guy who the started the 24 Hour Business Camp (a nice hack event) here in Sweden.

Some of the websites I've developed previously are Hotellkartan.se, Annonskartan.se, Restaurangkartan.se and Boutique hotels London, Paris, New York, Cape Town, Berlin. Also, check out Slottskartan.se and Spahotellkartan.se.

My philosophy is to develop simple and useful websites, at low cost. And f-a-s-t, of course. After launch the websites should preferably by self-sustainable.

At the moment I'm on parental leave, so the Bonnier Hack Day will be a nice break from things :)

Other sites in development are places where people can find hotels with great views in places like New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. And rooftops in London and New York etc! Also dog friendly hotels, spa hotels, hotels with sauna in London and much more.

Hack Day summary

The winners: Team Sydsvenskan - Citypedia.se

The first Bonnier Hack Day is now over. Oh boy, what a day. Despite the fact that the alarm went completely berserk at around 5 pm, amazing participants, concepts, discussions and food made the event a huge success. And a big plus: the Internet connected worked fairly well for the most of the time.

The winning concept Citypedia.se, developed by Per-Olof Bondesson, Johannes Fosseus and Sara Johannesson from the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, is a city wiki/guide that combines location-based mobile services such as Gowalla and Foursqaure, Twitter and newspaper articles (by using Saplo's sentiment analysis API) along with users' own ratings to estimate the popularity of venues and other city phenomenons.

The jury, consisting of Sarah Öhrvall and Alexander Jamal of Bonnier R&D, Roger Åberg of Feber, Spotify ex-CTO Andreas Ehn and Joakim Jardenberg of Mindpark AB, particularly liked the way in which team Sydsvenskan used new and vastly different sources/API:s to provide more accurate and extensive reviews. David Kjelkerud and Henrik Berggren's stunning photo-based news browsing service Pictoriala and Per Åström and Marcus Lindén's useful web TV content aggregator repr.is were nominated too.

There are of course several ways to enjoy Bonnier Hack Day in retrospect. Here are some:

Chris Thorpe's (@jaggeree) Hackwall and blog post.

Per Åström's (@perkovich) blog post (Swedish).

Bonnier.com article.

Photo set on Flickr.

Thanks everone for participating and making our first Hack Day a big hit.

Bye for now!

[UPDATE]

Blog post by Jocke Jardenberg (@jocke).

Blog post by Anton Lindqvist (@mptre).

Blog post by Gunnar R (in Swedish).

Benjamin Product Feed API

If any of you would like to play around with advertorials, contextual product ads, or just with any form of product mash-up, then we would be more than happy to give you access to the Benjamin product engine.

Our product engine has collected thousands of products, which are all ready for being matched with your query. You will be able to retrieve images, title, description, price, shipping cost, and a whole lot more.

At the moment, the inventory is only fashion related, but can be expanded easily to provide contextually correct matches for products in other industries as well.

Come say hi to the Benjamin guys - the Interactives - at the Hack Day - and we'll set you up.

- Anders Toxboe

PM for the Benjamin ProductFeed project

Benjamin Media

Team bink

Hi there!

We're the bink team.

Krysse Bergendahl, developer

Louise Fasth, developer

Fredrik Wallström, project manager

Looking forward hanging out with you geeks :-)

Hack Day agenda

Hi,

Several people have sent me emails regarding practical details, such as agenda and address, so I decided to summarize eveything here.

Note: Hack Day is first and foremost about having fun and making something you've dreamt of doing. The elevator pitch session/competition is a "bonus".

Schedule

Thursday March 11

12-2 pm Lunch + general information + open mic session with speakers, among others Per Åström (TV4); Jyri/Ulla-Maaria Engeström (Thinglink); Saplo; Jayway; Ted Valentin; Chris Thorpe (the Guardian). Let me know if you want to sign up too.

2 pm Coffee + Hack Day competition begins

5 pm Dinner

Friday March 12

8 am Breakfast

12 pm Lunch

2 pm Hack Day competition ends + quick coffee break

2-3 pm Elevator pitch session with jury (2 min pitch + 1 min feedback per team).

The jury consists of: The R&D team, Jocke Jardenberg and Erich Hugo (Bonnier Digital)

Adress: Kungsgatan 49, close to Hötorget. Take the elevator to floor 7.

You can reach me at 070-207 5096.

Internet: vouchers with 48h passwords for the wireless network will be handed out in the beginning. The wireless network should eb able to handle 50+ people, but to be on the safe side, wired connections will be made available too. If you have a 3G dongle, feel free to bring it.

Who owns the rights to the concept I develop? Since Bonnier Hack Day is arranged internally, during regular work hours, the Bonnier company you work for owns the rights. External participants are expluded, of course.

Which criteria will the jury evaluate the concepts/products based on? Factors such as consumer demand, uniqueness, revenue potential, scalability, achievability, as well as how well it fits into the "Bonnier context". We use three key categories: concept, business and execution (utförande).

Team Repris

Yet another team from TV4... This project will focus on something that is closer to our core business: television.

My name is Marcus Lindén (@mackielinden) and I work as a tech project manager/solutions architect at TV4 with Internet TV services (web, mobile, OTT). My programming skills include Actionscript 3, javascript/html/css and some years ago Java. I have a passion for new solutions to old problems. Will team up with my first (and also most recent boss) with the ambition to build a mashup of public and commercial services.

Per Åström (@perkovich): its my first Hack Day ever and with so many ideas I couldn't resist to do two projects (I am very fortunate to be surrounded by talented people to cooperate with!). I try to think of limits as something positive so we will see what we can achieve during the 24 hours.