Travelocity has launched a Spanish-language site designed to give travelers in Latin America a secure way to make travel reservations any day at any time through a trusted brand. The site is targeted at travelers throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America with a focus on consumers in Chile, Columbia and Peru. The new site offers a wide range of options including 70,000 hotels, in addition to flights, car rentals and more, for destinations worldwide.

Dogpile.com, the flagship search site of InfoSpace, has leveraged its relationship with Petfinder.com to launch a downloadable social networking widget designed to connect animal lovers with pets in need of homes.
Consumers who download the Dogpile adoptable pet widget application will have easy access to information on pets available for adoption through Petfinder.com right from their Facebook or MySpace page. The application dynamically imports Petfinder adoptable pet of the day with “adopt me” information, and allows users to customize their widget by desired animal type, breed and location. Once the widget is downloaded from Dogpile.com or Petfinder.com, users can share information between friends on the social sites.

The widget is a product of the recent partnership between Dogpile and Petfinder, created to increase awareness of and drive traffic to Dogpile.com, as well as promote Petfinder’s pet-related content and encourage the adoption of more than 250,000 adoptable pets within Petfinder’s network of almost 11,000 local shelter and rescue groups.

Clean Action Network, an online community for people to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges, was recently unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York City.

Founded by William Loiry, president of Equity International, and designed and developed by Jennings Public Relations & Advertising in Kansas City, Mo., the Clean Action Network was created to facilitate and empower people interested in creating a clean future. Members on the site range from consumers and entrepreneurs to business leaders and government officials from across the globe. The community is committed to providing educational tools for its members to address solutions and solving top environmental issues ranging from clean air and drinking water to the health and safety of children.

Valerie Jennings, CEO & president of Jennings Public Relations & Advertising, Inc., said the new online community gives people a voice in the preservation of the world’s future. “Solutions to global challenges no longer lie in the hands of the powerful; anyone can contribute to solving our world’s challenges. The Clean Action Network provides a forum for people to share and discuss ideas and insights,” Jennings said.

The announcement is part of Loiry’s commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative for a clean future.

If you can’t have enough of football, here’s another one for you. Wazoo Sports, a high school sports broadcast network, will air online the 33rd Annual Army High School Football Bowl live from McAdams Field in Fort Knox, KY. The Fort Knox Eagles will host the Fort Campbell Falcons Friday, October 3, 2008 at 8:00PM ET.

Wazoo Sports will kick off pregame coverage at 7:45PM ET. Pregame will feature special messages from players whose families are deployed around the world.

Wazoo Sports aired 120 basketball games during the 2007–2008 basketball seasons and will broadcast approximately 50 high school football games during the 2008 Football season. Wazoo Sports also provides unlimited ON DEMAND viewing of all their content.

PicoSearch, the pioneer in advanced hosted site search services, announced the launch of its new Direct Search feature, enabling programmers to tailor their search results to point users to a specific web page on their site when they query certain terms.

In keeping with the PicoSearch practice of giving programmers the utmost flexibility, Direct Search also has several search-specific capabilities that are designed to provide the most accurate and efficient search results possible. Programmers can set conditional search rules by using wildcards, or variations of the queried term to match the user’s searches. For example, if an online shopper wanted to be directed to a page of hats, then a programmer for an e-commerce site can set rules so that the words “hat,” “hats” and “caps” all direct the shopper to the same page that displays hats. Also, by making the rule conditional, the shopper is immediately directed to the best hats page in the context of the original search.

AOL announced the launch of Digital City, a new, magazine-style site that enables readers to stay on top of the latest entertainment trends and stories from around the world. Digital City takes a new approach to geo-blogging by showcasing original content with a local slant, but global appeal.

In addition to daily posts on topics ranging from the arts to fall festivities, Digital City has weekly features focusing on news and trends in entertainment, concerts, nightlife and dining. The monthly blogazine “Drink World” is devoted to the global culture of drinking.

Digital City is part of the AOL Local Network, an online local network with a monthly reach of 60 million unique visitors. The site will be monetized through advertising packages that will be sold exclusively through Platform-A, AOL’s digital advertising business.

Userplane, the social software provider for online communities and one of the largest global social media ad networks, announced that its social networking apps are powering both official and fan-driven social media sites for some of the nation’s biggest professional sports teams. 

Sites dedicated to sports team and its fans such as www.49ersfaithful.net and www.weareredsoxnation.com, use Userplane Webchat with Minichat and  Webmessenger, enabling fans to connect, complain or pontificate about their favorite teams without leaving the comfort of home.

The Washington Redskins site is the team’s official web home, largely dedicated to content.   By embedding Userplane’s Minichat application within articles at the site, users can see and participate in live chat among readers as they view those articles.  “Enabling the Redskins’ fiercely loyal fan base to interact with one another has proved to be a true enhancement for our online community.  Live chats are encouraged around up-to-date topics and news about the Redskins, which helps engage our members further,” said Shripal Shah, Vice President of Marketing Strategy for the Washington Redskins.

By contrast, a fan site dedicated to Boston’s MLB team is part of a larger social networking community called WeAre.us, and offers chat rooms using Userplane Webchat and instant messaging powered by Userplane Webmessenger.  A popular website for San Francisco football fans www.49ersfaithful.net, powered by KickApps, offers Webchat during live games.

ImpreMedia, the Hispanic news and information company in the US, and MySpace is teaming up to offer Spanish-language coverage of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates. ImpreMedia’s online portal, impre.com, will host live feeds of the Debates and provide simultaneous translation of the debates into Spanish, making the Debates accessible for the first time in Spanish to Spanish-preferred Hispanic voters.

The Spanish-language live coverage is also accessible on MyDebates.org, a new website that hosts interactive tools for viewers to virally engage in the political process, including a personalized issue scorecard, polling, reportable national statistics, and live web streaming.

ImpreMedia’s online portal, impre.com, will host live feeds of the Debates and provide simultaneous translation into Spanish, making the Debates accessible to Spanish-preferred Hispanic voters.

Registration of Hispanic voters has grown 50% over the past ten years, according to the 2008 Pew Hispanic Survey, with some 18.2 million Hispanic voters now comprising 9% of the overall US electorate.

After launching the popular Pro Football Live mobile application, Plusmo has unveiled the beta version of College Football Live, a free mobile application available on any smartphone and on Apple iTunes. College Football Live dubs itself as the only application of its kind that creates a “virtual stadium” experience, combining up-to-the-minute college football coverage with fun social features.

College fans can personalize the application to get one-click access to game-time action on their favorite teams. Plusmo delivers the best interactive college football experience on a mobile device with “end zone-to-end zone” updates and scores, game schedules, breaking news, stunning game-time visuals and the latest polls. In-progress updates are pushed right to your phone as they happen. In addition to the game-time action, what makes College Football Live even more exciting are the advanced social features that let users chat live with other fans, and cheer or jeer teams and players throughout the game.

I still believe though that football is best watched in HD.

SustainLane Media is pioneering a greener media frontier with its Green Ad Network.  The company has forged a unique partnership with renewable energy pioneer NativeEnergy to offset the estimated carbon footprint of all of the Network’s campaigns.
 
Currently, each time the network serves an ad to a participating site, a small amount of carbon is generated by the required computer energy.  Garnering over 150 million page views each month across more than 100 green Web sites and blogs, SustainLane Media’s Ad Network makes a significant ecological impact through the energy it uses.
 
By teaming with NativeEnergy, SustainLane Media is supporting high quality, third-party verified renewable energy and emissions reductions projects that will help prevent carbon from being released in the atmosphere and offset the carbon released through the Green Ad Network.