We've seen myriad examples of hotels partnering with non-hotel brands, including W Hotels' collaboration with Puma for in-hotel fitness services, as well as sponsored rooms in various hotels. Now taking the branding even further is La Casa del Camino Hotel in Laguna Beach., Calif., where every one of the hotel's 10 newly renovated suites features a different, immersive branded experience.

Billabong Suite 206, for example, is designed to be a surfer's paradise, with artwork including a 3D piece that tells the company's history through images of surfers, palm trees and the Billabong logo cut into reclaimed wood. Glacéau Suite 315, meanwhile, features aquatic hues and fabrics made, appropriately, from recycled plastic bottles. Other brands involved include Rip Curl, etnies, Roxy, Quiksilver, L* Space and Lost International. A different designer was recruited to create the theme in each branded suite; together, they are all part of the Casa Surf Project in the Riviera Magazine Design series. Pricing for each suite begins at about USD 250 per night, and a portion of the proceeds is donated to charity during the hotel's first year. Pets are welcome.

Whereas many of the in-hotel branding efforts we've covered have amounted to tryvertising initiatives, this one is closer to a collection of brand spaces, offering patrons an immersive look at each brand's signature style. In addition to tapping into the name recognition of those brands, of course, La Casa del Camino's use of corporate sponsorship also no doubt helped subsidize the costs of renovation. A model to emulate, particularly during tough economic times! (Related: Beer cans that sleep two — Hotel as retail space.)

Website: www.casasurfproject.com
Contact: stay@casaresortsinc.com

Spotted by: Adam Hicks

When we wrote about Lufthansa's MySkyStatus tool last October, it gave travellers the option of having their flight status updates posted automatically to either Facebook or Twitter. Some 17,000 automatic tweets have since been posted as a result, and now the German airline has expanded the free service with new capabilities.

Still available for passengers on any airline, the MySkyStatus tool now gives users the option of having their departure, in-flight location and arrival updates sent via email as well. Travellers can choose who will receive their updates and when; they can also add a personalised message. In addition, a new drop-down menu lets them share their reason for flying.

There's no doubt it's a real-time world out there, with heavy emphasis on up-to-the-minute updates on as many platforms as possible, and personalisation capabilities make the deal even sweeter. Keep the (branded) conversation-boosters coming!

Website: www.myskystatus.com
Contact: konzern.lufthansa.com/en/service/contact.html

Transparency tyranny has already forced countless industries to be more honest, as we've been documenting for several years. The latest to succumb? Ski resorts, which were shown by a recent Dartmouth study to exaggerate their snow conditions on weekends by as much as 23 percent in the hopes of attracting more skiers. Thanks to a free iPhone application, however, skiers need rely on the resorts' own reports no more; instead, they have access to real-time reports from their peers.

Available both as an iPhone app and as a Google Gadget, Ski Report lets skiers view and publish first-hand ski reports and photos right from the slopes. They can track their favourite trails at a glance, as well as locating nearby ski areas via GPS coordinates. Powder points highlight areas with the most snowfall, while live ski area cams and weather forecasts for ski areas are also available. The iPhone app and Google Gadget cover ski areas within the U.S. and Canada, while the SkiReport.com website includes 700 areas worldwide.

It should be noted that there are also related apps out there from brands such as REI, whose interest in the community is certainly understandable. Seems to us, though, that the ones who really ought to be sponsoring this kind of thing are the ski resorts themselves. The Dartmouth study found that resorts exaggerated considerably less after the Ski Report app came out, and that the improvement was most evident at resorts with good iPhone reception. Had that improvement been at the resorts' own initiative, they could have been the ones to lead the innovation rather than being forced to follow along behind. Dispense with the deception, embrace openness and community instead, and make the transparency triumph your own! ;-) (Related: Mobile apps hit the slopes — Ski lift tickets at a discount.)

Website: www.skireport.com/iphone/
Contact: contact@skireport.com

Spotted by: Rick Noyes

When we first covered the prize-winning Layar augmented reality browser back in September, we had a feeling applications would soon start start popping up all over the innovation landscape. Sure enough, just a month or so later we saw the technology used at a music festival, and now it's being put to work to reveal insights about Dutch architecture.

To recap on AR: when a camera-equipped smartphone is pointed at a scene, AR apps will superimpose information and links relevant to the location. SARA, which was created by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in partnership with IN10 Communicatie and Layar, is billed as the world’s first mobile architecture application featuring augmented reality with 3D models. Users of the technology simply hold up their smartphone to see photos, video, 3D models, scale models and other details about buildings currently in situ as well as those from the past and any planned for the future. The app is currently showcasing the new Market Hall in Rotterdam's Blaak district. Although it's still under construction, those with the app can view a 3D model of how the finished building will look. SARA also allows users to add their own information about any building or map tours of their favourite architecture. Beginning next month, the entire city of Rotterdam will be viewable through SARA; within five years, NAi expects the whole country to be covered. The technology was launched last month on the Layar platform and will be downloadable from the Apple App Store and Android Market beginning next month.

It's not hard to imagine augmented reality apps like SARA becoming a key component of tourism, giving visitors to an area insight about not just the architecture but also historical events and other points of interest. The possibilities are virtually limitless; time to get to work! (Related: iPhone app helps road warriors find a place to work — Louis Vuitton's walking tours of Beijing, Shanghai & Hong Kong.)

Website: en.nai.nl/exhibitions/sara
Contact: info@nai.nl

Airports and Twitter have one thing in common—they both create an ever more connected global village. Be that as it may, airports themselves can still be pretty lonely places while waiting to board. A French Twitter tool aims to remedy that: bored twitterers need only tweet #boarding along with an airport code (e.g. LAX), and they'll get a reply with a list of twitterers in that airport in the last few hours. Alternatively, Boarding.fr displays a map of all the world's airports and the users in them. Users can choose which random stranger they'd like to tweet and maybe meet while in transit.

Like Lufthansa's MySkyStatus, which tweets passengers' flight updates on their behalf, it's an example of real-time applications adding an automated element to the ongoing conversation that our sister-site calls foreverism. Web developer Damien Guinet created the @boarding 'twitterbot' when he realised many of his followers would tweet just to say they were in an airport. He decided to add value to this by letting them find out who else is there. Although he designed the free service "just for fun", it constantly records data to build up a picture of the most tweeted airports, and Guinet recognizes the potential to partner with airport-based advertisers—perhaps tweeting relevant airport discounts to users of the service? (Related: Connecting airline travellers for a shared cab.)

Website: www.boarding.fr
Contact: damien@boarding.fr