Evan Prodromou launches guide books from wikitravel (1)
Evan Prodromou launched late last week Wikitravel Press, whose mission will be to publish (paper) guide books, with the content coming from wikitravel, a popular website using the wiki system to get updated information on travel destinations, that he launched in 2003, and was since then acquired by Internet Brands.
Evan writes that one of the objectives from the start was to publish books, and they are now releasing Wikitravel Chicago and Wikitravel Singapore.
Wikitravel Press is an undiscutable proof of success for Wikitravel, although there is some irony to have printed books, as the main selling point for the wiki was that it had real-time, updated, crowdsourced information. For me, it would have made much more sense in getting PDF books for devices like the iPhone/iPod touch or the Nokia N810, which can be as convenient, if not more, as a paper guide book. But I guess Evan is the expert traveller here. Congrats!
Thanks for the links and the feedback! I agree that delivery of travel information for phones and other mobile devices is going to be important.
However, there are a lot of challenges to the medium. A travel guide has a huge amount of information (our Chicago guide is over 400 pages) which can be extremely difficult to navigate on a handheld device. Squinting at text on a tiny screen can be really uncomfortable.
If you do content on-line, it requires that the device be connected, which can be costly and isn’t always easy in remote locations. If you do content for download, it ages out just like a book. Delivery formats are hard to standardize on — PDF, HTML (or a variant thereof), or some custom app format for the mobile provider?
Printed guides are convenient; easy to navigate; don’t require batteries or an Internet connection; and you can read them anywhere. We’re using print-on-demand technology to make up-to-date versions of our guides available quarterly or monthly — a huge advantage over traditional guide books.
Most of all, the business proposition is clear. People are very willing to pay hard money for a physical thing like a printed book; they’re less likely to want to pay for a digital object when the contents are available for free on the Web.
But I don’t think it’s an either-or situation, and I think it’s likely that Wikitravel guides will have customized versions for mobile sometime in the near future. I think that it’d probably be a last-recourse medium for people in a new destination (”I’m in Venice, and I need to find a bar NOW!”) rather than their main way of getting and carrying travel information.
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