BBC Buys Lonely Planet To Expand Online Content

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp, bought Lonely Planet in a deal that values the travel publisher at about 100 million pounds ($203 million), a person familiar with the talks said.

Lonely Planet founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler will keep a 25 percent stake, the BBC said on Monday.

The couple, who met on a bench in London's Regents Park, started the publisher in 1972 after a honeymoon trip across Asia with "a beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure," the Lonely Planet's Web site says. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A big acquisition for the BBC and a big move from Lonely Planet. In what may be one of the first consolidation moves in this Web 2.0 online travel industry, the deal begins to show the value of travel content. In what is by far the most obvious statement to date on this blog, people like to travel...and travel content, travel-planning content and travel review content is a big hook for large portal sites (such as Yahoo!, MSN and the BBC) to continue to build visitation.

Two excerpts from a couple of articles on the deal:

BBC Worldwide recently raised £350m in debt to acquire content companies around the world to boost its growth prospects and add to its already extensive content portfolio. - The Independent

The deal will help the BBC become "one of the world's leading content businesses," BBC Worldwide Chief Executive John Smith said. - Washington Post

One of the world's leading content businesses. Not a news business, not an entertainment business, not even a television business, but a content business. As digital / interactive / entertainment companies continue to grow, the most important asset is content.

Content.

Travel Trends - Tvtrip, TripUp

Tvtrip - Another video hotel guide from Europe, this venture, called Tvtrip (not to be confused with Trivop), is lead by former managers from Expedia Europe. Currently only available with limited hotels in London, Brussles, Paris, and Berlin (because of the huge overhead involved), Tvtrip listings include maps, ratings, pricing and videos touring the hotel’s different classes of rooms, amenities, and exterior compiled by their teams of videographers.
http://www.tvtrip.com/

TripUp - TripUp is a social networking travel community. Think of it as MySpace meets Match.com meets TripAdvisor. Find trip buddies in the city you are traveling to, make friends, connections, get tips or even find someone to travel with.
http://www.tripup.com/

Travel Trends - Trivop, NewsBreaker Live

Trivop: Straight from Europe, Tripov is being promoted as the first videoguide for hotels, the site allows consumers to browse hotels by video, assisting them in making an educated choice when deciding on which hotel to stay in. Currently only reviewing European hotels, Tripov falls perfectly into the ‘mashup’ category.
http://www.trivop.com/

NewsBreaker Live: Called ‘the sweetest movie waiting experience I've ever had,’ MSNBC.com’s new NewsBreaker Live in-theater video game has been a hot topic in the advertising / new media world this week. Part of MSNBC’s new ‘A Fuller Spectrum of News’ campaign, audiences played the classic video game by moving in their seats to direct the controls. Initial reports said the audience wanted to play the game again…rather than watch Spiderman 3.
>>Full Story / >>More Photos

45% of Europeans watch TV online

Almost half of European broadband users are using their computers to watch television online, a survey claims. The ability to "take control" of their viewing was the motivation for many users said Motorola, which interviewed 2,500 people including the UK.

Thoughts// While not directly related to AOT (unless you are a fan of BBC shows such as the EastEnders), this new study from Motorola does indicate that a large number of European consumers not only have access to the technology (broadband internet) to watch video online, but appear to be rapid adopters as well. An interesting note to keep in mind as AOT
ventures deeper into the European marketplace.