Travel Trends - Nokia, Tennessee, Google Maps

Nokia Urbanista Diaries -Nokia introduces it's new Nseries N82 multimedia computer (in convenient cell phone size) via a great blog / map / widget / camera phone mashup titled the Urbanista Diaries. The idea is pretty simple, send 4 bloggers around the world in 14 days and record their every move, photo and story via the Nokia. You can view the travels via the site or widget. In addition, Nokia teamed with some other companies, namely Lonely Planet and National Geographic, armed them with the smartphone and recorded every move. Obviously, not everyone is planning on watching these urbanistas 24/7, even still, I can't help but think there is a good fit (somehow) for the tourism industry with an idea like this.
http://www.nseries.com

Howdy, Tennessee! - The team over at Tennessee Department of Tourism has revamped the homepage of tnvacation.com to squeeze even more of Dolly Parton into your browser! Seriously, this is one of my favorite state-level sites, although there is a lot going on within the site. The site is beautiful to look at, very rich and detailed...but I wonder if it overwhelms some travelers. Quite a contrast from the California site we talked about a few weeks ago. The new design widens the page and cleans up the navigation to make it more legible and easy to find. Take a look y'all! (Since I am from the south, I am qualified to use the word 'y'all' in this post)
http://www.tnvacation.com/

Google Maps - So, when searching for your house on Google Maps, did you notice it was out of place? Or perhaps your dry cleaner was in the wrong building. Well, the guys and gals over at Google Maps thought you should be able to do something about it. Earlier this week, Google Maps opened itself up to user edits. Meaning the wisdom of crowds will now be helping to create and refine the map. TechCrunch summarized it best, think of this new offering as what Wikipedia did for the encyclopedia...Google Maps will now do the same for maps.
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/

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.

Lonely Planet Launches Video, Social Networking Site

Travel media company Lonely Planet has launched LonelyPlanet.tv, an online community marrying professionally created video programming with a hearty dose of user-generated videos, blogs, forums, ratings, booking services, and other travel-centric applications. Advertisers are being sought. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Lonely Planet has partnered with Reality Digital using their ‘Reality Digital Opus’ platform to host, manage, upload and share videos on the new site. Reality Digital, along with Brightcove, are two options that we have also been monitoring and evaluating. We will also keep an eye on the Lonely Planet site to gauge participation and interest levels in the new product.