[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #285: Travel guides for the adventurous

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OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #285: Travel guides for the adventurous
June 6th, 2012

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/suitcase.png>Memorial 
Day is behind us and summer lies ahead, and that means the library 
shelves that usually hold travel guides are probably looking a little 
empty right now, though perhaps not as empty as in years past. The 
omnipresent smartphone is starting to make a big impact in the travel 
guide business, which makes good sense - if you're carrying your phone 
anyway, why not load a travel guide on it? And some mobile travel guide 
apps are now trying to leverage user data to make the guides more 
personal and informative, with varying approaches and varying degrees of 
success.

  * Beyond textbooks, Inkling aims to revolutionize travel with
    Frommer's digital guides
    <http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/01/inkling-frommers-travel-books/>
    (VentureBeat/Devindra Hardawar) "In addition to creating notes just
    for yourself, you can also make them public, which adds an
    intriguing crowdsourcing element. It brings some of the interesting
    social elements from sites like TripAdvisor on top of Frommer's
    professional travel guide data. Authors can also make their own
    notes within the digital books."
  * Ex-Googlers launch mobile travel guide to kill Lonely Planet
    <http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/08/ex-googlers-launch-mobile-travel-guide-to-kill-lonely-planet-raise-seed-round-from-chris-sacca-more/>
    (Tech Crunch/Rip Empson) "Thus, the Triposo algorithm takes travel
    information from seven of the biggest open source aggregators (and
    several closed resources as well) and serves its users with content
    that's relevant for them. Without any human interference, Triposo
    COO Richard Osinga tells me, the startup produces travel guides,
    with information on sightseeing, nightlife and restaurants, all
    ordered by Triposo's algorithm - and complete with an easy-to-use
    (and offline-enabled) map."
  * Review: Toozla
    <http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/13328_Toozla.php> (All
    About Symbian/Ewan Spence) "Sitting alongside the 'what's near you'
    experience of Toozla is the 'streams' experience. These are grouped
    audio clips that tell the story of a location from all the audio
    clips that are in an area. That story could be of the tourist sites
    and sounds, the local weather, or the user generated content created
    around where you are standing. While some of the audio notes are
    original vocals, the majority that I came across were entries
    adapted from Wikipedia and passed through a text to speech engine."
  * Map2app, your own mobile travel guide
    <http://italianvalley.wired.it/news_en/2012/05/21/map2app-your-own-mobile-travel-guide-34789.html>
    (Wired Italian Valley) "In brief, they are striving to be the
    Wordpress of mobile travel guides. Whoever has good content about a
    territory can sign up for free, upload the content and publish it as
    a native application for the most popular mobile platforms, without
    needing any coding skills. The result is an app that tells about
    places, events and 'stories' within a territory, enriched with
    images, audio and video."

*/Traveler fact:/*

According to a recent study 
<http://mashable.com/2012/03/24/how-tech-is-changing-travel-infographic/>, 
15% of social media users have downloaded a phone app specific to a 
particular vacation destination.
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