Guides are really big these days it seems. The other day I told about three new city-guides – and now we have yet another guide-site. This time only the destination is the whole world, not just Copenhagen.
“Turen går til” (“The trip takes you to”) is a well reknowned (is it market leading?) Danish travellers guide published by the JP/Politikens hus. A printed guide which went to the web with a “softlaunch/silent beta” sometime this January, I believe. This is what it looks like (if you choose the map-section of the site):
Interesting enough this guide – like the three cityguides – features both a Google map mash-up and usergenerated content, on top of the editorial content. Users can upload photos from destinations from around the world – as well as writing their own articles and comments.
That is: within the past few month we’ve got four very, very “web 2.0-ish” new danish guide websites hitting the street. Web 2.0-ish in the sense that they’re open, letting the users get inside, inviting them in as co-authers – while at the same time drawing on the openess of others, namely Google, who has put their map-technology to the use of everybody, who wants to use it (and are willing to brand Google maps by the same token).
It does make sense, I think, that all of these web 2.0 initiatives are put into the area of “guides”: this is for sure one area, where you can expect users to have something to say – and have a chance, that they will actually do it, if they find your site interesting and giving enough. An area where you can expect the “wisdom of the crowds” to actually make sense (if you are really able to gather a crowd, that is).
This is quite interesting, although I think more work could be done on the map bit of the site.
For instance you could let people add journey-routes to the map while they travel. A bit like this only with more markers:
http://www.webwalking.com/googlemap.htm
It would be quite interesting to see a journey across the globe using Google maps instead of just a 2D blog.
In addition tgt.dk could think about letting users see other peoples routes by filling out a short form about how many you travel, for how long and an estimated price, and then let the system search for a route that fits the above. Now THAT would be sweet 🙂
Web 2.0 or userdriven travelguides has been around for a while in Denmark – especially in the backpacker segment.
Our own site: http://www.backpackerplanet.dk has articles, photos, advice og blogs from users + a very popular bullettin board.
Flot og funktionel side Kenneth