Jeremy Head's travelblather - a blog about online travel

The travel press trip that didn't happen

I don't do trips so much now I work for search and social media company iCrossing. But I'd got them to agree to give me a month off (unpaid) to coincide with my girlfriend's summer holidays (she's a teacher) and decided to try and pull in a commission that would allow me to go somewhere interesting without having to pay for it. We'd pay the extra for my girlfriend to accompany me and, in theory, everyone would be happy.

I've not done much of the Americas and so focussed on Central America. I found out quickly how the market has tightened. I pitched at most of the editors and found they weren't commissioning much. What they were, needed to be places that lots of readers would go to: France, Italy, Spain, Thailand, Australia.

But eventually I landed a commission to El Salvador. A new destination introduced by one of the larger Latin America specialist tour operators. It sounded seriously cool! The newspaper was a smaller UK daily national - I'm not naming it here - but it's one of four UK upmarket dailies with a circulation in the 250,000 mark.

For those of you reading this who don't know how abysmal pay is for freelance travel writers let me tell you up front. For 1500 words I was offered £250. The travel editor told me that he would welcome pictures but that he had no budget, so I'd have to give them for free. That's the going rate. (I know that to be the case). So I didn't negotiate.

I've taken my girlfriend on trips before. Usually it's easy to agree that, because she shares my room and my transfer taxi and my minibus if we're being driven around, there's no additional cost. We just pay for her extra meals. And of course for her flights.

As is often the case the tour operator couldn't help with flights. So I approached the airlines directly. In return for a free flight for me, they would get the mention in the 'getting there' part of the Fact Box at the end of the piece.

• BA and Iberia said 'not interested'
• KLM took 2 weeks to decide and then offered a 'media rate' of about £850(!)
• United Airlines wanted to know if I could guarantee them a mention in my copy as well as in the Fact Box. (Answer - not a hope. Even if I put it in there it would definitely get taken out by the sub-editor at the newspaper.) So they said No
• Continental Airlines offered a similar rate to KLM
• American Airlines offered $550 + taxes (total cost about £600)

At the same time, the tour operator came back to me and said I'd have to pay around £700 for my girlfriend to accompany me. The local operator in El Salvador decided that he could make a buck or two by effectively charging us pretty much full rate for her. I negotiated a bit. We reduced the length of the trip and cut out one long day trip to a temple outside El Salvador in Honduras. Managed to get the girlfriend's costs down to £400.

I then checked with American Airlines and found that they couldn't give any reduction for my girlfriend. Her tickets would cost around £1000.

So... my 'cheap' adventure off the back of a commission was going to cost me £600 with an income of £250 and my girlfriend £1400. (OK. I'm a nice guy, I'd have picked up half the tab for her!)

Know what I did?

I canned the trip and booked two full fare tickets to Malaysia for a total cost of £1400.

When I emailed the tour op to tell them, they suddenly found an extra £350 in the budget to contribute towards my flight costs. But, by then, I'd had enough. Interestingly when I emailed the travel ed of the newspaper, he replied in a moment and was quite relaxed. 'No problem, completely understand. Feel free to pitch other ideas my way.' This sort of thing looks like it happens quite often.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

Combining a press trip with a holiday, rarely works. Shame, because it's really good to have a second opinion sometimes. No justification for a second free ticket, but reason enough to have someone along for the ride who pays for any additional costs incurred.

Airlines just aren't interested in mentions. More interesting was the discussion I had with one American carrier. They said they'd more likely give away a free seat for Fact Box plus a copy mention in a smaller regional paper (where the editorial guidelines about mentioning sponsors in the body copy are often more relaxed) than for a single Fact Box mention in a National. Indeed 'National's are often happy to pay a media rate for flights' I was told. (Presumably for staffers. I can't think they'd pay for a freelancer?)

Central America will remain off the beaten track for Europeans because there's not enough competition on the air routes. Fares out there are at least 50% more than to SE Asia. Such a shame as it's culturally fascinating.

Travel Editors aren't that bothered about losing a feature. Let's face it, they probably have piles of others knocking about.

Travel Editors would rather commission a mainstream destination (presumably because more readers might go there and more companies would be interested to buy an ad next to that feature). Travel supplements will become increasingly homogenous. Sad for the traveller looking for inspiration, sad for the more adventurous tour ops, sad for the developing countries like say El Salvador that would dearly love some tourist cash.

Making money as a freelance travel writer is virtually impossible - unless you have a regular gig with a big circulation National or an upmarket magazine (I reckon that's probably about 20 or so people in the UK - so if you are an aspiring travel writer reading this be very aware of how incredibly competitive it is).For most of us in the trade, long haul trips are about getting a reduced price holiday or seeing some place we really want to see. Not about making money.

Or is there a way to do press trips to obscure places and make them work that I don't know about?

Simon speaks about Simonseeks - interview with Simon Nixon

There was lots of interesting debate about Simonseeks the new travel content site last week, so I decided to pitch some questions at Simon Nixon himself to get some further detail.

Here are my questions and his answers. Some useful responses. A few observations and niggles which I summarise after the interview.

This is a first for Travelblather. So.. welcome Simon and thanks for taking the time to contribute!

1) Why did you decide to launch Simonseeks?
I came up with the idea last Summer. It was really as a result of my own passion for travel and frustration at being unable to find quality free travel guides to suit my personal travel requirements.

2) The URL is quite generic. Could you see Simonseeks branching out into other industry sectors?
Absolutely, there is scope to take this model into other sectors. However at the present time we are focusing on travel as we see there is a global opportunity. This is a relatively new concept and we realise we need to listen to feedback from our visitors, our authors and also our travel partners to ensure the success for all parties.

3) Is there any connection with Travelsupermarket? Will Simonseeks review content for example be made available on TravelSupermarket? I'd always assumed that Simonseeks was about providing a content vehicle to support TravelSupermarket, but it looks like I may be incorrect?
Simonseeks.com is a completely independent company to Travelsupermarket in everyway. We are looking to develop partnerships with aggregators in the future as this will be an useful tool for our visitors to the site. As we are independent we will speak to all the companies out there and partner with the most appropriate ones for each sector of travel.

4) Can you clarify exactly how writers earn from the site. Is it only a percentage of sales from bookings made as a result of reading someone's review or is there a cut of ad revenue as well?
There are two ways you earn money from the site – from an equal share in revenue from sales commissions through people reading guides and clicking through to our recommended partners and making a booking. There is also an equal share in the display advertising revenue.

5) Do you see a finite number of writers for the site? And a finite number of reviews for a particular destination?
Not at all. The most important thing for authors to focus on is writing quality travel guides from first hand experience. Through our editorial team we will ensure that the quality standards we have set out are retained in order to continue to attract visitors to the site who are going to find the information useful and keep coming back for more and recommend us to their friends. We have a target of 1 million visitors per month within a year of launch so there is tremendous scope. In addition, it is important to ensure that the guides are kept as up to date as possible for our visitors. The guides which have been updated or uploaded most recently appear ahead of older guides to ensure we encourage this.

6) If a writer decides they no longer want their content on Simonseeks, am I correct in understanding that Simonseeks will retain copyright and will keep that content live on the site anyway? Or can the writer ask for it to be taken off the site?
If a writer decides they want their copyright back, they can ask for us to transfer this back to them. However, the condition is that the writer will no longer earn revenue from the guide at this point of transfer and they will provide us with a royalty free, worldwide licence to use their guide. So it will stay on the site, though the writer can use it elsewhere.

7) How do you plan to keep content on the site up to date?
As I mentioned above, we will be ranking the guides which have been updated the most recently ahead of older guides to encourage writer to keep the information relevant and fresh for our visitors. Posting your travel guide on simonseeks.com should be seen as a ‘dynamic process’ and as the author you have the ability to edit and update your content to reflect this.

8) According to James Dunford Wood - comments on my blog - "the value of the content on Simon Seeks has nothing to do with the accuracy or quality of the information, and all to do with the search popularity of the subject and the SEO efforts of the writer/site". Would you agree with this comment? How do you strike a balance between content that ranks well for Search Engines (like top ten lists) etc v. content that is more niche but likely to have more real value for serious holiday research?
We have set up the site to strike a balance between delivering travel guides which people find interesting and useful for their holiday research, as well as encouraging authors to post their travel guides on simonseeks.com and earn revenue. This is why we introduced the concept of the community reviewing and ranking the travel guides so that we can ensure authors who are writing the most relevant content for the simonseeks.com audience will appear ahead. Also, we have a powerful search tool as part of the site itself so that visitors can search for the most relevant guide for their requirements under location or interest, or they can simply let us inspire them with some choices.

9) In a recent interview with TTG it's claimed that you've suggested that 'Travel Agents are being encouraged to contribute to the site as a way of publicising their businesses and driving traffic back to their own sites'. Doesn't this conflict with the idea of having the site as a place to come to for impartial advice and information?
The feature in TTG made reference to the fact that simonseeks.com is also a potential outlet for travel agents to share their knowledge through writing travel guides on their favourite places and earning revenue, in the same way as professional and amateur writers for the site. We don’t see this as a conflict for impartial advice, merely an additional revenue stream for them to exploit.

10) How do you see content on-line evolving more generally? Do you think, as has been mooted by Rupert Murdoch recently, that ultimately readers will have to pay if they want quality content on-line?
The simonseeks.com model shies away from the pay per click strategy which you refer to. We feel that we can deliver quality content to our visitors, free of charge, through clever monetisation of the content. The secret lies in cross-selling advertising that is directly relevant, and closely matched, to editorial.

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Some interesting stuff here.

Volume of content - I think the fact that he sees no ceiling on the number of features about a place makes it clear that this is a volume game that's more about building ad revenues than serving readers in the final assessment. I question quite what role the editor will have in this - it feels more like he will be simply weeding out any really duff copy and subbing stuff that's OK. No sense of editorial direction for the site on a broader level?

Quality control - I also wonder about the idea that voting and recentness of copy will do the job of ensuring the better, more accurate stuff rises to the top of the pile. I could rehash a piece I wrote 5 years ago and post it now... for a while at least it would be billed as 'fresh content' and in theory better...And will people bother to vote/comment etc? I'm not sure.

Conflict of interest - I also really don't think he answered my question about agents and operators being able to contribute too without the danger of bias. Saying 'we don't see this as a conflict for impartial advice' seems genuinely surprising to me. I wonder if they will have a 'tour operator' or 'travel industry professional' mark next to these profiles to make clear that this is the case? Allowing operators to contribute means that the dividing line between advertorial and editorial is totally and utterly erased... once and for all.

The site - very interesting that there's no link with Travelsupermarket. I am really surprised by this. Meta search engines do a great job of finding the lowest price deal... but there's little to distinguish one from another beyond price... I think that ultimately the likes of Travelsupermarket will HAVE to offer unique content and useful tools to make people come back to them rather than go to a competitor. (Indeed they are starting to do this already... with their use of experts) A site like Simonseeks synched with Travelsupermarket could be incredibly powerful... and I really assumed that was the strategy all along.

What do you think? Any surprises here? Good stuff? Bad?

Simonseeks.com... the final nail in the coffin for professional travel writers?

Tomorrow (Thursday 18th June) a new travel content website launches. Simonseeks.com is a new travel website, backed by Simon Nixon, the founder of moneysupermarket.com and travelsupermarket.com.

There's a hole in the market for quality travel content that works for people who are in the research phase of holiday booking and tour operators have been way too slow to fill it. Simon Nixon reckons he can fill that gap and has deep pockets too. Some say he's worth £295 million.

 Similar in approach to thetraveleditor.com, Simonseeks will offer writers who contribute to the site a share of advertising revenue. I was quite involved in thetraveleditor but decided to not participate in the end, feeling that the revenue share wasn't sufficient and that they really didn't know too much about SEO - which is pretty crucial.

I think this is where simonseeks could be different. I've contributed a few articles for the launch and they are using a formatted template that requires writers to add meta-data and makes them tag their features too. Unsurprisingly the team at simonseeks know a thing or two about how to make websites work. They've also signed up Nick Trend, who has a lot of travel writing and editing experience for the likes of Which?, The Telegraph and Conde Nast traveller, to be editor.

The press release talks about a 'new cottage industry' of travel writers working from home earning money by creating content and taking their share of the ad revenue - which as I understand it will be a fairly decent 50%. I've just discovered from Fiona Reece who is doing PR for the launch (and sent me the press release) that 300 writers have contributed 1000 articles already.

Part of me hopes they are successful and that maybe I get to share in that success... but there's concern too. I don't like the idea of being part of a 'cottage industry'. I have a writer profile on the site which has a mark on it saying 'Travel Professional' but the strap line for the site is Travel Guides for you, by you. That for me speaks volumes. Professional travel journalism as those of us in the profession know it is pretty much finished now. Here's some more detail from the 'about' page.

Anyone can do it, and make money out of it. You write your own articles, or guides, post them up on the site, and we will do the rest. Although we will always check that any guides submitted are up to our high standards of accuracy before we publish them, the site is open to all - whether you are a professional journalist, an expert in a particular field of travel, a student, publisher, or simply someone who loves travelling and wants to share your experiences with others.

Let's face it, I'm a bit of a snob. I don't know that I want my writing alongside that of wannabetravelwriterbackpacker or whoever. This is the market at its most aggressive and brutal and its scary. I know a thing or two about SEO so maybe I can manipulate features that I contribute to be more visible and hence attract more ad revenue? But there's a limit to the number of features they'll need on Seville for example - I wrote a guidebook to the city so I know it well - but there are 10 features on the site already about Seville that are written by other people.

I wonder too if there's a finite number of features that you can have about a place before there are just too many? Will there come a point where there are too many features about Seville and the mass of information becomes a bit overwhelming?

One thing that I'm not so sure about is the fact that along with all the other UGC sites like TripAdvisor etc there's no attempt at niche here. The intention is to cover the complete universe of travel opportunities. How doable is that? I'd love to know how many days a week Nick Trend is working on the project... it could be a 24 hour editing job. I'd also love to know more about his web experience... I don't know if he has that much of it... I can't find a personal website or a blog for him. But does that matter? (Maybe not.)

So.. do I throw my lot in with them and hope that my years of experience will mean I become one of their most read and valuable travel writers or do I create a small niche site of my own about stuff I'm a real expert on and try and build something myself... and keep all the ad revenue for myself too? I don't know that much yet about monetization, but if Simonseeks has thousands and thousands of pages the value of the ads on each page will be very small I'd imagine, so to make it work it will be a volume game.

What would you do?

Nextstop is brilliant (and a threat to copyright owners)

Nextstop is a rather smart user review website that's been developed using Google's application protocol by two ex-googlers. It's garnering a lot of interest and I can see why.

It's really really smart.

Let's say you want to review somewhere, it finds all the basic info for you so you don't need to spend time doing it. For example, you want to review a nice little restaurant you happen to know. Type in the name of the restaurant and the city and Nextstop offers suggestions for the address, pulls in a bunch of photos, plots it on a map and gives you some simple tick boxes to classify your review.

And... it's amazingly fast. Google worked out very quickly that speed was really important for keeping searchers using their search engine... and these guys clearly took that learning with them.

And... you can sign up using your Facebook ID so for millions of people it's just a case of entering your Facebook password and you're off. It even pulls in your profile pic from Facebook.

And... you can follow others on the site - just as you do with Twitter and Facebook.

And... you can create widgets of your reviews to stick on other sites.

Functionally it really is brilliant. Better by a mile than anything else I've seen. All sorts of clever other elements like suggesting other places based on people who've recommended like you and nearby places too. Faultless.

But for me as a content creator and owner there's a problem... Look at this. Pic number 8 there is clearly a copyrighted pic... and pic number 7? Who took that shot and does Nextstop have permission to use it?

I can see this issue becoming bigger and bigger. The site scrapes pics from all over the place... and to cover themselves they just credit the site they've taken the pic from.

In the 'share-all' world of the web that might seem fine, but it's nicking other people's content at the end of the day. Photo sites like Flickr do allow you to designate whether a photo can be used by others, but Nextstop just credits Flickr, not the photographer which flies in the face of the way Creative Commons licence is supposed to work.

And it takes pics from all over the place. I can't imagine that say Beerintheevening.com from where lots of pub shots for Brighton (my home town) are taken would willing give copyright consent for the use of their images.

The new generation (ie not old hacks like me) don't really 'get' copyright do they?

I for one will never ever put my shots on Flickr for this very reason. It would be nice to share with people who just want to look at my shots and comment, but if there's a risk someone will try and profit from them, I'm not taking it.

What do you think?

Want a choice of guidebooks at the airport? Forget it

WHSmith (WHS) which has a virtual monopoly on airport and ralilway station book retailing is rumoured to have signed a deal with Penguin (publisher of DK Eyewitness & Top 10 Guides and Rough Guides) to only stock Penguin travel guides in its travel sector bookstores. That's around 450 of its outlets in airports and rail stations across the UK.

The report in book publishing industry magazine The Bookseller suggests that in return WHS is getting a whopping 72% discount and a cash bung up front.

I love the justification from a WHS spokesman. If it wasn't such a serious issue I'd find it hilarious:

A spokesperson from W H Smith said that trials had indicated that the move would make travel guide shopping "easier for the customer", as travel customers are "extremely time pressed".

(Clearly he or she has never spent time waiting for a delayed flight or connecting between flights.)

But let's face it, it's a totally transparent attempt to put a positive spin on a clearly anti-competitive, anti-customer move.The market is being carved up.

According to the Bookseller report, Penguin titles account for 18% of travel guides sold. So folks, because you're 'extremely time pressed' your choice of travel guides will be restricted by over 80%.

Given that WHS is getting such a clonking discount, I wonder if they will pass any of these savings on to customers in the form of reduced prices. Somehow I don't think so.

The message? Buy your guidebooks before you travel... from somewhere other than Smiths.

[Disclosure: I am the author of the Frommer's Day by Day Guide to Seville. Last time I was passing through Gatwick Airport there were 4 copies on the shelf in WHSmith, clearly that won't be the case much longer.]

User Generated Content is just not enough

User Generated Content (UGC) continues to be a hot topic for big chunks of the on-line travel industry. I posted recently about Visit Britain's recent decision to launch a reviews site for people to post reviews and comments about places they've visited, hotels they've stayed in and more.

UGC has a seriously important role to play - witness the amazing reach of Trip Advisor - and the impact that incorporating Trip Advisor reviews into a website can have on conversions. It doubles conversion rates in some cases.

But there's a slew of content-focussed sites based around the idea of 'community' which seem to think that they can get people to do the content for them - words, pics and video - and create a site that travellers and holiday purchasers will really value. Just a few include Tripwolf, Tripsay, Travelpost, Addictedtotravel, Travellerspoint, Travbuddy, Driftr, Dodo and of course WAYN

I don't think UGC alone is the final solution. Specifically sites like this tend to lack...

Structure: Reviews in particular are meant to act as comparison tools. To easily compare reviews for one hotel with those for another, the reviews need to be in similar formats. It's not enough to just let people ramble and rant. A few key elements: limit the number of characters; give people categories to work with; use tick boxes; make it possible to see other reviews by the same reviewer. The same goes for images and videos - particularly in the way they are tagged. People use all sorts of different ways to tag stuff like this which makes it really hard to search successfully.

Moderation: Most professional journalists know when a line has been crossed. They write all the time - they have perspective. They are used to thinking about their audience and appreciate that different attributes are appreciated by different people in different ways. Most UGC reviewers absolutely don't. Read any review site and you'll see that reviews tend to be at extremes. A place is either the best in the world or it's absolutely awful. There needs to be an overall editorial voice to adminster balance and objectivity.

Consolidation: Guess what? Lots of people will probably say the same thing over and again about some places and some activities. That in itself is very significant - the more people saying the same thing the more likely it is to be correct. (Well you'd imagine that... but see my previous post about the Truthification cycle and you might think otherwise). Anyway, I'd rather know that 30 out of 45 people loved the food at this restaurant than to have wade through tons of reviews to work that out for myself.

Stimulation: And for any community site to succeed people need to be encouraged to contribute. So stimulating debate and interaction makes a lot of sense: setting up polls, asking questions, creating competitions with prizes are just a few examples.

Some of the examples above are doing some of these already. Tripwolf has done a deal in the UK with Footprints guides for English pro content. So clearly they see a need for more than just UGC.

I think community management (ie the stimulation and moderation bits) could be another element of the future online travel editor's skillset. I also think that the vast majority of these sites that are just based on wiki architecture - hoping people will gladly participate and add reviews and information - will disappear leaving just a few biggies at the top of the pile. And undoubtedly the winners will have invested in pro-editorial elements to compliment the UGC elements. 

Do you think I've lumped together all the sites I mention above unfairly? Do some have distinguishing features that make them better than the others?

The future for travel editors?

I was really struck by a recent job ad on journalism.co.uk from Frommer's.

The job title is 'Editorial Manager' and it's to manage and implement the upgrading of content for a major travel brand's website.

I know Frommer's does a lot of work for BA and for Hilton hotels so I'd imagine it's probably for one of these two.

Some of the requirements are as follows (the elements I've taken out for the sake of space are mainly about softer skills like people management and getting the job done.)

* At least five years' experience of managing successful online projects where high volume, high quality editorial content has been delivered to specification and deadline
* Meticulous editor, responsible for ensuring quality control at every stage of the production cycle
* Technically savvy, and a whizz with Excel
* At least five years' experience at a senior editorial level in the travel and hospitality industry
* Broad destination knowledge of EMEA and APAC
* Acute sensitivity to tone of voice and brand
* Unwavering ability to ensure content connects with customers

The job requirements and the job itself are very very close to what I do for iCrossing. What is really striking is the combination of writing/editing skills and marketing, project management, technical skills.

There's no degree course or even job title that adequately covers this role - at least I don't know of one. Indeed it's interesting that the job is titled 'Editorial Manager', but the detail talks about 'Project Manager' and the email subject line for applicants needs to be 'Travel Project Manager'.

The web is constantly creating new jobs as it evolves - SEO manager is a classic example. A role like this wouldn't have even been thought of 5 or so years ago. I've no idea what this kind of role that combines writing and editing skills with detailed project management abilities and a solid awareness of more technical stuff like Excel will ultimately be called. At iCrossing I'm called Travel Editor - but I get involved in really clunky stuff like defining XML feeds, user experience and SEO. 

Will there be degrees in On-line Content Management and Creation soon? It wouldn't surprise me. Personally I'm very happy with being a 'Travel Editor' - above all else I am a creative writer and it's these talents that I think really set me apart from people competing for similar jobs in this space.

What skills do you think are needed these days for online travel content creators? And what would you call this kind of role?

Pic by Flickr User Brian Lane Winfield Moore

Top tips for guided tour podcasts

I'm in Jersey this weekend writing a piece for Visit Jersey's magazine Pure Jersey. They've also asked me to record a podcast of a guided walk I'm going to be doing. I've done some TV work before, but this will be the first time I've done pure audio. I'll have a Blue Badge guide with me and they've given me some helpful pointers:

It seems obvious but it’s vital to establish where you are, where you are going, what you intended or hope to do there and who are you going to meet along the way.

1. Descriptive text
It seems obvious but it’s vital to establish where you are, where you are going, what you intended or hope to do there and who are you going to meet along the way. We can’t see, so you say.

2. Character
Local characters and experts you meet on your journey. They help animate a piece, they add voice, warmth and reassurance that a local insight or sense that a ‘real’ experience of that attraction has been imparted.

3. Textural sounds
Record anything that adds texture to the locality or attraction. Use the recording device to take audible snap-shots. You can’t overdo this! – don’t worry we’ll edit out what we don’t need.

All well and good, but I think there's probably far more to it than that. Ideally visitors to Jersey will download this podcast and use it as a guided tour. Clearly, walking the route first and working out key areas of interest to describe will be very important indeed.

Anyone got any other hints or tips for recording a great guided tour podcast? I'd love to hear them.

RIP quality journalism - the new age of Truthification

Hardly a new topic I know... but a couple of things really hit home for me on this recently.

I met a journalist who writes for The Guardian - one of the UK's major national newspapers - a week or so back. She was saying how her hours have been cut and the desk she works on, creating two biggish chunks of the Saturday Guardian and Observer has been cut by about 50%. She said:
"Basically all we have time to do now is knock together stories from Press Releases."

We all know why the newspapers are cutting staffing levels - they are all losing vast amounts of money and the future looks bleak. Fewer people are buying newspapers, preferring to get their news from other media channels - in particular the internet. Advertisers are deserting in droves as a result.

I then read a piece about the decline in serious investigative journalism. Investigate journalist Nick Fielding was saying how only 5% of content in UK newspapers these days is proper hardcore researched investigative writing. The rest is made up of stuff from the newswires and PR rewrites.

The quality of our media is suffering because people won't pay to consume it anymore... there's a lowest common denominator effect taking place. I'm sure I'm joining a very long line of hacks saying similar things.

But - what's the REAL impact of this? Here are a few things we need to be really concerned about.

Fewer real stories, more noise
With less money spent on quality, original journalism, everyone is using the same few sources of news. So the 'news' in one paper is much the same as that in another. We're seeing real homogenisation as everyone plugs into the same basic news feeds. The same stuff on the BBC, ITN in the Independent, Times and Guardian. Just a different spin... but the actual news agenda is the same.

Pseudo research masquerades as real fact
In the absence of time or resources to do proper research, people resort to quick and dirty techniques instead. I see this in the daily avalanche of press releases I get in my in-tray. PR agency has committed to churn out a certain number of releases for its client - regardless of whether they have anything newsworthy to say. So they 'create news' by doing a survey. Ask a sample of say 100 people (almost always a tiny number that is statistically completely insignificant)… and presto! You have a percentage. 70% of tourists said they'd holiday outside the Eurozone this year (sample size: 200 from the website www.wesellholidaysinTurkey.com or some other interested party with a line to spin.) Some PRs reading this won't like this suggestion... I accept that not everyone does it... but I do get a LOT of pseudo survey guff in my in-tray.

The cult of the expert
The alternative to pseudo research is to wheel in an 'expert'. In the absence of hard facts, media organisations are turning to opinion instead. You don't need to do hardcore costly research to back up your story if you can wheel out an expert - doesn't really matter who he is or where from - to verify your claims. Doesn't matter whether global warming will really kill us all by 2050 as long as a Professor from some university claims it will. And if he's no longer around to stand by and back up his claim in 2050, better still. You see this so much in 24 hour news these days. Pseudo fact... backed up with waffle from expert... job done.

'Truthification' - repetition creates truth
The web has made it much easier to publish - in all sorts of formats - so whilst we have less real news, we have many more publishers. This means that some stories get disproportionate coverage for their real value. And mistruths with their pseudo research and their so called expert opinion get spun on and on - picked up on an endless cycle of websites, twitter feeds and more - until no one remembers where the original story came from and these unsubstantiated claims become fact. 'Truth' is literally created before our eyes from rumour and spin.

Being first is all that matters
Now that you can publish in an instant, being first is what matters. You publish first and worry about the facts later. This is being driven by the immediacy of the Net and of rolling TV news. One minute half of Mexico has swine flu and we're all going to die, the next it's only 100 or so people worldwide. But that's OK… just update people with 'the latest news' and correct your gross exaggeration later. No one will hold you to account as - for the 10 minutes you published your mis-truth - it was as close to the truth as anyone could get. Unfortunately that first rather inaccurate statement has now been propagated all over the world by the 'Truthification' effect described above. 

Can bloggers be some kind of antidote to the dilution? Perhaps they can.

Or am I just an 'expert' creating the same half truths myself?

 

 

Visit Britain's on a UGC harvest

VisitBritain Britain's national tourism agency is responsible for marketing Britain worldwide. There has been some interesting debate of late about the value of DMO's (Destination Marketing Organisations) as they are known in the trade. Some of the accusations levelled have been about being 'risk averse' and failing to adapt.

So I guess it's good that VisitBritain is embracing Web 2.0 technologies by partnering with a company called Digital Visitor to launch a reviews platform.

According to the write up on Travel Eye:

Currently on course to create the largest media library for leisure and tourism in the country, Visit Britain are building a one-stop shop for user reviews, photos and videos of tourism experiences around Britain through Digital Visitor’s white-labelled social media platform, Visitor Review. Furthermore, Visit Britain are looking to partner with businesses who want to utilise this content to enhance their own marketing – free of charge.

Is it just me or is there something fundamental missing here?

Here's more from the Digital Vistor website announcing the deal:

Justin Reid, Online Marketing Manager for VisitBritain stated, “...we plan to really make the most of the growing trend for social media and user generated content. Providing potential visitors with more online information on Britain is one of our key strategies moving forward and this, we are sure, will encourage even more people to visit.”

Yes, lots of UGC on the Visit Britain site will certainly encourage people to visit. All the stats show that UGC raises traffic and conversions. And yes, businesses in Britain that depend on tourists will welcome free UGC for their websites for the same reasons.

Just the one question then: Where's the UGC going to come from?

Do VisitBritain or Digital Visitor really get social media? I'm not at all sure... You can't just 'create' a network or a community. It's NOT a case of 'build and they will come'. I took a look at Digital Visitor's 'About' page. The detail is kind of worrying. The company is at heart a video production house that has 'recently moved into social media.'

Our newest product, Visitor Review, has been adopted by some of the UK’s top tourist boards and regional tourism agencies, enabling the successful gathering and utilisation of user-generated content and rich media content.

It sounds like UGC is some kind of fruit or vegetable that can be 'gathered' from somewhere or other.

UGC doesn't just grow on trees guys... Why would anyone bother to post a review on Visit Britain? What's the incentive? Particularly when there's this small website called Trip Advisor out there already that has literally millions and millions of reviews on it? 

Talk to the likes of TUI or Thomas Cook who have also built reviews into their sites and they will tell you it's not easy. They work hard to encourage reviews by emailing customers returning from holidays and asking for feedback, uploading info culled from customer feedback forms, moderating the discussion. And there's a far stronger connection between a customer and a tour operator than a visitor to the UK and VisitBritain. (British Airways even incentivises people to add reviews to its Metrotwin social media site with free BA miles.)

I wish VisitBritain the best of luck. I hope they prove me wrong. They will get some reviews on there, but this idea of creating a vast library of UGC that other companies can tap into seems rather hopeful. And I wonder about the reviews they'll get - will they be any good? Will they be trustworthy and dependable? Many of the reviews on there so far are people bitching about awful hotels they've stayed in, warning others not to go there. Hardly the best of advertisments for visiting Britain.

If I was a business looking for UGC reviews to go on my website I'd go to the market leader - Trip Advisor - just as another DMO Visit London has done.