I love this idea. Travel guides are normally full of stuff you don’t need and often don’t include the stuff you could actually use (like events). Offbeat Guides solves this problems but building a customized and ondemand travels guide just for you.
How does it work?
You start by answering 5 questions: 1) What’s your name? 2) Where are you going? 3) Where are you coming from? 4) What are your travel dates? 5) (Optional) Where are you staying when you’re there?
It then builds a personalized travel guide based on information from Wikipedia, Wikitravel, Flickr and other services. It covers around 30 000 destinations. The guide is not free. You can get a pdf version for $10 or a printed version for $25 which you will receive in the mail.
Here’s an example pdf of a travel guide:
Paris Travel Guide By Offbeat Guides – Find Documents
The company has been launched by David Sifry (Technorati ex-CEO) and it’s one of the most interesting projects I’ve seen so far that merges physical and online worlds.
Travel services are changing again.
Mass travel customization is certainly of the best areas where the web can be useful. We’ve been creating so much content in the last decade. For example TripAdvisor alone has millions of travel related reviews, Flickr and Panoramio have millions of photos and Wikipedia is full of updated and fact-based information.
One suggestion
One thing I would really to see is a relashionship with something like Dopplr. Guides would include who are my friends traveling or living at the destination.
The discussion about the new Offbeat Guides is going on at Techmeme.
André,
Já experimentei e é extremamente fácil de utilizar.
Terá muito a ganhar se fizer essas integrações com outras ferramentas online.
The concept is good, but the visual presentation is appalling.