Grass Root Content

Content is king again, but I believe the concept of content is being turned upside down by the growth of traveler generated content. For years travel sites have believed that content was best delivered online using traditional offline technologies such as guide books. The reality of the Net is starting to change the nature of content. Two key technologies are driving this trend: blogging and camera phones. Weblogs are not a new phenomenon, but the idea that Blogs could influence the traveler's online purchasing behavior is still somewhat untapped. This can be both positive and negative. A recent negative corporate travel Blog rant from a senior engineer at a prominent computer company sent the corporate travel department scrambling for a new type of damage control. Specialty blogs on everything from snow boarding to adventure travel can influence a reader's choice of destination and travel supplier. Camera phones are now ubiquitous and as the quality has improved so has the amount of digital content on travel that is being put on the Net daily. Sites such as Flickr and Buzznet allow travelers to instantly post their digital photos and annotate their content to be shared with others on the net. Blog search engines such as Technorati not only allow search of Blogs, but now include shots form both these digital sources. This is just the beginning of the explosion of consumer driven travel content, stay tuned lot's more to come.