Shameless Self Promotion: Travelblogging at SxSW

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Comment by Juan Gonzalez on March 13, 2009 at 12:28pm

Pam, some thoughts that may come handy for your conversation:

Nobody doubts that when it comes to travel there is an abundance of information. Some may even say a little bit too much (TripAdvisor hotel reviews, anyone?). When it comes to travel bloggers the pattern seems to be the same: many people jump at the first opportunity to write about their travel journeys and why should they not if after all is in most cases a life-changing experience.

Travel blogging is mostly about "the place" and so it should be structured in such a way that travel posts are associated with the locations they talk about. Most bloggers will use categories or tags to achieve this and some blogger networks will even aggregate posts into the main travel destinations. However, this approach is equivalent to the Yahoo Directory approach in vogue almost 10 years ago!

With the advent of geo-location technologies there is no reason why a travel blogger couldn't be very precise when "geo-tagging" a post. Whether defining the precise address of the places mentioned or adding geographic information (latitude, longitude). By doing so, the travel writer enables a whole new set of ways to reach an audience: not only will the article be indexed based on contents, but very soon it will also be aggregated into specialized search engines based on location information.

The process of geo-tagging is elusive as there isn't a convention on what the best approach is. Some will suggest that microformats are the correct answer, but they require some understanding of HTML to be both functional and understandable. More advanced bloggers will integrate maps or their journeys. Regardless of which approach prevails and becomes mainstream the fact is that in the near future travellers will be using something like Google Maps to identify those articles that are the most relevant for the destinations they care about and travel bloggers better start learning the tricks now.

At PlanetEye we are putting these ideas to work. For almost a year we've supported geotagging of articles in our own way. Soon we'll be deploying the same tools into more standard platforms such as Wordpress.

These are exciting times to be a travel blogger! Best of lucks at SxSW.

Comment by TBEX Admin on March 9, 2009 at 4:48pm

Och! I am so jealous! I would gladly crouch down and take video of you two, suffering numb legs and having my bag kicked while I attempt to hold the camer steady with my bum arm. But. . . I won't be going! AGH!

PS Knock em dead!

Comment by Nerd's Eye View on March 8, 2009 at 6:44pm

SxSW doesn't provide technology support to these talks. If someone shows up with gear and the connection holds then yes, there will be a stream. But the concept is to have a - get this - conversations with the people in the room. We've got a few fab tweeters lined up, so that will be happening if nothing else.

Comment by Kim Mance, Founder of TBEX on March 8, 2009 at 12:17pm

I really wish I could be there...will your session be livestreamed?

PS: I love Click & Clack!

Comment by Todd Lucier on March 6, 2009 at 10:36am

I've been trying to get flight out to Austin for three days. As I scramble prices keep going up and up!
I sincerely hope to make it, but it may be by rubber tire. If I'm not there, will be seeking the live stream.
t.

Comment by Nerd's Eye View on March 6, 2009 at 10:08am

We're hoping someone will show up and do that. SxSW isn't recording this stuff. Sheila had mentioned trying to get someone to set up a UStream - she's working on that. You'll be able to follow folks on Twitter at our talk - we'll make sure we get the names out there beforehand.

Comment by Gary Arndt on March 6, 2009 at 9:39am

Make sure someone makes a video.