Earth.org is beginning a push to hit mainstream audiences as it looks to capture the eyeballs of travellers seeking out new travel-related content.
The fledgling site reckons it will “create a reliable travel guide written by you and like-minded travelers from all over the world”.
On the one hand Earth.org works on the same principle as the well-established WikiTravel system where users add content about destinations and attractions and the wider community edits, enhances or removes.
But the site has been designed to look more like an existing travel guide site, avoiding the traditional Wiki-esque navigation and editing rules.
The latest push to raise awareness of the Earth.org brand comes as existing content sites also attempt to raise their game as competition becomes ever fiercer.
The main powerplayers in the sector, LonelyPlanet, Frommers et al, have a strong position in the marketplace while WikiTravel is also a serious contender.
The addition of Earth.org, which pushes its not-for-profit ethos heavily, will once again fuel the ongoing debate as to whether travel consumers trust or prefer professionally written content over that penned by fellow travellers.
[See The internet is Ruining Travel Journalism article]
A number of sites have attempted to marry the two, allowing visitors to add their own reviews to existing editorial.
But the core proposition for content sites appears to swing into one of the two camps, keeping professionally written content in dedicated areas or providing UGC elements through forums.
There are already so many travel content sites out there, both wiki style and pro written.
Is there really any need for yet another one?
The whole “written by travellers, for travellers” has been done to death; it’s almost a cliché now.
It’s a very crowded marketplace and if a site is not sufficiently different or better than those that already exist, I can’t see how it’s going to attract a lot of traffic.
Great domain name and more the merrier I guess. Looking at their content, it is still very early days for them, but I’m not sure (at a glance) what it is that is especially innovative that they’re bringing to the table.
Was browsing through their blog and noticed the latest “feature” they’re working:
“#2417 Enable save button right after paste url in text filed (for case when you copy/paste article from other site)”
http://blog.earth.org/2010/01/26/today-works-on-2417-enable-save-butt/
I guess that is one way to grow a site fast.