Wikivoyage officially launches as Wikipedia promotes the free travel guide

January 15, 2013 By 2 Comments

Wikivoyage officially launches this week with support by the non-profit host Wikimedia Foundation, with much of its content having migrated over from Wikitravel, a collaboratively edited destination database run by private company Internet Brands.

Unlike the famous Encyclopedia-killing Wikipedia, Wikivoyage focuses on travel, drilling down with information on destinations, itineraries, phrasebooks, and maps.

Its ad-free, Creative Content-licensed information occupies a different niche from established guidebook brands, such as Lonely Planet, DK and Le guide du routard, and user-generated aggregation services like TripAdvisor.

Wikivoyage already has several enhancements over its previous incarnation as Wikitravel, according to a blog post by wiki evangelist Jani Patokallio.

  1. Wikivoyage has a great mobile version.  This uses the same systems as the massively popular mobile version of Wikipedia, and is thus fast, compatible with virtually every device, and close to bug-free.
  2. Wikivoyage supports scrollable, zoomable web maps, courtesy of OpenStreetMaps. 

    These are so new there aren’t many around yet, but here’s an example from the Italian page for Funchalexpect to see plenty more soon.

  3. Wikivoyage lets you collect articles into books, which can be turned into a PDF or EPUB for offline reading, or shipped to you as a printed book.
  4. No more screen scraping: full data dumps of Wikivoyage are href=”http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwikivoyage/”>already available.

    Thanks to the Creative Commons license, you can freely use this data for travel mash-ups and more.

  5. It has spam firmly under control thanks to the Foundation’s years of experience in combating it.
  6. Last but not least, Wikivoyage does not suck: there are no punch-the-monkey ads, in-your-face flight booking dialogs, database backends that flake out randomly when you’re trying to edit, or company-appointed admins who censor and ban at will.

That said, the site is a mostly copy of more than 26,000 articles from the ten-year-old Wikitravel.org, which has been online for 10 years. As of today, it supports nine languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

wikivoyage

How search engines will favour the one site over the other is an interesting question. As of today, Wikipedia, with its powerhouse Google PageRank, is linking extensively to Wikivoyage.

Yet it may take two years for a full switchover in search engine rankings, according to some experts.

Since the summer, there have been lawsuits between Internet Brands, contributors of travel content, and Wikimedia Foundation.

In November, a court dismissed Internet Brands’ lawsuit against one of the Wikitravel contributors. A lawsuit against another volunteer remains in play.

CORRECTION:2pmET
The court dismissed the Internet Brands lawsuits against both contributors. I regret the error.

The Foundation’s case against Internet Brands is now proceeding to trial, says the Wikimedia Foundation’s blog.

It remains an open question whether, in 2013, the wikipedia-style format of presenting information will appeal to travelers, who may have come to expect their information to be presented more dynamically.
Perhaps Wikivoyage will hitch a ride on the WikiData experiment, as Patokallio suggests.
It’s also unclear how the site will keep objective opinion ahead of biased information from travel marketers. The use of images is one topic.
The site allows pictures of important artworks and buildings that may still be covered by copyright under a non-free content policy, only for photos of important copyrighted artwork and architecture.
Users may also be confused by the differences between Wikpedia entries and Wikivoyage entries. The organization wants to develop a separate ”lively” voice and style for the travel site, without getting into journals or long lists of reviews and counter-reviews.
It’ll be a tough trick to pull off.

Related posts:

  1. Wikitravel Drama: Wikimedia and Internet Brands let the lawsuits fly
  2. Follow that story: Wikitravel user files a court motion against Internet Brands
  3. Wikitravel users to move to Wikipedia, upsetting former owner Internet Brands
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Sean O'Neill About Sean O'Neill

Sean O’Neill is a UK-based reporter for Tnooz.

Since university, he's been a full-time journalist for US consumer magazines and websites, and since 2007 he has covered B2C travel news full-time.

He lives in London and is travel tech columnist for BBC Travel. He used to work in New York City as the online senior editor for Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel.

In the past, O'Neill held editor, writer, and reporter positions at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Foreign Policy magazines in Washington, DC. Please visit his personal site and follow him on Twitter or Google+ .

Comments

  1. David Gerard says:
    January 16, 2013 at 8:14 am

    Have a look at the comments on Jani Patokallio’s post – Internet Brands sent someone to try to sockpuppet the comments! Let’s see if any show up here …

    Reply

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