As everyone knows, there are thousands of mobile apps out there and new travel apps from around the world are being published 24/7.

Our Tnooz email inboxes are flooded with press releases and various pitches from startups and established travel companies asking us to write a post about their latest mobile creations.

When Tnooz launched in 2009, it was sort of newsy when new travel apps came on the market because most travel companies didn’t have them yet.

Fast forward a couple of years and mobile apps have almost become standard-issue.

So, when an online travel agency asked us a couple of months ago to write about their new iPhone app, we had to ask them what was noteworthy about it?

Why would people want to read about it?

What differentiates the app?

What lessons could be learned from how it was developed?

In the OTA’s case,  the app may have been just fine, but it does what untold numbers of other apps do — offer flight search, currency conversion, packing lists and weather information, for example.

Still other travel companies want us to write about their Android app when their Android and iPhone apps appear to be twins.

So if you want to get some coverage of your Android app, tell us what differentiates it from the other apps you have in the marketplace, or from your compeititors’ apps, and then we’ll take it from there.

For example, Hipmunk  introduced iPhone and iPad apps earlier this year, and this morning debuted an Android app.

To write about it, or not to write about it? That was the question.

I decided it deserved a mention here.

Hipmunk says its Android app was designed as such. A Hipmunk spokeswoman says Android users will find it is faster than what they are used to seeing because “information is popped up over the current screen as opposed to sliding over to it like in iOS.”

“The app was also built to take into account the Android user’s dependence on the back button,” the spokeswoman says. “The Hipmunk Android app makes dismissing info super easy and intuitive rather than some Android apps that still use the graphical, touchscreen back that iOS uses.”

So it seemingly has a twist to it.

Likewise, the release of dedicated iPad apps makes us take a closer look because they still are less common than  iPhone apps,  and when Jetsetter released its iPad app, the question of whether to write a post about it was a no-brainer.

Jetsetter’s iPad app did something different with its “immersive 360-degree images” and the way dozens of then get  stitched together to form one image. It was certainly worth  some coverage.

Tnooz gives tons of attention to travel startups in TLabs and almost every startup’s dilemma is figuring out how to  get heard.

Still, I personally will have a tendency to write about the apps of bigger players, all things being equal, because the  release of the big-brand’s apps will likely have more impact in the market.

That being said, if a startup has a compelling app which breaks new ground, we’ll write about it.

One of the exciting things about travel technology and covering this beat is that there is always something new and you are always looking for the next “wow” sort of thing.

Take augmented reality.

Yesterday we wrote about the Hotel Now augmented reality app, which enables you to point your iPhone at a nearby hotel and get pricing and distance information, as well as reviews.

It’s funky and new.

But, two years from now, if proponents of augmented reality apps are correct, there may be lots of them out there.

Then we’ll have to decide what is special about them and which ones to write about.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

Amir Azulay, entrepreneur and corporate finance backgrounds, sold my mobile value added services company to iTouch PLC (was listed on LSE) in 2000.

Remained as CEO through 2003 and then joined the PLC management in London. Have been involved with several startups helping the founders with strategy and leading their funding rounds.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We acquired the assets from Travesse Limited. To do this we raised cash from high net worth individuals.

What problem are you trying to solve?

We allow people to travel to exceptional luxurious destinations for affordable prices. This is a win-win situation for our members, the hotels and ourselves.

With our link to The Travel Editor website, it allows us to recommend fantastic experiences around the area our members are travelling to. We want people to “experience the exceptional” for affordable prices.

Describe the business, core products and services?

The core business is divided into two websites: Travesse.com and TheTravelEditor.com, both have different goals and different business models.

However, they serve the same purpose of making Flash Sales Ltd a unique provider of fantastic deals for our members and site visitors. Our goal is to provide the experience and not just a room.

The travel editor is blog of hundreds of top travel journalists. It allows them to publish their content with us, and we are building four main revenue streams that will come from this ongoing influx of quality content.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

Our key customers at launch are the travel loving public of the UK, people that want to get away and experience luxury while they are at it.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Sure, we had orders

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

We take a mark up on great deals we provide our members. We also have an ad model and other models for The Travel Editor (TTE) website.

The strategy is to create a premium online service for travellers globally. The uniqueness will be the experience you can have with us. We aim to expand globally very quickly through our network of professional partners.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Management, quality product, quality editorial via TTE, strong presence, one of the first in the market, TTE very well established site and five year old domain.

Weaknesses:

• Under financed (in process of getting more funding), understaffed (building top quality experienced team)

Opportunities:

• Integration partners, internationalisation, cross pollinate revenue generation across both sites

Threats:

• Many online booking sites, relatively small barriers to entry for flash sales sites

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

No, au contraire, everyone loves our site

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

We will have:

• Travesse: One million members across five territories.
• The Travel Editor will be released in every single English speaking country globally.
• We will have generated in excess of 40,000 room nights.

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

For example, La Classe hotel in the Belgian town of Dinant has this text:

Less Holiday rental

More a design museum

An old school charm

The site is the brainchild of Garri Rayne, blogger and publisher of the Holidaypad and Go Glamping travel sites, using the Cargo platform for running content and pictures.

It is actually very simple. Each section has a picture, Haiku and link to the hotel’s website. The idea is to create the “most original and concise hotel website ever”, Rayner says.

“There are no ads and no affiliate marketing. There’s no user generated content. No mash-ups. No Google maps (do we really need maps for these places? No!) It’s not adorned with any social media fluff. And, more importantly, it’s not just another WordPress cookie-cutter ‘premium’ theme.”

Perhaps the oddest feature about the site is that it turned off at the end of each day. Yes, Hotel Haiku is open from 7.30am to 9.30pm GMT on most days, except Sunday.

“It’s an attempt to annoy and scupper the content scrapers, copyists and AirBNB,” Rayner says cheekily.

Straight talking, clearly.

The site probably has ambitions to be a huge money-spinner, then? No at all.

“In the current climate there’s too much temptation to monetize the f**k out of everything that moves, but Hotel Haiku doesn’t want to get hampered with a business model at this stage and, besides, it would kill all the fun! The business model, whatever it will be, needs to evolve.”

So that’s that, then.

The Oregon-based company is launching a service – BootsnAll Travel Writer Platform – of its own which gives writers the chance to produce guides and content for sites that specialise in specific destinations or types of travel.

Created using the company’s existing web-content publishing technology, writers will be able to build their own portfolio of work on their own site and also be paid a flat rate for around ten hours work a week.

BootsnAll promises that each writer will also be able to profit-share (up to 40%) from subsequent revenues as a result of traffic levels to the individual sites.

The company is initially looking for five new writers for the programme.

The move follows similar initiatives from other travel consumer content sites to offer writers some element of return for their efforts.

NileGuide launched a programme in November 2009 to pay commission to its writers depending on traffic to their pages. UK site SimonSeeks also has a payment structure for some of its contributors.

The context to this series of developments is an ongoing and often heated debate focusing on how travel writers are struggle to maintain incomes as traditional forms of publishing turn increasingly to in-house content writing or PR-driven articles.

Many of the individual blogs created by established travel writers do not provide enough revenue to sustain a business away from contracted work, but equally the number of commissions have also slowed down.

There is a growing acceptance in some areas of the travel publishing world that quality needs to be rewarded to counterbalance the reams of average travel content on the web.

BootsnAll says in response to the suggestion that writers can launch their own blogs:

Yes, the internet is full of travel blogs and guides. In fact, that is why we are starting this program. The web is full of a lot of crap… and writers and content producers are, in general, not perceived as a valuable part of the process.

MyLifeInLeeds – a side-project for Cronian to aggregate visitor information for his home town in Yorkshire - gets it official launch this week after almost a year in development.

The site brings in articles from local writers only based in Leeds and covers the city’s attractions, events and exhibitions, hotels, restaurants and bars.

Cronian is one of the most popular travel B2C bloggers in the UK but has carved a niche in the market by writing exclusively about the foibles of the industry rather than destination material.

He is also the organiser of annual TravelBlogCamp which takes place in London in November during World Travel Market.

Disclosure: Tnooz was exclusive media partner for TBC in November 2009.

In a short post on the Earth.org blog, Otto Stricker blames the site’s users for his decision to pull out of the open travel guide system.

He says his involvement will end with “immediate effect” – dated January 28 – and thanks the team of virtual writers around the globe.

“We have ten thousands of users visiting the site every month and they have not done what we suggested them to do: Become engaged and contributing users on the open travel guide Earth.org. And spread the news to friends – the growth base for every website. This is the core of our decision – what else shall it be?”

An official says the the website was still “another 12 months” away from working smoothly and the founders admit they made the website “too complex”.

The domain Earth.org is now up for sale, an official says, while the company is also

Stricker and brother Mathias – the other figure behind the scenes – have responded to a number of messages posted in the forum.

In one, Otto says:

“We have been working over years on this website – always with a 100% positive approach. We can either be 100% positive – or we do not work for Earth.org. This was always our thinking. We do not think there is a world in-between.”

Mathias adds:

“I’m afraid I’ll never work again in such a great environment and with such a great team as I did in the last years with you. I’m really sad that this is all over now, but in the end we had to take this decision.”

The main website gives very little away in a brief note at the top of the site:

“This is a demo version – and if you want to take it forward – please free to ask us for the code, which is open. Thank you for visiting.”

NB: Last week TripAdvisor removed a recruitment video from YouTube after it featured on Tnooz.

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.

The Toronto-based company recently created PlanetEyeTraveler as a standalone e-magazine brand to publish destination-specific news, information and reviews.

In addition, chief executive Jonah Sigel says, each article utilises the existing PlanetEye mapping technology which has gained the site plenty of plaudits courtesy of its unique and exclusive technology partnership with Microsoft.

The magazine is updated regularly each day by a team of 40 writers and already sits on dozens of articles.

The decision to expand the existing business comes as a number of content sites look to diversify into other areas which are less reliant on online advertising for revenues.

WorldReviewer in the UK created an advertising network of its own in 2008 and Wiley brand Frommers purchased the WhatsOnWhen syndicated content site in 2007.

Sigel adds: ”We also license this content out to other travel sites who want exceptional, constantly updated relevant travel content.”

PlanetEye also runs its product affiliate scheme through the e-mag.

The first major partnership unveiled by PlanetEye is with North American media firm ModernLuxury. Other recipients includes portals, hotels, airlines and magazines.

The programme works by paying each writer a flat fee (undisclosed) but then rewarding them further with additional payments depending on traffic.

NileGuide has so far recruited around 100 writers – including journalists, concierges, freelancer travel writers – to its content creation  programme.

Chief executive Josh Steinitz says the company is earmarking around 20% of its revenues to go to the local writers.

NileGuide’s approach to paying writers may not be unique but it comes amid a growing tide of disillusionment from a string of travel writers over the fate of their craft as newspapers turn to user and celebrity generated content or simply scale back paying for unique and professionally written travel content.

It also follows this magnus opus – The Internet is Ruining Travel Journalism – from Tnooz Node Jeremy Head in September 2009.

NileGuide is hoping its writers will “live and breathe life” into the destination guide work they produce for the site in the same way as they feel about the cities they live in.

Steinitz says writers which embrace the programme by pushing the content into other areas of the web will naturally benefit from increased traffic.

“The key point of course is that we’re paying them real money each week, plus bonuses based on the traffic they generate from creating great content and marketing their destination through blogs and social media.”

So while the NileGuide model is obviously not a return to the happy days of trips and regular commissions with the Old Media model, it is creating what it hopes is enough of an incentive to attract decent writers to its site who in turn will spread the NileGuide message around the web.

And I figured I needed something to grab attention for my first post on Tnooz. I’m delighted to be in such talented company, but I wonder if I’ve got anywhere near the experience or knowledge of my newly acquired peers.

In fact, it’s this that has got me thinking. What am I here for?

The answer in part is: because I have no choice.

When, heady with excitement and a little wet behind the ears, I jumped from my dull corporate career to join the ranks of the world’s freelance travel writers, the internet was in its relative infancy.

People had forecast the impact in might have on traditional media, but few took them seriously.

How things have changed: according to a recent piece in the UK version of Wired magazine “evaporating advertising revenue means that operating income in the newspaper segment of the Newscorp empire is down from $209 million to just $7 million year-on-year”.

That is a COLOSSAL drop.

What does that mean for travel writers? Well, I was recently offered £250 (around $300) to write a 1,500-word feature about El Salvador by a major UK national newspaper.

Not just to write it, but to go there, do the trip, take the notes, come home, write it up.

And no expenses either. Utterly impossible – even if I had got complementary flights and accommodation out of the airline and tour operator I was working with.

There is no money in traditional travel writing. Does that matter? I believe it does.

As travel editors have less and less budget for their content, the quality of that content deteriorates. Writers crank it out ever faster, with less time for fact-checking or site visits. Worse, the temptation to accept ‘sponsorship’ from suppliers, to blur the distinction between unbiased assessment and paid-for review becomes increasingly potent.

I recently wrote an advertorial for a large tour operator here in the UK.

A media deal was done to place it on the travel pages of a major UK newspaper and, to my surprise, it ran as ‘feature of the day’ as if it were a piece of objective editorial. There was no suggestion anywhere that it was an ad. This is a very slippery slope.

So, as we celebrate the latest bauble from Google or the newest app for our iPhones the trustworthiness of our media is being eroded.

Many would say that its place is being taken by the masses. Who needs a pro travel writer to review a hotel when there are probably 100s by ‘real customers’ on Tripadvisor?

But do you want to spend hours wading through this mass of content trying to make an objective assessment? Can you trust it?

I believe that UGC has a hugely important role to play, but the objective, thoughtful, unexaggerated assessment of a true travel writing professional is essential to the mix. I just don’t know yet where it fits in in the online universe.

Whilst I sometimes yearn for the days of proper budget print journalism, I’m excited about the future.

Look at most travel websites – tour operators, travel agents, DMOs – and the content is lacking. Whilst UGC sites are full of opinion, but lacking in balance, tour operator, travel agent and DMO sites are bland and opinion-free.

They feature fluffy brochure content or stuff that’s borrowed from elsewhere and poorly maintained. There’s an urgent need for quality content that informs and advises, that’s carefully written for its specific audience.

Traditional media offers fewer and fewer opportunities for pro travel writers, but somewhere out there in the midst of all the exciting innovation and chaos a few of the old rules will still apply.

And that’s why I am here.