Pretty commonplace for companies these days to produce a video clip to outline how wonderful it can be to take a job within the organisation.

So, interesting that on Monday this week guidebook giant Lonely Planet uploaded a video to YouTube specifically to promote opportunities within its IT and web development divisions.

This move, of course, chimes with CEO Matthew Goldberg’s drive to push the business into areas outside of its existing and core world of printed guidebooks.

Getting less publicity is news that business development manager Alex Cheeseman has left to join hotel site Gekko this week as commercial director.

His departure follows that of Matthew Cashmore, innovation ecosystem manager, quitting a few weeks ago to become digital director for magazine publishing group Hachette.

Cashmore is widely credited with spearheading many of LP’s web and mobile projects over the past 18 months after joining from the BBC in October 2008.

Ever wondered how far the Great Wall of China would stretch it it snaked across Western Europe? Or the size of Stonehenge it it were in New York’s Central Park?

Now you can…

Interesting project from the BBC announced today to show how historical events and places around the world can be reinterpreted by using a Google Map mashup.

Dimensions simply integrates the size of historical events with a user’s own location or any other place around the world, overlaying important places, events and things on a satellite view on a Google Map.

Officials say:

“We’ve built a system that can quickly take scale illustrations of historical events and superimpose them on zoomable, clickable maps. Information designers at the BBC research and produce these illustrations based on a range of library and on-line resources to make them as accurate as possible.”

Simple yet extremely interesting.

The project is broken into different subject areas, including space travel, cities in history, festivals and ancient worlds.

The people behind the project are hoping to refine the system and eventually integrate into the BBC’s science and history sections online. Travel section, too, maybe?

Lonely Planet introduced augmented reality Compass Guides for U.K. Android users and launched an ebook series for the iPad.

The Lonely Planet Compass Guides cover 25 cities, including Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Prague, Rome, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Vancouver, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

They are available for $4.99 each from the Google Android Market.

For each city, the Compass Guides include GPS-enabled maps and location-based information for numerous sites and points of interest across the area. The Android’s compass enables users to figure out where they have wandered to and what the distance is to the next watering hole.

With the exception of the maps, all of the content in the guides can be used offline so roaming fees can be avoided, Lonely Planet says.

Meanwhile, Lonely Planet now offers five Discover e-book titles for the iPad in the Apple iBookstore. The ebooks currently sell for $14.99 [GBP 9.99 and Eur 11.99] each.

The ebooks feature more than 3000 hyperlinks, maps with imbedded points of interest and hundreds of images, Lonely Planet says, adding that users can “navigate easily from expert editorial to specific points of interest, which are then displayed on a map to get you to your destination.”

Of course,  you can also use the ebooks to investigate your preferred destinations with the iPad resting on your stomach from your living room couch before you walk out the door.

Fans of the BBC around the world – but not the UK – will see an overhauled website in the coming months, complete with a new travel section courtesy of Lonely Planet.

Although the UK’s publicly-funded web news service was relaunched this week, BBC Worldwide (the commercial wing of the corporation) is separately looking to revamp the entire BBC.com platform later this summer for users outside of the UK.

BBC.com is supported by advertising and has a wider remit to work with thirds partners or, in this case, utilise some of the corporation’s myriad of commercial operations.

The BBC’s relationship with Lonely Planet (it bought a 75% stake in the company in 2007) is still hugely controversial and plans for the coming months are likely to reinvigorate the debate.

The existing BBC.com carries a widget on the homepage, directing users to Lonely Planet. However, the new incarnation will, for the first time, have a dedicated travel section as one of the main channels on the site.

The idea is to include travel-related material penned by the BBC’s own reporters but also bring in content from LonelyPlanet.com to help populate the channel. A full-time editor was unveiled this week in the shape of ex-New York Times travel and style editor, David Allan.

A BBC Worldwide official says the most likely material will be in the form of destination guides, travel advice and holiday tips, presumably with other interactive functions elsewhere on the Lonely Planet site such as maps.

Other details are still to be confirmed, such as whether LP’s user generated content on the Thorn Tree forums will be fed into the BBC site.

However the corporation says the new travel channel will not have any of the travel search functions that exist on LP for flights, hotels and other travel services.

Telmap may not be a household name such as old favourites MapQuest or Ordnance Survey, but its influence behind the scenes is widespread and important.

The company powers the mobile mapping and navigation tools for such manufacturers as Nokia, Blackberry, Ericsson, Motorola, Palm and works in various markets with the likes of Vodafone, O2, France Telecom Group (Orange), Mapquest and Telefonica.

Interesting that little mention elsewhere of quite a significant deal for its and travel guidebook giant Lonely Planet today.

The pair have teamed up to include travel information from Lonely Planet’s existing repertoire of content to stream into Telmap’s mobile search, mapping and navigation products for handsets and operators.

Launching initially for users in South Africa (timed poorly from a global perspective to coincide after the FIFA World Cup), Telmap’s deal with Lonely Planet will be rolled out to owners in additional global markets in the coming months.

Guidebook giant Lonely Planet was hoping to extol the virtues of its new virtual sales rep system – but appears to be running into a storm of sorts with a decision to almost ignore the Bangkok riots.

The product news concerns the new Platinum Planet service, an web-based system which works by providing information and materials to independent booksellers as well as offering customer support and “best practice” for retailers.

But Lonely Planet appears to have upset a number of travellers with its playing down of one of the biggest political disturbances in years in Bangkok, the main transport hub and backpacker re-fuelling stop in Asia.

There was no mention or any offer of advice via its popular Twitter profile during the past 24 hours for those in or planning to travel to Bangkok, despite the rapid escalation of violence between government soldiers and protesters.

But what enraged many is the lack of coverage on the main Lonely Planet website.

Critics were astounded that the top story on one of the world’s leading travel websites had decided to focus on a story about a US basketball player. this was later pushed down by an article about the Lonely Planet awards.

The second story, Is It Safe to Travel to Thailand, only sent users to a comment thread on the site’s popular Thorn Tree forum. An extra link pointed to a news story on the BBC from the previous day.

The decision is understood to have infuriated a number of Lonely Planet authors.

Lonely Planet officials have responded in the comments section below…

Guidebook giant Lonely Planet may be seeing the error of its ways in the most dramatic way possible after scrapping the price for some of its iPhone city guides this week.

Officials were left red-faced in early-April when the launch of the Lonely Planet iPad app was roundly criticised for its $20 price tag.

Within days of the launch the price was halved as negative comments on iTunes quickly piled up.

So it was curious to see how this week Lonely Planet made 13 of its most popular city guide iPhone apps available for free, a decision it said to help the thousands of travellers stranded in cities across Europe following the volcanic ash crisis.

Clearly the move has been a roaring success as officials say an eye-watering three million downloads of the apps have since been made on iTunes.

Certainly on the UK version of iTunes, Lonely Planet city guides have secured nine of the top ten positions in the free download chart.

As a result, officials have now slashed the price of 32 other guides in Europe, at least until 30 April.

Such a dramatic turn of events signifies two things:

• Lonely Planet did a superb job of marketing the free apps to displaced travellers, triggering a rush of downloads (the move was certainly covered across the media).
• Travellers per se are just not excited enough to pay for app-based travel guides, but a strong brand such as Lonely Planet can reap the rewards when it makes content available for free.

Lonely Planet has come forward to (almost) explain why it slashed the price of its glossy iPad app in half within days of its launch in the iTunes store.

A string of users turned on the company in the reviews section of iTunes, most  notably to complain about its initial $19.99 download price.

Lonely Planet dropped the price to $9.99 after just two days as the number of negative comments increased and the average rating for the app remained at a lowly 2/5.

Avoiding any mention of the poor reviews, officials are giving another explanation for the drop in price.

The company says it priced the book fairly in the first instance as it is trying to “re-imagine” the quality of its print books onto new digital platforms. However, it adds:

“It [iPad] adds value through interaction and multi-media as well as the ability to share. But we understand the potential of the iPad to reach out to new audiences for Lonely Planet and, as such, we’ve made a decision to reduce the price to enable us to achieve that goal.”

Lonely Planet says the appearance of some overwhelmingly positive reviews of the product in iTunes before the launch date of the iPad may simply be due to some early downloads of the app by reviewers.

Update: Lonely Planet says it cut price of iPad app to help reach new audiences.

Guidebook giant Lonely Planet has cut the cost of its new iPad app to $10 after stinging criticism from users.

The 1,000 Ultimate Experiences app was launched on the same day as iPad devices went on sale for the first time in the US.

A procession of negative comments on iTunes and other sites has coincided with Lonely Planet since axing its original download price of $17.50.

Lonely Planet officials have yet to explain why the price was cut so dramatically and so quickly following the launch of the app.

The app currently has a rating of 2/5 on iTunes, with many questioning the download price.

One commenter wrote:

“This is a $1.99 app, $2.99 at most. Nice photos with very few videos, but you can find similar information on Flickr and the web. I believe the developer is trying to take advantage of early iPad adopters. I, for one, feel like I was taken advantage of by spending $19.99 for this app.”

There is also a question mark over the only two positive comments on iTunes. Both rate the product 5/5 but were left prior to the app being released on iTunes and the launch of the iPad device on Saturday 3 April.

NB: Will update article when Lonely Planet responds officially.

Guidebook publisher Lonely Planet is one of the first high profile travel brands out of the blocks with the release of an app for the new Apple iPad.

Released to coincide with the inevitable frenzy as the device goes on sale in retail outlets today, Lonely Planet has re-engineered its 1,000 Ultimate Experiences book to create an interactive guide to various countries and the most popular locations selected by its authors.

Each of the 1,000 experiences, built in a deck-of-cards format, includes professional photography, editorial content and video footage from the destination and authors, users and Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler.

Also in development is an iPad version of Lonely Planet’s Discover books – a series of guides for Great Britain, Italy, Spain, France and Ireland.

Buried at the bottom of the press release, however is the price – $19.99.

Lonely Planet, in this case, has made great play of the app being purely an inspiration vehicle for travellers, rather than something that would be taken on a trip.

But the question for Lonely Planet and others considering apps for the new iPad is how much time and resource should be invested given that, in some respects, products such as the Ultimate Experiences app are highly interactive but glorified, glossy coffee table magazines.