Category — Technology

Can we rely on travel information we find on the Internet? An exchange on Twitter with entrepreneur and world travelling phenomenon Gary Arndt set me thinking.

@hackneye (me): Being right more of the time is what guidebooks do better than the Web. It therefore makes me sad to see one with horrendous errors.
@EverywhereTrip (Gary): I’d disagree that they get things right more than the web. They are always 1-4 years out of date given the publication cycle.

@hackneye: Yes, they can be, and sometimes that’s important. But they also tend to be researched and fact-checked more carefully.
@EverywhereTrip: So long as the public can edit the info, errors can be corrected quickly online. 1,000′s of people checking instead of 1.

@hackneye: I agree. But the public don’t correct most of the travel content on the Web. Hence the variable quality.
@EverywhereTrip: What is an example of this? Most pages have comments, or at least a way to contact the owner.

@hackneye: An example of what? An uncorrected error on a travel site? Just Google your hometown and dig around.
@EverywhereTrip: That’s the thing. I don’t see much incorrect information. People always give theoretical examples, never concrete ones.

@hackneye: Chelsea’s football ground is the site of a battle that took place 200 miles away: http://bit.ly/agSoZN… Michelangelo’s David is in the Uffizi: http://bit.ly/aq8Vfn [it isn't]. 2 quick searches, 2 highly ranked sites.

@EverywhereTrip: So leave a comment correcting the information problem solved.
@hackneye: I admire your idealism. It’s a fine quality. But I suspect ‘correcting the Internet’ is too big a job.

@EverywhereTrip: The internet is a work in progress. If you see an error, correct it. Everyone does a little bit and it adds up…

And so it continued, with a 140-character limit becoming increasingly unsatisfactory for expressing quite complex ideas. [Read more →]

One of the (many) things I find genuinely useful about Twitter is the ability to get an instant answer or opinion on just about anything. Like this:

Wondering: in the medium term, which is worth more to a tourism business: 1. Nice mention in a guidebook. 2. Nice mention in a paper. Ideas? [@hackneye]

I  didn’t really have a motive for asking this, other than genuine, theoretical curiosity. It strikes me that many PR companies put a lot of effort into courting periodical, weekly and daily media, and a whole lot less time on guidebook writers. Maybe PRs know something that isn’t immediately apparent to me. [Read more →]

A short series of pieces in the Sunday Telegraph this winter on saving money on your travels: cheaper mobile phone calls abroad, prepaid currency cards, booking travel with cashback websites.

New ways to save money with your phone appear almost weekly. If you’re not confident on the web, invest in a Multi IMSI travel SIM card. This new generation of SIM slots into any unlocked mobile and can come with two numbers (one UK, one US). Callers can dial either number to reach you, wherever you are in the world.

Read about Multi IMSI and VoIP technologies for your travels at Telegraph.co.uk

Do you want a 10 per cent discount on your next weekend away, no strings attached? With planning and basic web-savvy, that’s how much you could save if you currently buy your spending money in high street or airport bureaux de change. Even habitual credit and debit-card travellers could secure savings of about five per cent.

Read about prepaid currency cards and the best places to buy travel money online at Telegraph.co.uk

For travellers who are comfortable booking on the internet, cashback websites can unlock a new tier of savings. With very little effort, you could pocket six per cent off an Istanbul city tour with Isango!, or hundreds of other deals – on top of any discounts or offers available booking direct with these operators.

Read about cashback websites, and the savings you can bag booking travel with them, at Telegraph.co.uk

So, my ‘Google phone’, the Nexus One, arrived and has already busted a whole afternoon of non-work, just as it promised. The good stuff is really good: crisp OLED screen, super-fast 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. Battery life sucks, of course, though turning off the pointless ‘active wallpaper’ helps.

I love the fact that Google integration is just there. No syncing with the desktop, or plugging into the laptop. Everything is there: contacts, Gmail, calendar, the lot. Admittedly no one has yet rushed up to me and spluttered ‘OMFG is that a Nexus One?‘. But it still feels like they might, at any moment.

Anyway, this isn’t a Nexus One review (plenty elsewhere), but a selection of recommended apps from the Android Market for anyone new to the phone or operating system. [Read more →]