Comments for Gyrovague

Comment on Free travel guide Wikivoyage comes out of beta and is already kicking ass by bayanulgiitourism

bayanulgiitourism — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:10:40 +0000

I have been editing both wikivoyage and wikitravel over the last few months, with links to my agency’s website on both sites. So far, the wikitravel website draws 10 to 1 clicks on the website vs wikivoyage. So, right now wikitravel appears to be the better website, from the perspective of businesses and tourism agencies. That being said, I have received constant assistance and advice from WV admins, and none from WT. Posting pictures on WV is simple, and difficult on WT. Though the numbers lean to WT, its no different than Myspace’s advantage in 2005 over facebook. Its days are numbered and will fade fast, especially with Wikimedia and WV’s large number of admins and editors.

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by jpatokal

jpatokal — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 07:22:27 +0000

Agreed in part. I’m not saying all paid content is going to go away, I just think the era of people paying for mass-produced content is coming to an end, because with digital distribution costs effectively zero, competition will whittle away to profit margin to zero as well. Instead, business models will have to shift to reflect the actual costs of the model: people paying to have content created in the first place, whether it’s customized personally for them (convenience/curation) or simply something that doesn’t exist yet (Kickstarter style).

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by Antti Hermunen

Antti Hermunen — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:45:24 +0000

Might a future model be paying for convenience & curation of content? Respective examples would be Netflix and New York Times come to mind as relevant examples. Especially live sports will also be a moneymaker for a long time to come.

Paid content is by no means dying out, it is being disrupted. Christensen has written about disruption in journalism and Louis CK has disrupted comedy distribution. Content won’t be free as long as it is refined and renewed regularly – the trick will be to find the job that audiences are hiring the content for. Once you have an idea what jobs the audience values, asking for money becomes a whole lot easier.

Also, taking the average price of anything is weak analysis – tracking the median would be far more interesting. Another interesting App Store specific analysis would be growth of user-base vs. growth of developer payout.

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by Kindle guide to Seville - crap content, fraudulent reviews | Travelblather

Kindle guide to Seville - crap content, fraudulent reviews | Travelblather — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:17:01 +0000

[...] It feels like I might rant about how 'real people matter' and 'quality content counts', but the macro data suggests that actually the billions of schmucks who use the net couldn’t give a toss. For them the price-quality ratio has become totally decoupled. They expect to get stuff for free or [...]

Comment on No cheeseburger for you: A look at the Internet Brands v. Wikitravel volunteers lawsuit by Lawyers, Guns and Money – Internet Brands v. Holliday « Ryan's Journal

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:49:07 +0000

[...] “No cheeseburger for you: A look at the Internet Brands v. Wikitravel volunteers lawsuit”… – A blog post from a Wikivoyage editor that rebuts many of the claims made in the initial complaint [...]

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by Rob

Rob — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:35:12 +0000

I think most people are still stuck with the “book” mindset in terms of apps. They’ve just created slightly more interactive versions of books and called them apps. I think they should probably be building much more interactive versions of maps instead, they’re alot more use to travelers than guidebooks ever have been.

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by jpatokal

jpatokal — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:08:23 +0000

Sure, but that’s kind of my point: the revenue comes from ads or people paying to get rid of ads, not the actual content.

Comment on Down, down, down: Books, e-books and apps all trending to zero by ariejan

ariejan — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:04:45 +0000

On the topic of apps, there may be more free apps, but most free apps nowadays contain ‘in app purchases’ to either remove adds or extend functionality.

Comment on Farewell Lonely Planet Melbourne, hello Google Sydney by Duncan Bayne

Duncan Bayne — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:54:24 +0000

Onnea uuden keikan Google … kun olet lähdössä Sydney? Olen huomannut, että Lonely Planet sähköposti pomppii nyt niin kai vastaus on “pian” (Thought a Google Translate message was appropriate for the occasion ).

Comment on Why the Web will gut paid e-books and apps, and why free can pay for authors and publishers by markg

markg — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:27:53 +0000

If Karl Marx published his manifesto today, no matter where he published it, he would be a featured thinker in every mainstream university. Wait that’s been done. For decades.