Wikitravel is just what you’d expect: a wiki that’s loaded with travel information provided by contributors from around the world. What’s somewhat new and interesting, though, is the Wikitravel Press, a print-on-demand (POD) alternative for Wikitravel content. Launched earlier this month, the Press currently only offers a couple of destination titles (Chicago and Singapore), but I’m sure plenty more will be available shortly. Lulu is the POD provider for this service, and this is the second time I’ve stumbled across a Lulu project in the past couple of days.
One of the key benefits Wikitravel Press touts is the fact that all of their guides will be updated every month. That’s one of the true benefits of POD, right? You get to refresh the material on an as-needed basis and I could see where travel content would benefit greatly from this flexibility.
It’s interesting to see the various ways wiki content can be further distributed and monetized. As I mentioned in this earlier post, I think there’s a huge opportunity for someone to add a new distribution model to the wikipedia itself.
