My French Blog “Entendu A Paris” is shortlisted for the Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards. It is in the final 11 in the French language category. Obviously, I’d be really grateful if any of you takes a few minutes to vote for me.
Archive for category Posts
Shortlisted for The Bobs
Mar 18
Airport Dare
Feb 14
I dare you to open this website on your computer in any airport of the world!
It’s only a timer and some random arabic letters, but I’m pretty sure you’ll get into serious trouble if you try.
“Like a bad dream, I am walking down Oxford Street in London, stripped bare. But this isn’t a dream, because apart from the passive RFID chip in my Oyster card I have no electronic devices on my person and am as technologically naked as the day I was born.
I am on my way to the US Embassy in Mayfair to apply for a journalist visa so that I can visit Austin, Texas in March this year as part of the team making Digital Planet for BBC World Service radio, and the appointment letter I have been sent makes it clear that such things are forbidden on the premises.
Tales abound of those refused admission for possession of an electronic car key fob or a USB stick, and a good friend and colleague was forced to jettison an expensive CompactFlash memory card – about the dumbest piece of electronics it is possible to imagine – before being admitted.”
Bill Thompson, Walking Naked into the Embassy
Via Hacker News
Six months ago, I launched a Digg-like for travel videos called “In Travel We Trust”. The site has never picked up , in my opinion because travel video is too small a niche and probably because I didn’t work enough on the site and failed at building a community. And let’s not forget the main reason: the damn users didn’t listen. 
In my 2010 new year resolutions, I decided to kill some of my sites, but In Travel We Trust is not one of them. I believe the travel industry is in need of sites that would be the the equivalents of Techcrunch, Techmeme or Hackernews. Andwhen you think about it In Travel We Trust is very close to Hacker News.
So from today, In Travel We Trust is opened to all kind of content related to travel an not only videos.
What are you waiting for ? Head off to In Travel We Trust and help us promote the best travel related content on the web.
Best 2009 Travel Book Cover
Dec 29
Voyageek is back
Dec 29
A series of issue with the hosting and the DNS of the blog and very little time to look at it meant that Voyageek was offline for way too long.
Next step, the upload of all the old posts! I have a back-up file on another computer and I’ll be able to access it in a week.
Happy New Year to all the readers who haven’t deleted Voyageek from their feed readers or their bookmarks!
So Craig and Linda from Indie Travel Podcast are launching a travel magazine. A PRINT magazine no less ! A day before the launch, I decided to ask Craid some questions about this crazy (and cool) idea.
Voyageek : At a time when most print magazines have financial problems, what’s the idea behind launching one ?
Craig Martin: Pretty crazy, huh? The internet is infinitely flexible, but there’s just something exciting about doing page layout: we have room to play and create something really beautiful. I think that’s something missing from the blog world: there’s lots of great content but we struggle with creating the equivalent of a full page spread – matching themes with written and visual elements and having complete freedom there.
We see the Indie Travel Podcast as much more than just a website. At the moment it’s a growing travel brand with audio and video downloads, articles, photographs and community presence. Over the next 12 months, we’re expanding with iPhone and Facebook apps, a growing number of travel ebooks and the start of a guidebook collection. The magazine’s the next step for us as publishers.
Voyageek : Which readers are your aiming at and how do you differentiate from existing travel publications ?
Craig Martin: Indie Travel Podcast Magazine is for thinking travellers, for adventure travellers, for independent travellers of all ages. When we say “budget” we don’t mean $200 a night like some magazines! That said, it’s certainly not just hostels and hitchhiking: there are places and ideas in here that suit singles, couples and families.
We’ve created a magazine that we’d like to read: it includes thoughtful commentary on travel issues, highlights popular destinations — hopefully with a fresh angle, and also spotlights emerging destinations. We’ve tried to keep things practical by including pull-out guides, toolkits and regular columns for key areas.
“A photo in the paper magazine might be replaced by a video in the online version”
Voyageek : You’re coming from the web, so in terms of writing, did you think writing for a magazine was very different from writing a regular blog post ?
Craig Martin: Yes and no. What we had to think of was in terms of rich media: it’s easy to embed a video or picture slideshow into a blog post, or hyperlink a term rather than giving an explanation. On paper, we don’t have that luxury and I suspect that’s where the digital and print versions might diverge in the future. There will be similar content, but a photo in the paper magazine might be replaced by a video in the online version.
We have quite high editorial standards for our site: each piece gets read by at least three different people before it is published and independent fact-checking is done when possible. This is part of what makes us a trusted source and it’s the same for the magazine so there were changes to that process.
“We’re estimating 18,000 print and digital copies delivered in the first three months”
Voyageek : What’s your target in term of circulation of the magazine ? How many subscribers do you need to ensure this will be a sustainable project ?
Craig Martin: Ahh, the magic numbers! It’s a quarterly magazine, so we’re estimating 18,000 print and digital copies delivered in the first three months, with numbers rising after that. The digital versions are going to make up the bulk of those numbers with around 150 print copies being sent to our first subscribers and sold through some retailers. We’re in distribution talks with outdoors stores and booksellers to greatly increase that print number by the December edition and next year.
Voyageek : Are you not afraid that the free pdf version will compete with the paid version and result in less paid subscriptions ?
Craig Martin: Not at all. We always planned to have free digital distribution alongside a paid print version. A low-resolution PDF is free and we’re selling a higher-quality digital version as well as the print version.
Some people like print, others prefer digital. We can’t sell a blog post in a shop or as part of a tourist board’s promotion. At the same time, we can’t afford to give away 20,000 print copies right now and throw in international postage as well!
As an independent publisher, we don’t have large amounts of capital to dip into. Each project needs to pay for itself and so we have to charge in order to pay our photographers, authors, designers and also to keep ourselves eating, drinking and on the road. We hope that those who can afford it will pay for a print or digital subscription and support our work.
Interview by Merrill Goussot for Voyageek
You can subscribe to the Indie Travel Podcast Magazine online
BlogSherpa, Here I come
Aug 15
“Hi Merrill,
Congratulations! Your blog Voyageek has been approved for publication on www.lonelyplanet.com.”
Woot! A month or so after I applied to Blogsherpa, my blog got accepted. I have this article on books to read for a trip to Ireland that is almost ready and it should be my first post for LP.