Blog homeThis isn’t much of a review, more a “go and take a look at this”.
WanderWiki is the site I want to write a couple of comments about today. Created by Imaginative Traveller, a UK based adventure travel tour operator, Wander Wiki lets staff and customers browse their repository for all information relating to their tours and the countries they visit. (Customer editing currently disabled though as they build up their content)
Donationware
The system is based on the “donationware” MediaWiki software, the software originally written to power Wikipedia. Hence there is a familiar look and feel to the website. By donationware this means that you can choose not to pay for the software - however as Wikimedia are currently on a fundraising drive (with 17,000 people having donated) - I would hope that any businesses using software for commercial purposes (which this is) would donate a tidy sum. (like 500 USD at least). (That reminds me - I haven’t donated a penny for the wordpress software used on this blog - perhaps I should).
Why wikis are great!
The advantage to this kind of software is that you can see where changes have been made to the text - by looking into the page history. For example, take a look at this change
You can see the date cut off for acceptable US dollar notes has been changed from 1999 to 2001. Interesting.
Opinion
I know everyone loves it when I make critical comments about websites within my website reviews - but frankly I don’t have anything bad to say about Wander Wiki - it is a really nice job. Competitors should watch out because this site may give Imaginative Traveller a bit of an advantage going forwards.
Visually of course it isn’t up to much - but then again - it is the familiar look and feel from Wikipedia - hence this visual design carries a certain amount of credibility. I would leave it as it is and focus on the content - which is what this is all about.
Would I have advised to create a website like this?
No. I don’t think so.
I am familiar with the business objectives behind these kinds of projects - they normally boil down to “demonstrate our expertise of the countries we are visiting to potential customers”. This wiki certainly does that. However what has happened is that this expertise is now open to all competitors as well - hence the competitive advantage of website like this is blunted.
New competitors could come into these countries, pick up the appropriate information, and start offering tours. Existing competitors could use this information to fact check their own dossiers.
There is functionality that can be devised that demonstrates expertise in a country (or activity) but doesn’t require you to expose that knowledge to the public (but rather to those making enquiries, or customers etc). I wonder what alternatives Imaginative Traveller considered.
Anyway, this site is live now - so they may as well continue with it. Actually the benefits of knowledge exposure probably outweigh the disadvantages. Not everyone can have a site like this hence this will become a nice differentiator. Interesting to watch.
What, really nothing critical to say?
Yeah - I know you didn’t believe me when I said I had nothing critical to write 
I will leave you with a nice photo from the tour leader page
A nice photo and nothing wrong with that. However, it is a rather odd juxtaposition - as right next to the photo is a line of text that says:
We find that local tour leaders, having been born in the country where they are working, can add unique insights into the local culture. Employing local tour leaders forms a core part of our Responsible Travel policy.
Ummmm….. I think I would have chosen a different guide to highlight!
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