Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Future of Audio Guides

Trawling through the internet, looking for comments on Audio Guides and the future of the industry I stumbled across the below, an article written on FTJ, The Family Travel Journal. The author highlights the trend currently taking over the travel publishing industry. The likes of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are uncertain about the future of the 1,000 page guide of Western Europe? Is this too much information to have on you at any one time and is this the best way to access the necessary information? The result has been that "these publishers are starting to sell stand-alone chapters ready for download to a PDA or other text-friendly device."

The motivational force behind this trend is the increasing demand for convenience and customization. Travelers want site-specific information that can be easily stored and discretely used in bite-sized chunks. They want and expect to have access to relevant location specific information when they want, where they want. The author goes onto explain where this market need and expectation has come from: the worldwide web, modern technology and travel. This will enable the 21st century traveler to download site-specific information from the ether onto a mobile device where he can read or listen to it as he stands in front of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

The emphasis here is on "will" - "this will enable the traveler to download...information onto a mobile device". Sadly for you those of you without a Nokia N95 or iPhone you will struggle with this bit, the ability to download audio tracks straight onto a PDA or mobile device because you are unlikely to have free internet access. Unfortunately very few cities currently provide free wifi access and the mobile networks only really afford free internet access to people traveling within their home country. So, consumers, you need to be patient and wait for mobile networks to drop international roaming tariffs and open up web access, free of charge, to everyone. Or do we?

The signs are that handset manufacturers are willing to enter the audio-information arms race. If this is this case, this could halve the time that consumers have to wait until they can download and listen to location-specific information in situ. The information would be pre-loaded onto a your handset and uploaded onto a map of the city. Then, upon visiting the city you can use the map to guide you around, learning about the sites and attractions as you go.

But the fact remains that this is not yet available to the mainstream and certainly the information is not downloadable in audio format, allowing you to really experience the city sights around you. So in the meantime we would ask that you monitor StrollOn, follow our progress and give our "Sixty Minute City" a trial when we start selling it on the website within the next couple of weeks. We are using popular technology to provide you with important and entertaining information - technology that is meant to be plugged into your ears as you move around, unlike your PDA or mobile.



In the meantime, StrollOn...

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A World of Audio guides, Walks and iPods


About StrollOn

Hello and welcome to StrollOn, where we produce audio guides and audio tours of London, Paris and an ever-expanding list of major european cities. We have also developed our free city overviews and "Hot spots" (individual audio commentaries for individual sights and attractions). Whichever product interests you we simply ask that you select the relevant audio guide or audio tour on our website and download the mp3 files onto your iPod or other mp3 player, thereby turning your iPod into your "GuidePod".

As you will see from the this blog, we are a new company, providing recently developed products on our website. We've set up this blog so that we can tell you all about us as you join us from our infancy. And we are actively looking for feedback, both on the website and the blog. We don't want you to help us simply to become the biggest, but we do want you to help us become the best walking audio tours company.