The Guardian's 'Been There' Online Beta

Speaking of The Guardian, it’s online wing is beta-testing a new service called Been There. Lloyd Shepherd. the deputy director of digital publishing, blogs that, ” Essentially, it’s a platform for people to recommend things they like to do in places they love, and for other people to say if they agree with them. … The main trick we’ve tried to pull off is the combination of ‘travel journalism’ with massive user input. It works like this: someone writes a profile of a ‘place’ … and then people start adding tips for things to do in that place. … And, for the first time anywhere on [Guardian Unlimited] adding tags to the tips. You can add tips with any tags you want. Finally, the feedback loop: every tip has a “do you agree” button next to it. … But here’s the real Big Media exciting thing (bloggers look away now) – once a week, we’ll be running a section in the Travel section of the newspaper about a particular city, with users’ tips a big part of it. So, citizen media storms the Big Media gates once more.”

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