Lonely Planet sets up online channel for travellers’ videos

lonelyplanetLonely Planet, the travel information company, is launching a new online channel to show the best travel videos around the world, this week.

The site, lonelyplanet.tv, will operate as a platform for travellers to upload and watch their own and fellow adventurers’ travel videos. Users will be allowed to rate each video and create play lists, as well as friend groups.

The company plans to license the best videos uploaded on the site and pay a fee for their use and commission new talent.

Lonelyplanet.tv features six channels, each focused on a specific travel theme to ease navigation for users. The three-to-five-minute videos can be uploaded from a computer, mobile or by live capture from a webcam.

The website provides Lonely Planet viewers with a participatory environment, including blogging, video-sharing, forums and geological information. Lonely Planet will moderate the site to ensure quality, and has initiated the launch with a selection of 75 videos relayed on the site.

Lonely Planet’s travel information manager Tom Hall says: "Lonely Planet has been a pioneer in both the web and TV, so lonelyplanet.tv is a brilliant opportunity for us to combine the two. Sites like YouTube have led the way for usergenerated videos, but we didn’t want the audience to have all the fun. We’re getting stuck in too and producing original videos specially for the site."

Lonely Planet is using the digital media hosting platform Reality Digital Opus to launch the website.