Lonely Planet is launching a brand new online channel featuring the best travel videos from around the world.
Going live on the 3rd April, lonelyplanet.tv will allow travellers to upload and watch their own videos as well as view videos created by Lonely Planet. Users can rate each video, share them with friends and create playlists and friend groups.

Lonely Planet’s Tom Hall says of lonelyplanet.tv, “Sending postcards, emails or updating blogs has always been a core part of sharing your travel experience with friends and family. With lonelyplanet.tv, travellers can now instantly show their adventures, not just with their friends and family, but a worldwide community of like-minded travellers.”

The 3-5 minute videos can be uploaded from a computer or mobile, or by live capture from a web cam. Lonely Planet’s Tom says: “You can film footage with your mobile phone, instantly upload it to lonelyplanet.tv and then call your folks at home to tell them to get online and watch it. It’s a great chance to see the world, rather than just be told about it. And with hundreds of thousands of Lonely Planet travellers scouring the globe at any one time, it’s going to be an amazing resource as well as non-stop entertainment”.

“Lonely Planet has been a pioneer in both the web and television, so lonelyplanet.tv is a brilliant opportunity for us to combine the two. Sites like YouTube have led the way for user-generated videos but we didn’t want the audience to have all the fun, so we’re getting stuck in too and producing exciting original videos specifically for the site. And we’ll continue to do so as the site grows”.

Lonely Planet is using Reality Digital Opus?, a digital media hosting platform, to launch the LonelyPlanet.tv website. Reality Digital Opus, the technology enabler for the new online channel, is providing Lonely Planet viewers with a more participatory environment that includes blogging, video sharing, forums, geo-location information and more.

“Travelers seeking an engaging and interactive environment can depend on Reality Digital and Lonely Planet to help them share their experiences and connect with their community,” said Cynthia Francis, CEO of Reality Digital. “With every deployment, we strive to enhance the end user’s experience within their online social network by making social media more accessible and participatory. For the site administrator, our commitment is to deliver the enterprise with a best-in-class solution. Clearly, our deployment with Lonely Planet illustrates the tremendous capacity of our offering.”

Budding filmmakers should also take note, as lonelyplanet.tv plans to license the best videos uploaded on the site and pay a fee for their use as well as commission new talent.

lonelyplanet.tv will launch with six channels, each around a specific travel theme making the website easy to search.

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