It’s now time for us to take a step back and examine what we’ve achieved, and what we need to do next – in particular we need to examine some of the bugs which members of the programme have highlighted, and we need to figure out how we move the programme out of beta. To help achieve that goal, we’re putting new sign-ups on hold.

We currently have over 500 bloggers in the system and together they have posted over 11,000 articles. Now we need to stop for a moment and fix the outstanding issues before we can move on.

I’ll post here when we’re ready to open sign-up once again.

Nominations will open within the next month before voting and a live event announcing the winners shortly after…. keep your eyes here and on @lplabs on twitter for up to date information as it’s announced

Any sufficiently large code base will have some ugly parts in it.  Over time design decisions change.  Team members come and go.  SOAP doesn’t work out.  Yes, we all know the parts of a system that nobody wants to touch.

So, once a week, for 30 minutes all developers at Lonely Planet join a Mob that will stop at nothing before the nastiest section of code we can find is refactored, cleaned up or otherwise brought to submission.  The sessions are informal but indiscriminate – no part of the system is untouchable.  No blame is assigned, the only goal is to make the code base easier to work with.

Apart from having a cleaner code base Mob Refactoring has some other important benefits for us.  It helps to spread design (or “architecture” if you must) decisions across the team and solidifies shared practices.  Developers are exposed to parts of the system they wouldn’t otherwise touch and develop more confidence to change code to serve our business goals.

It is a fairly small batch we can announce this time as the team has been working for 4 weeks on functionality for the following fortnight’s release. So stay tuned…

Below are highlights of the changes we introduced this time:

• We made it easier for users to navigate from a thorn tree post to a Thorn Tree user’s profile page. By just clicking on the poster’s username that sits with their post and selecting ‘view profile’. Thorn tree users have wanted this for some time, so it is a happy moment when we finally get these small improvements out to the user. This should also improve traffic to our new profile pages as it makes them easier to discover. It also complements the work we are currently doing (but is not yet live) to show a thorn tree activity stream on the user’s Profile page, alongside their groups activity.
• For Trip Planner users we fixed a bug – so now if you print your trip the POI details associated with your trip will also print. We also added the ability for a sponsor to display their logo within trip planner. First campaign using this is the MasterCard campaign in the US.
• For Lonely Planet blogs we fixed a bug so that users wanting to comment on a blog post can now sign in directly from the blog post to do so.

I will try and keep these brief and keep them coming each fortnight.

Cheers
Katie Marcar
Global Website Manager

The good news is that the arduous back-end system that allowed us to add blogs has been replaced by a new automated sign-up that runs from the new and rather funky profiles on lonelyplanet.com – we’ve also been building out the documentation on the BlogSherpa Wiki – and, well…. we think it’s ready for the big time.

Adding your blog to the BlogSherpa program is easy – first, log into lonelyplanet.com (if you’ve not got an account register here). Once logged in hit your name on the top right hand side of the screen and click ‘my travel blogs’ in the list of links under you new avatar – then just hit ‘new blog’ and enter the details. Make sure you click the ‘Yes, please consider my blog for ”Blogs We Like” check box and give us your Google Adsense ID and you’re good to go. (While you’re there you may want to add an avatar or play with some of the other new stuff).

We’ll review the applications and let you know within 7 days if you’re accepted.

I’m really proud of what we’ve done with BlogSherpa and I hope you’ll enjoy using it – together I think we can build a pretty impressive collection of the worlds best travel blogs – and importantly share our traffic and revenue with you.

If you’d like a step-through of exactly how to add your blog, I’ve recorded this short video.

Well done to everyone that got nominated, I, and I know the judges have had a wonderful time reading, watching and listening to all the entrants.

1. Best Destination Blog
   www.GoVisitHawaii.com (15/20)
   
2. Best Expat Blog
   www.notesfromspain.com (17/20)
   
3. Best Consumer Travel Blog
   blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/ (15/20)
   
4. Best Travelogue
   worldinslowmotion.com (17/20)
   
5. Best non-English Travel Blog
   lavoltadels25.cat (20/20)
   
6. Best Spanish Language Blog
   blogdeviajes.com.ar (17/20)
   
7. Best French Language Blog
   toothbrushnomads.com/dotclear (17/20)
   
8. Best Italian Language Blog
   ilreporter.com (17/20)
   
9. Best Micro-blogging
   twitter.com/soultravelers3 (17/20)
   
10. Best Video Blog
    twoguysaroundtheworld.com (15/20)
    
11. Best Themed Blog
    soultravelers3.com (17/20)
    
12. Best Image Blog
    elsuenodeindia.blogspot.com (15/20)
    
13. Best Group Authored Blog
    SpottedbyLocals.com (20/20)
    
14. Best Podcast:
    indietravelpodcast.com (17/20)
    

And the big one, the 2009 Lonely Planet Best Blog – goes to….

Two Guys Around the World!

Here are the acceptance videos from the awards evening – click the little book in the player to see the other ‘episodes’ – you can see the full list of videos over at lpbloggers.blip.tv

If you’re a winner you can display the Lonely Planet Blog Award Winner badge on your site – download it by right clicking this URL and selecting ’save as’

http://lplabs.com/images/awards_winner.jpg

Judges

We had a fanastic judging panel for this years awards, next year we’ll also be using a judging panel to decide on the nominations.

The judges for the 2009 awards were:

• Emily Wolman, Commissioning Editor (Americas), Lonely Planet
• Vivek Wagle, Edior, lonelyplanet.com
• Bobbie Johnson, Technology Corespondent, Guardian
• Joshua Samuel-Brown, Author, all round good guy, and pretty awsome blogger.

Proudly supported by

Keep your power up on the road
We are a passionate about the use of advanced and emerging technologies to develop and apply intelligent power sources that embrace the future for renewable energy – the power behind the technology that travels.

Cell based location tracking?
Check out the Travel Journal

The ekit Travel Journal, automatically creates a online journal based on the location of your phone. It updates the location using cell phone towers in more than 100 countries. It’s a free service feature on all ekit global SIM cards and works with any GSM phone, not just expensive smart phones.

Your trip is automatically displayed on a Google map and your journal is updated with images of locations you have visited, local weather and a record of recent communications. You can update and personalise your Journal anytime, either by phone or from the web.

What will your book be?
Real Books. Made By You

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book – photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb’s community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market.

RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products, services, and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry® wireless platform, the RIM Wireless Handheld™ product line, software development tools, radio-modems, and software/hardware licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.rim.com.

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anywhere, anytime, and through any medium.

But of course, we haz prizes.

Each category winner will take home (prepare showbiz style music backing):

• $40 Blurb Voucher
• eKit Passport Sim Card with US$10 call credit
• Adobe Visual Communicator
• The Lonely Planet Travel Book (mini)
• Your choice of two Lonely Planet Travel Books

In addition, the winners of the Best Spanish Language Blog will also take home the Atlas Universal Planeta, and the winners of the Best French Language Blog will take home a GPS device to be confirmed, we’re still working with our Italian partners to secure a prize for Best Italian Language Blog.

Here’s the really big news – as well as the category winners we will be awarding the very first “Lonely Planet Best Travel Blog” award. Apart from the massive bragging rights, we’ve put together an extra special prize pack.

• $40 Blurb Voucher
• eKit Passport Sim Card with US$100 call credit
• Adobe Visual Communicator
• A Power Monkey Explorer
• A Blackberry Bold
• The entire 2009 Lonely Planet Book catalogue.

Yes, that’s right, a bunch of exceptionally cool prizes… and the ENTIRE LONELY PLANET CATALOGUE…. that’s a lot of books. In fact it’s so many books I can’t list them all here – that would be silly – but go look at the lonelyplanet.com/shop to get an idea. The actual full list will be given to the winners – the total retail value is US$10,000. That’s about 488 books. Hope you have shelves.

No cash equivalents, our decision is final and we will not enter into discussions about the decisions of the judges. You must also ensure you comply with any local tax laws pertaining to the winning of prizes. We recerve the right to change the prizes without notification, and to alter the contents of the prizes.

None of this would have been possible without the fantastic support of our sponsors – I urge you to visit their sites and take a look at what they offer.

Cell based location tracking?
Check out the Travel Journal

The ekit Travel Journal, automatically creates a online journal based on the location of your phone. It updates the location using cell phone towers in more than 100 countries. It’s a free service feature on all ekit global SIM cards and works with any GSM phone, not just expensive smart phones.

Your trip is automatically displayed on a Google map and your journal is updated with images of locations you have visited, local weather and a record of recent communications. You can update and personalise your Journal anytime, either by phone or from the web.

What will your book be?
Real Books. Made By You

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book – photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb’s community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Keep your power up on the road
We are a passionate about the use of advanced and emerging technologies to develop and apply intelligent power sources that embrace the future for renewable energy – the power behind the technology that travels.

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market.

RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products, services, and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry® wireless platform, the RIM Wireless Handheld™ product line, software development tools, radio-modems, and software/hardware licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.rim.com.

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anywhere, anytime, and through any medium.

So without further ado, here are the points for the public voting section of the 2009 Lonely Planet Travel Blogging Awards – remember these points only account for 50% of the overall score. Now the judges get to work for the remaining 50%.

The winners will be announced at a party in San Francisco on Thursday 26th at 6pm – if you’re nominated here you have two tickets to the party – email me for your invite.

Best Destination Blog

• www.GoVisitHawaii.com 10 Points
  
• www.manzanilloblog.com 7 Points
  
• www.spottedbylocals.com/berlin 5 Points
  
• whistlerblackcombsnowreport.com 3 Points
  
• rwapplewannabe.wordpress.com 1 Point

Best Expat Blog

• bearshapedsphere.blogspot.com 10 Points
  
• www.notesfromspain.com 7 Points
  
• www.yucatanliving.com/ 5 Points
  
• roamingrachael.blogspot.com 3 Points
  
• rwapplewannabe.wordpress.com 1 Point

Best Comsumer Travel Blog

• blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/ 10 Points
• elliott.org 7 Points
• matadorgoods.com 5 Points
• travelingmamas.com 3 Points
• travel-rants.com1 Point

Best Travelogue

• windyskies.blogspot.com 10 Points
  
• worldinslowmotion.com 7 Points
  
• everything-everywhere.com 5 Points
  
• uncorneredmarket.com 3 Points
• theprofessionalhobo.com 1 Point

Best non-English Language Blog

• lavoltadels25.cat 10 Points
• triplib.de 7 Points
  
• amafrika.blogspot.com 5 Points
  
• dulichbonmua.blogspot.com 3 Points
• aatomiku-seiklused.blogspot.com 1 Point

Best Spanish Language Blog

• churuymarianenelbolson.blogspot.com 10 Points
• blogdeviajes.com.ar 7 Points
  
• objetivolima.wordpress.com 5 Points
• misviajesporahi.blogspot.com 3 Points
  
• viajerasdelmundo.blogspot.com 1 Point

Best French Language Blog

• panneauxdumonde.toile-libre.org 10 Points
• toothbrushnomads.com/dotclear 7 Points
• tropic-of-capricorn.fr 5 Points
  
• matetlola.uniterre.com 3 Points
• cathetyan.uniterre.com1 Point

Best Italian Language Blog

• ilreporter.com 10 Points
  
• piedistanchi.com 7 Points
• lafilibusta.blogspot.com 5 Points
• turismolento.blogspot.com 3 Points
• avventuregialle.splinder.com 1 Point

Best Micro-blogging

• twitter.com/soultravelers3 10 Points
  
• twitter.com/travelsavvykayt 7 Points
  
• twitter.com/HostelColonial 5 Points
  
• twitter.com/nerdseyeview 3 Points
• twitter.com/travelblissful 1 Point

Best Video Blog

• youtube.com/user/soultravelers3 10 Points
• amtrekker.com 7 Points
  
• twoguysaroundtheworld.com 5 Points
• scenicboys.typepad.com/scenicboys/ 3 Points
• youtube.com/user/GoHawaiiTV 1 Point

Best Themed Blog

• soultravelers3.com 10 Points
• travelswithtwo.com 7 Points
• bigbluetech.net/big-blue-tech-news/ 5 Points
• mykugelhopf.ch 3 Points
• walktalktour.com/~blog/ 1 Point

Best Image Blog

• tacogirlblog.blogspot.com 10 Points
• atodocaucho.blogspot.com 7 Points
• elsuenodeindia.blogspot.com 5 Points
• everything-everywhere.com/Photography 3 Points
• MyKugelhopf.ch 1 Point

Best Group Authored Blog

• SpottedbyLocals.com 10 Points
• travelgeneration.com 7 Points
• matadornetwork.com 5 Points
• travelingmamas.com 3 Points
• blog.mrandmrssmith.com 1 Point

Best Podcast

• amateurtraveler.com 10 Points
• indietravelpodcast.com 7 Points
• notesinspanish.com/spanish-audio 5 Points
• notesfromspain.com/podcasts 3 Points
• viajerodelmundo.com 1 Point

Proudly supported by

What will your book be?
Real Books. Made By You

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book – photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb’s community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Cell based location tracking?
Check out the Travel Journal

The ekit Travel Journal, automatically creates a online journal based on the location of your phone. It updates the location using cell phone towers in more than 100 countries. It’s a free service feature on all ekit global SIM cards and works with any GSM phone, not just expensive smart phones.

Your trip is automatically displayed on a Google map and your journal is updated with images of locations you have visited, local weather and a record of recent communications. You can update and personalise your Journal anytime, either by phone or from the web.

Keep your power up on the road
We are a passionate about the use of advanced and emerging technologies to develop and apply intelligent power sources that embrace the future for renewable energy – the power behind the technology that travels.

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market.

RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products, services, and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry® wireless platform, the RIM Wireless Handheld™ product line, software development tools, radio-modems, and software/hardware licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.rim.com.

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anywhere, anytime, and through any medium.

Public voting will make up 50% of the overall score, the judges votes will make up the remaining 50%.

Once public voting has finished we will award ‘points’ in the following way:

• 1st – 10 points
• 2nd – 7 points
• 3rd – 5 points
• 4th – 3 points
• 5th – 1 point

for each category.

The judges will award 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in each category – points will be awarded:

• 1st – 10 points
• 2nd – 7 points
• 3rd – 5 points

The individual judge’s scores will be added up to make a total judges’ score for each blog, and for each category the winners will be awarded:

• 1st – 10 points
• 2nd – 7 points
• 3rd – 5 points
• 4th – 3 points
• 5th – 1 point

Judges’ scores will then be added to the public scores (max score 20 points) and winners will be the blogs with the most overall points. In the event of a tie-break my decision (Matthew Cashmore) will be final.

Proudly supported by

What will your book be?
Real Books. Made By You

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book – photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb’s community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Cell based location tracking?
Check out the Travel Journal

The ekit Travel Journal, automatically creates a online journal based on the location of your phone. It updates the location using cell phone towers in more than 100 countries. It’s a free service feature on all ekit global SIM cards and works with any GSM phone, not just expensive smart phones.

Your trip is automatically displayed on a Google map and your journal is updated with images of locations you have visited, local weather and a record of recent communications. You can update and personalise your Journal anytime, either by phone or from the web.

Keep your power up on the road
We are a passionate about the use of advanced and emerging technologies to develop and apply intelligent power sources that embrace the future for renewable energy – the power behind the technology that travels.

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market.

RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products, services, and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry® wireless platform, the RIM Wireless Handheld™ product line, software development tools, radio-modems, and software/hardware licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.rim.com.

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anywhere, anytime, and through any medium.

You can vote for one blog in each category. Please do only vote once – we’re sure there are ways you can get around the tech, but please, do only vote once. We reserve the right to remove votes we think are fraudulent – and remember – public voting will make up 50% of the overall score.

Voting will close at midday on Friday 20th March 2009 Pacific Time USA (San Francisco)

If you’d like to know how we’ll be counting the votes and how the maths will work we’ve put up a special post explaining it all.

If you’re lucky enough to be listed above you can use the badges below on your blog to let people know you’ve been nominated and encourage them to come here and vote.

At the moment we have an English Language badge, and an Italian Language badge, others will follow in the coming days.

English

The URL of this image is – http://lplabs.com/images/lonely_planet_travel_blogge.jpg

Italian

The URL of this image is – http://lplabs.com/images/lonely_planet_travel_blog_i.jpg

French

The URL of this image is – http://lplabs.com/images/lonely_planet_travel_blog_f.jpg

Spanish

The URL of this image is – http://lplabs.com/images/lonely_planet_travel_blog_e.jpg

Proudly supported by

What will your book be?
Real Books. Made By You

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book – photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb’s community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Cell based location tracking?
Check out the Travel Journal

The ekit Travel Journal, automatically creates a online journal based on the location of your phone. It updates the location using cell phone towers in more than 100 countries. It’s a free service feature on all ekit global SIM cards and works with any GSM phone, not just expensive smart phones.

Your trip is automatically displayed on a Google map and your journal is updated with images of locations you have visited, local weather and a record of recent communications. You can update and personalise your Journal anytime, either by phone or from the web.

Keep your power up on the road
We are a passionate about the use of advanced and emerging technologies to develop and apply intelligent power sources that embrace the future for renewable energy – the power behind the technology that travels.

Research In Motion is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market.

RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products, services, and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry® wireless platform, the RIM Wireless Handheld™ product line, software development tools, radio-modems, and software/hardware licensing agreements. For more information, visit www.rim.com.

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anywhere, anytime, and through any medium.