Which way2go?

Last Thursday, I attended the launch of NRMA’s new magazine and website, myway2go. The new mag focuses on stories and pics submitted by readers. Essentially its UGC – user generated content. Stuff that doesn’t make the mag gets put on their website. Think of it as a reader’s digest for travel stories. The website has a social networking element to it, as readers submit the content and you can comment on them. They’ve also got editorials, videos and picture, forum sections. It’s built upon the idea that people want to tell their own stories – how many of us are dying to tell our travel when we are travelling and especially when we get back to our friends. I think what they are trying to do is keep that subjective, personal, emotional element to it.

I was a bit skeptical at first but I got to give them props for doing this. I can’t think of any other Australian organisation building their own social networking site. Next Digital got invited because a colleague of mine, James Duthie @onlinemarketingbanter interviewed NRMA’s general manager of corporate comms Shane McClelland. I was actually the only one that rocked up from Next, so I was forced to mingle and meet some new people. I met a lot of interesting folk, including the editor,Sandy, other writers, photographer and their digital people.

Oh, and did I mention the gnocci was fantastic? Handmade @ Ristorante Mezzaluna! I had about 3 plates of that stuff! They also roasted a pig but it was only half eaten 😦 It was pretty chilled, and a great view of the circular quay city skyline. I read the magazine the other day and its pretty easy to read because its not like full on travel writing that you expect from other travel mags – its like ordinary people’s story. I’ve been told that there is a bit of ghostwriting as expert writers do polish up some of the story for editorial quality, but that’s to be expected when people submit stories. Some of the stories are actually written by writers and that is disclosed. It must be because its the first issue, and they didn’t have enough stories from non-writers. I’m sure this will decrease over time as more people submit their content.

It has a pricetag of $5.95, so its a reasonable price but I don’t think I will buy this magazine. I’d def check out the website in future though and I’m really keen on submitting a few stories. I kept a travel journal and have lots of stories backed up. I’m not big-upping myself or anything, but I think my writing quality is better than some of those writers. When I really put my mind to it, I can churn out pretty good writing so I’ve got a good chance of winning some of those prizes 🙂

And you know what – I think they will have issues with the domain. I’m not sure why they chose that name but the domain myway2go.com belongs to some German travel website. They actually have myway2go.com.au. I also get confused if its supposed to be “myway2go” or just “way2go”. Personally, I wouldn’t have chosen that name. I would have picked something really unique, especially if the website is going to be an integral part of it. “way2go” doesn’t really sound exciting to me or have that personal storytelling element behind it. You also need to have a really unique domain as well and I always prefer “.com” over “.com.au”.

I’m out like handmade gnocci,

Matt