Publishers of guidebooks, tourism organisations, or even people wanting to sell souvenirs and ice creams, looking to engage with outdoors-y types such as cyclists and walkers can now do so thanks to an improved, location aware publishing platform from Augmentra.
Augmentra, the company behind the ViewRanger outdoors GPS navigation app, has released new tools on its location aware mobile publishing platform that make it simple for any trail-guide content owner to publish and promote interactive guides to smartphone users.
The publishing platform adds to the company’s online community and trip planning website, which the company launched earlier this year. The ViewRanger platform can now be used by trail-guide owners around the world to publish content via smartphones and tablets, and to showcase and promote it within their own websites, blogs, and Facebook sites.
ViewRanger offers authors and owners of walking and biking guide books and trails a simple and controllable mechanism to get into mobile digital content publishing and to reach the growing audience of outdoor enthusiasts with smartphones. Publishers such as The AA, CycleCityGuides, OutdoorNI, Shropshire Cycle, Walkhighlands, and Walkingworld, are already using the ViewRanger platform to deliver fully branded, IPR protected, monetised trail guides.
Importantly for content owners, the platform allows the author or brand owner to faithfully present their trail concept, with written navigation and interpretation information, imagery, even audio and video clips triggered by GPS location, putting it at the forefront of location aware digital publishing. Content owners can deliver free trail guides, or can choose a price point to sell premium trail guides. When premium guides are delivered to a consumer, a simple revenue-share agreement is used between Augmentra and the content owner.
The newly released tools includes a range of web “widgets” for content owners to embed in their own website to showcase and promote their content to their visitors. There are three widgets available that can be easily added to a content owner’s website providing visibility of an individual route, a portfolio of routes or a content publisher’s brand profile.
1. The route widget – ideal for showcasing and promoting a specific route.
2. The map search widget – enables the content owner to add a dynamic map displaying all their routes or an accommodation owner to show the range of routes that are available in their local area.
3. The brand profile widget – allows a content owner to share their publisher profile and all their content via the My.ViewRanger.com community site.
Craig Wareham, CEO, says: “Alongside our popular ViewRanger navigation app and our My.ViewRanger social networking site for outdoor enthusiasts, we are now creating an easy but powerful publishing channel to make it simple for publishers, authors, and tourism organizations worldwide to deliver dynamic and exciting trail-guides. We are also enabling a dialogue between consumer and publisher – a publisher can see comments and ratings left by outdoor enthusiasts who have tried their trail guides, and publishers can understand more about and communicate with the consumers who have affiliated themselves with the publisher or their content.”
