ONLINE ADVICE:MANY PEOPLE WHO are fond of travelling entertain a recurrent fantasy of being paid to write about their travels. Or being paid to take photographs of their travels. A new website, www.simonseeks.com, promises to fulfill that dream, although whether you earn enough to go to Antibes for a fortnight or Athlone for a night depends on the popularity of what you write.
The Simon of the website’s name is Simon Nixon, who made €120 million when he sold part of his other company, Moneysupermarket. His new wheeze is for a travel website where, like on the popular TripAdvisor, the content on locations and places to stay and eat is written by people who’ve been there. Unlike on Trip Advisor, there’s an opportunity for writers to earn money from what they’ve written, depending on the number of click-throughs received by the hotels and restaurants they mention.
With luck, the fresher your writing, and the more interesting and relevant your photographs, the more ratings your entry will attract – and so the more chance that people will click through to the accommodation and restaurant links.
This week the top-rated entries included the new food scene in New Orleans, foodie Cornwall and six grand international hotels “that really feel grand”.
My search for guides related to Ireland brought up a list of 24, featuring entries about pet-friendly accommodation, Dublin hot spots and Belfast’s best pubs. Also included in the list were rogue entries about Glasgow, Corfu and Seoul.
Nixon has so much faith in his new business model that he has declared that www.simon seeks.com has the potential to be one of the top 10 travel websites within a year. Maybe – as long as the web editors improve their grasp of geography.
