When I am asked for examples of a social media site and citizen journalism and how it can work I give the example of TripAdvisor.

There was an excellent balanced review – warts and all - in the Wall Street Journal recently.

There are many worthy travel reviewers out there but they are paid to give a review either by the industry or a publication. Some travel undercover to avoid any impropriety but equally hotel management are on the look-out for those people so they can be given extra special service.

Many guide books and even holiday companies provide ‘satisfaction’ rankings on hotels and places. These are very useful but tend to be tied to publication dates and so are many months and sometimes a year or more out of date.

What is good about TripAdvisor is the sheer number of reviews produced covering so many places. The real power of social media would come to the fore if some sort of profiling is provided. A sort of ‘people like me’. A young couple with kids may have different needs and values on services and facilities to an older couple travelling without kids. Knowing more about the people helps improve the potential ‘matching’ of their review.

It certainly appears that many businesses have woken up to the fact that they can be being vetted by anyone. They post comments back about problems now being addressed. One can only hope that such constant inspection will help improve service overall where it is necessary.