The end of the year has brought a flurry of personalized travel guides! The ink had just barely dried on our stories about Offbeat Guides and Tripwolf when yet another related spotting came in: Traveldk.com.

Since 1974 Dorling Kindersley (DK) has been publishing its award-winning Eyewitness Travel Guides series covering more than 100 cities, regions and countries in over 30 languages. Now the UK-based company allows consumers to create their own, personalized travel guides as well. Users begin by choosing their destination and then selecting from among all the many attractions listed on the site via DK's own content and those submitted by members. Maps are automatically included to support those selections, and users can organize their content into chapters with titles and brief descriptions. To customize the cover of their guide, users can then add a cover photo, title and a brief description. The resulting guide is suitable for sharing and rating online, and--as with Offbeat Guides--it can either be downloaded as a PDF for GBP 2.50 or ordered in printed book format for GBP 10, including delivery charges. Some 50 cities are currently listed on the site, with more coming soon, the company says.

The votes are in, and consumers seem to like having it their own way when they travel just as much as they do in other realms--imagine that! ;-) Repeat after us: Personalize, personalize, personalize!

Website: www.traveldk.com
Contact: traveleditor@dk.com

Spotted by: Roberta Steinberg

As magazines struggle to reinvent themselves for the new media landscape, alternative business models being experimented with include digital, personalized and mix-and-match subscription formats, as we've noted before. Now, focusing on independent magazines, a new service offers a curated subscription that delivers a sampling of the best indie magazine issues throughout the year.

Just launched last week, UK-based Stack aims to bring together the best independent English-language magazines from around the world and deliver them direct to readers. Subscribers begin by choosing whether they want six, eight or 12 issues delivered to them each year. Pricing is GBP 3 per issue in the UK--elsewhere, prices vary. Choosing from among those produced by its current roster of seven independent magazines--including Arthur, Plan B and Electric Sheep--Stack then selects the best issues to send readers on the schedule they've requested. Readers can ask Stack to leave out a particular magazine if they already subscribe to it; they can also suggest new magazines to add to the list. Stack keeps its subscription costs low by selling advertising inserts, it says, and it guarantees the quality of what it sends.

The site explains: "Each delivery of Stack is a surprise so there's no way of knowing what will come next. However, every magazine delivered by Stack comes with a guarantee that it represents the very best of independent magazine publishing, targeted at young, intelligent readers who appreciate an alternative to the mainstream." Offering a blend of curated consumption and try-before-you-buy capabilities for the world's many budget-squeezed trysumers, Stack may just have the approach it takes to help indie magazines survive. In magazines and beyond, time for independents to unite! (Related: Magazine republishes best of other fashion mags -- Online community promotes indie bookstores.)

Website: www.stackmagazines.com
Contact: info@stackmagazines.com

No sooner did we cover Offbeat Guides, with its professionally printed and personalized guidebooks for travellers, than one of our spotters alerted us to a similar offering out of Austria: Tripwolf, which offers free, customized travel guides in PDF format.

Like Offbeat Guides, Tripwolf combines professional editorial content with user-generated content from some 13,000 globetrotters worldwide. The ad-supported site focuses primarily on Europe and is backed by MairDumont, Europe's largest publisher of travel guides (including the Baedeker, Dumont and Marco Polo brands), which has put all of its high-quality content--covering more than 250,000 destinations and points of interest--online for free. Tripwolf also aggregates third-party content from sites like Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube, and hotel price comparisons are powered by HotelsCombined.com. Community features include user-generated photos, travel blogs, ratings and advice as well as Facebook integration, with iPhone features and the ability to book flights or hotels coming soon. Once users have compiled all the information they need, they can build and print a personalized, free 10-to-20-page travel guide in PDF format to take along on their trips. Vienna-based Tripwolf was launched this summer with sites in German and English; a Spanish-language version is due next year.

As purse strings continue to tighten, it seems likely travellers will research trips ever more carefully to make sure their hard-earned travel dollars, euros and pesos don't get misspent, making sites like Tripwolf and Offbeat Guides increasingly useful. Tripwolf's next step? Team up with Blurb or Cafepress to offer consumers the option of bound books, too. A nicely bound travel guide in the hand is worth two in PDF... or something like that! ;-)

Website: www.tripwolf.com
Contact: info@tripwolf.com

Spotted by: Martina Meng

It's no longer uncommon for churches to offer services online or via streaming video, but a UK church has now begun using voice-to-text technology to convert its live services into text for near-simultaneous delivery via email.

Using technology by SpinVox, St. Christopher's Church in Hinchley Wood, Surrey, just gave what SpinVox says was the world's first voice-to-text service this past Sunday. Rev. John Kronenberg led the service celebrating the beginning of Advent, and as he spoke to the congregation seated in the church, his words were automatically converted by SpinVox and sent directly to subscribers' in-boxes in a matter of moments. Some 100 members of St. Christopher's church received the sermon by email on Sunday, and the next such service will take place on Dec. 21. SpinVox is offering its technology to the parish as a free trial; it's also free to anyone wishing to use it to update a blog or social network by phone, the company says.

Content available anytime, anywhere, and in every format--simply put, that's the real goal here. Make it happen, and you may just get your own "heavenly" rewards! ;-) (Related: Voice to text dictation from any cell phone.)

Website: www.spinvox.com
Contact: service@spinvox.com

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

All the world may be available online, but there's still something undeniably attractive about the tangibility and portability of print. That's where Tabbloid comes in, with a new service that converts RSS feeds into a printer-ready PDF document.

Users of the Hewlett-Packard service begin by entering the URLs for their favourite RSS feeds, their email address and the schedule on which they'd like to receive their magazine--hourly, daily or weekly. Tabbloid will then compile the feeds and email the resulting personalized magazine to them in printer-ready PDF format. Just launched about two weeks ago, Tabbloid's service is free, and no account registration is required.

Who says paper is dead? Combine printability with a dash of personalization, and you just may have a winner--especially among travellers and those who simply like to feel what they're reading. One to watch--and try out! (Related: Personalized in-flight magazines -- Personalized music mag.)

Website: www.tabbloid.com

Spotted by: Sasha Teken