Travel Bloggers Speak-Up

Last but not least we have Joshua David Stein. He's the editor of Gridskipper.com, and he took over the helm of that site this past July and he is still standing. Gridskipper, if you haven't checked it out, bills itself as "an urban travel guide" and it really does cover all parts of the travel experience from night life to shopping to dining, in a very lively and cheeky way, is that accurate?

MR. STEIN: Yes.

Joshua David Stein, Randy Petersen, Erik Olsen, Mark G. Johnson, and moderator Erik Torkells [enlarge photo] BUDGET TRAVEL BLOG PARTY • Learn more about the travel bloggers • From the Editor: Finding Useful Travel Blogs • Travel Blog Directory • Five DIY Travel Blog Websites

MS. PRELI: Okay --

(Laughter.)

-- and I will mention that you can log on and vote for the world's sexiest city. You have that up there now?

MR. STEIN: Yes.

MS. PRELI: So you can vote for that, and I do have to mention that since today is Wednesday -- I always on the following Thursday, I check out "This Week on the Runway," which is a wrap up of the Project Runway show on your site, and so we are missing that tonight to be here.

(Laughter.)

Finally, I'm very pleased to introduce the editor of Budget Travel Magazine, Erik Torkells, who will be moderating tonight, and also I'd just like to mention that we are happy to take questions at the end. So, I will turn it over to you, Erik.

MR. TORKELLS, Editor, Budget Travel Magazine: Excellent. Well, we were trading panel stories before this started, and there is nothing worse than a panel where you don't get to say anything, so let's jump into it. And seriously, please do think of questions. We asked readers questions for this panel and the first one they came up with was, "What is a blog?"

(Laughter.)

On the one hand it's not a terrible question. We've been throwing that word around and it could mean a lot of things. Maybe in a lot of ways it's just online journalism. But when we used to say "blogs," we meant someone doing an online diary probably more for their own enjoyment than for anybody else's. And yet, it is becoming increasingly corporate. Are blogs in the mainstream yet? And ultimately, what is the difference between a blog and, say, a magazine? Josh, since your blog is most like a magazine, why don't you take that one?