I must admit, I’m not good at writing at all. This largely contributed by the bad reading habit I have since I was in primary school. I know, it is an excuse :)

In those days, I read about 10 to 20 stories books a day. My book limit was easily over quota, and I had to use my friend’s name, simply to feed me, the book scanning machine. The reason is simple, I jump word by word and never go into details. It is like picking from every page, important keywords and guess the story. One bad thing about this is, I am never good at writing great essay, both English and Chinese.

We want to create a Most Remarkable travel guidebook and sell it on a best Travel Guide Platform. Me and my development team, come from a background of build and operate online business. To produce Remarkable guidebook, we have the best writers in our team joined us, and we will make it for sure, one day.

Yet, I believe, we shall find no excuse to also involve in the production of the guidebook. We would like to get involved, and know our products better. Eisen suggested to record down the activities in producing the guidebook, will keep updating this page :)

15 July 2008
Working on guesthouse in Malacca. I wanted to include Best way to book your room (SMS, phone, email, hotel booking website?). Emailed the owner of guesthouse to verify with them. This dirty job should be done by us first and include in the guidebook. Malacca can be divided to Heritage area and Malacca Raya area. Probably 2-3 guesthouse in each area. I have this idea, a good travel guide should help our travelers to plan, theoretically, they need not to refer to any other website, we should make sure all info are included in the guidebook. We have to help them to decide what is best guesthouse. Surrounding picture of the guesthouse is important. Picture shared by other travelers on that particular guesthouse can be included in the guidebook as well. I think it is crucial to interview owner of guesthouse to find out the availability rate of their guesthouse in general. I am thinking of including Youth Hostel and also info of those CSurfers who allow travelers to stay at their house. I might get more info from Hospitality Club or CouchSurfers website. Probably hot shower and WIFI info as well.

• A story from Aida, writer of Manila Travel Guide
• Improving a4trip for You
• Writer’s Framework
• Writers’ FAQ
• Amy, the writer of Sydney Travel Guide is here!

After 6 months of test and measuring with our first website (above), we are launching the new a4trip website, today! Yes, in the next couple hours! If you want to find out how we solve the problem of removing shopping cart, yet still allowing multiple orders - stay tuned!

The work will not stop here. We will continue adding more new languages, features and other fine-tuning… which would keep Weikiat busy for the coming days still. Weikiat, the very important peson behind this challenging revamp, is pushing our development to the next new high!

I did a quick search on Google.com with keyword ‘a4trip’ and it returned 8,170 results. Let’s see how much we can grow from here! It would be interesting to check this back in the future.

• Giggling at the Live Googling of Google?
• News Today - Fabien WANTED!
• Night Shift
• Once upon a time, there’s a little girl named Shirley…
• Improving a4trip for You

It was through the short article, we got to know Adline, working mum & freelance writer. Working on this project, it is great that we can meet wonderful friends out there.

• Hidden Museum - An Hour Expedition with Adline
• A story from Aida, writer of Manila Travel Guide
• Clarence meets friends here!
• Improving a4trip for You
• The Geographer Cafe Gathering

Since a4trip website was first launched 6 months ago, we have been listening and getting your feedbacks and comments on the website. With that, we are developing a better and improved new website which aimed to serve you better. After two months of hard work, finally the website is going to launch by end of the month.

In order to cater worldwide market, the new website is going to supports 25 languages. However, we don’t speak all the languages. Therefore, we are seeking for volunteer translator who could offer a helping hand in the translation of the English version into your language.

Translator need to know:
1. translation to be done in PO Edit (freeware & easy to use)
2. involving time will be 1-7 July 2008
3. leave a comment below with your Name, Email & Language you wish to translate

• Big Day
• New born member
• Night Shift
• The Crack Team
• Choi from Korea

I remember it was back in the middle of December ‘07 that I briefed everyone on the idea of the “big ship” and why we should mobilize the entire team to work on the “500 Project”.

And now, we are entering the 6th months of the a4trip Project.

We have came up with 3 guidebooks (one in beta), and by the end of the year, 36 guidebooks will be on sale.

Along the way, we’ve learnt alot about the travel writing business. From the first writer to join the team to the current team size of 60 talented writers, translators and mappers across the globe, we’re moving closer to the “500″ target.

To keep the big ship’s momentum, we are going to be rollling a few things very soon.

Most of you might not have the courtesy to join us in our Daily Marketing Briefings, yes, you read that right. The briefing is a daily ritual in the mornings that usually last about 1-2 hours, every “business days”. While you’re busy writing your guide, or drawing icons for your map or looking up funny words in the translation websites, the Marketing team has been working over the clock to see that the Guidebooks is reaching out to the travelers. The interns that just joined us now are also performing much better than we expected.

After running the Daily Marketing Briefing for about a month, we are now moving to mini-campaigns. Each team member will design a marketing campaigns of their own and then track their own campaign effectiveness.

Next, we are also working on the a4trip.com Manager module. This will make it very simple for the Operation team to notify download stats, earning reports and facilitate payment related issues. We are looking to start using the new a4trip Manager by end of June. We will roll out a4trip.com Friends module too. It would be used by all of you to manage the progress of guidebook and sales of download.

And, leaving the best for last…the new a4trip.com Website! Believe me, you are going to be thrilled to see all the new features we’ve added and improvised. The underlying philosophy of the new site is to simplify the buying process and providing useful information to the travelers the moment they loaded the very first page in a4trip.com. The new site design is due end of June, to all dear writers, ensure your guide is ready for release by then.

The Marketing Team is ready to adopt any tactics that can help to increase the awareness of the a4Trip Guidebooks. If you have a good idea, share it with them!

The Development Team is constantly looking at modifying the a4trip infrastructure to improve the Guidebooks buying process. They could use a little help too if you have a great idea to contribute!

Meanwhile, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the upcoming features!

• The Crack Team
• Getting stuck in writing?
• Giggling at the Live Googling of Google?
• Pin’s Bad Reading Habit
• Clarence meets friends here!

Good design is more subtle. Which explains why we believe travelers is the most important factor when we design the system for a4trip. The best thing about our design is… less pages to get things done.

We spend hours, weeks and months to remove shopping cart (yes, sounds crazy!), support right-to-left in Arabic languages… all to make our Cambodia e-Visa service easier. The result was loved by Barbara.

• Big Day
• Giggling at the Live Googling of Google?
• We need your language
• 16 to 76
• Yi Chin’s B’day… Pizza Big Feast!!