Dorling Kindersley, the division of Penguin that publishes children, travel and reference titles, made a strong case for how it is moving to a “flat” content model, where a printed book is only one of many output options. The digital publisher of DK also said that companies like his need…

Lonely Planet’s new San Francisco-based mobile startup has gone live with its flagship mobile travel guide app Wenzani, which paidContent first reported about in September.

More mobile movements from Facebook today: it has bought the check-in social media service Gowalla, according to a report in CNN.

Fathom, the travel site launched by two former Daily Candy editors earlier this year, is expanding its commerce side with a shop of travel-themed products and will soon allow visitors to book travel directly from the site.

Richard Branson is no stranger to investing in mobile media: among his more notable moves have been establishing *Virgin Mobile* years ago, and more recently moving into iPad publishing with Project magazine. Today comes news of his latest foray into the wireless world: an investment in the mobile payments startup…

Location, location, location: it’s the time-honored mantra of real-estate agents and retailers, but could just as well be applied to Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which is ramping up the functionality of its mapping service with realtime results from Inrix.

—Starz Digital Media: Mara Winokur is now SVP of digital media, business development and strategy at Starz Media—a position that makes her head of the division. She succeeds Marc DeBevoise, who left recently for CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), at a critical juncture for Starz following its public announcement last week…

Time Out, the listings and guidebook publisher, is upping its digital and social game: it has bought the UK-based semantic analysis company LikeCube to try to deliver more relevant events and offers to users. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

*Google* Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will testify before lawmakers probing the company’s market power on Sept. 21, the search giant confirmed on Thursday. After initially declining to appear, the former CEO received a not-so-subtle subpoena threat from the committee and rethought his position. The hearing, which will focus on charges…

The Travel Channel is investing in Oyster.com, as part of the hotel review site’s latest funding round. The cable channel tells the New York Times that it’s investing in Oyster in order to expand into online travel booking and will be advertising Oyster on its shows. Oyster features original reviews…

As AOL’s dismal display revenues appears to have put the worst behind it, the company is refining its ad sales approach in the hopes of developing stronger focus on specific ad categories, including CPG/Health, Travel, Automotive, Finance and Entertainment.

The reaction to news of the Google-ITA approval has an odd twist: Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and some of its fiercest competitors are both crowing about their victory. Is it really possible that both sides are content with the merger and the conditions crafted by the Department of Justice? Maybe, but…

Expedia will spin off its TripAdvisor unit as a publicly trading company, a move which will establish the business as the dominant, independent online travel media company. TripAdvisor is best known for its flagship TripAdvisor travel reviews site, which attracts more than 50 million unique visitors a month, but it…

Microsoft’s Bing is turning to Kayak to power one of the most high-profile features on its site. Under an agreement announced today, Kayak “will provide flight search results in the U.S. from multiple cities, airports and airlines” on Bing Travel, a vertical that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has heavily promoted since…

BBC Worldwide may now own all 100 percent of Lonely Planet, but the travel guide’s ultimate flight path is not yet necessarily set out.

The latest comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix rankings are out and January showed web users thinking about three things in particular: jobs, taxes and travel. In terms of which site networks saw the most visitors, the top three remained in the hands of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and…

BBC Worldwide is paying A$67.2m (£42.1m) to acquire the 25% of travel guide publisher Lonely Planet that it does not already own.

Travel review site TripAdvisor has bought EveryTrail as it continues its mobile push. EveryTrail lets users publish online guides featuring a map of a trip directly from their phones; the map is automatically created based on the phone’s GPS coordinates, while photos taken with the phone can be automatically plotted…

NileGuide is buying larger travel recommendation site 10Best, as it continues to build its reach. 10Best features original articles and reviews on various travel destinations, while NileGuide features its own original content created by “local experts” as well as a way for travelers to ask questions of people in the…