Outdated, incorrect, misleading, poorly-written and poor choice of points of interest, the Dubai 'guide' that Offbeat Guides delivered was disappointing. It was about as current, authentic and original as the museum display pictured. My conclusions based on my findings:
1) Not an 'offbeat' bone in the guide's body: the title suggests the content's focus would be quirky and alternative in its selections. It wasn't. All mainstream.
2) Little that's customised or personalised: site promised I'd "build my own personalized travel guide". Apart from being able to input content I'd written, I couldn't pull info from other (more reliable) sources or a community, unlike other guides. Strange, because Offbeat Guides blog says they're fans of customized product companies (Lulu, Cafepress, Spreadshirt etc) which allow publishing or production of original creative content and/or community-created designs. Structure is customisable; can choose which sections you don't want.
3) Content is not original: content that appeared in the Dubai guide is already available at thousands of sites on web. Easy to check: I googled a few phrases & paras. As content appears in so many different places (legitimately, syndicated, plagiarised & as spam) it's difficult to identify original authors. This is a huge problem: how can content be trusted? What's most astounding is they expect you to pay for anonymous content. Offbeat Guides appears to be little more than a packager and retailer of readily-available (and sometimes suspect) travel information.
4) Information was out-of-date, false & inaccurate (as you saw in my findings): this was my biggest problem with the guide I tested, not only because their Twitter Bio proclaims "Most up-to-date travel guides. Ever!" but for content to have value it should to be true, accurate and up-to-date - especially if you're selling it!
The guides seem to be purely a money-making exercise. There's none of the attention to detail, originality, passion and commitment to producing quality travel content that we've seen in products such as Love travel guides. If anything, this is a strong case for traditional guidebook production (print or online), i.e. guides written by authors who can write well, are destination experts, have visited all the places, and checked all the information. If the guides were free, then I wouldn't care, but that they have the nerve to charge unsuspecting travellers is what irks me. I'd love to know what you think.
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