Lonely Planet Teams With Reality Digital to Launch LonelyPlanet.tv

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Reality Digital™, the pioneer and industry leader in media sharing and social community solutions for businesses, today announced a first-of-its-kind deployment with Lonely Planet, the world’s leading independent travel media company. Lonely Planet is using Reality Digital Opus™, a digital media hosting platform, to launch the LonelyPlanet.tv website, an online community featuring a combination of user-generated travel videos and original programming from Lonely Planet TV. Reality Digital Opus, the technology enabler for the new online channel, is providing Lonely Planet viewers with a more participatory environment that includes blogging, video sharing, forums, geo-location information and more.

“Travelers seeking an engaging and interactive environment can depend on Reality Digital and Lonely Planet to help them share their experiences and connect with their community”

Lonely Planet chose Reality Digital after conducting a competitive review of social networking and user-generated content (UGC) solutions. Reality Digital Opus was selected for its rich feature set, administrative capabilities and low total cost of ownership. Today, the Opus platform provides LonelyPlanet.tv viewers access to Lonely Planet’s comprehensive selection of amateur and professionally produced travel videos, while also providing social networking capabilities for travelers that want to connect with other travelers.

“Reality Digital’s video hosting platform appealed to us because of its easy-to-use uploading functionalities, which enabled users to upload videos from files, webcams or mobile phones in a matter of seconds,” said Laurence Billiet, head of television for Lonely Planet. “We wanted to have a great site, and we needed it fast. Reality Digital was able to customize the platform in a matter of weeks. We are looking forward to building our partnership with them as the site – and our needs – evolve.”

“Travelers seeking an engaging and interactive environment can depend on Reality Digital and Lonely Planet to help them share their experiences and connect with their community,” said Cynthia Francis, CEO of Reality Digital. “With every deployment, we strive to enhance the end user’s experience within their online social network by making social media more accessible and participatory. For the site administrator, our commitment is to deliver the enterprise with a best-in-class solution. Clearly, our deployment with Lonely Planet illustrates the tremendous capacity of our offering.”

Lonely Planet Television produces and distributes some of the best travel programming on the small screen. With www.lonelyplanet.tv, Lonely Planet Television now has a web channel that features original LPTV-produced travel programming alongside the clips uploaded by viewers. “The idea was to create a place where travelers could share their own videos from their DV cams or cell phones and share real travel experiences with other travelers, as well as commenting, rating and interacting in a variety of ways with both professional and user generated content,” said Sohail Dahdal, manager of LonelyPlanet.tv.

About Lonely Planet

Established in 1973, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading independent travel media company. With operations in Melbourne, London and San Francisco, Lonely Planet employs over 400 staff worldwide. Lonely Planet travel information is available across all media and boasts a product range that includes travel guides, a multi award-winning website (www.lonelyplanet.com) and video, with flagship TV series like ‘Lonely Planet Six Degrees’ screening in over 150 countries worldwide (for more information check out www.lonelyplanet.tv/about.aspx).

Reality Digital Opus™ Platform

The Reality Digital Opus platform is a Digital Media Management Framework (DMMF) that allows for the upload, transcode and distribution of both professional and consumer generated media. The platform manages and plays back in multiple formats, and includes a rich feature set of end-user functions as well as site administration, monitoring and reporting tools.

About Reality Digital, Inc.

Reality Digital (www.realitydigital.com) is a software development company that enables businesses to enhance their online presence through the use of user-generated content (UGC) and social networking. Comprised of an executive team with over 15 years experience creating innovative video technologies for Fortune 500 companies, Reality Digital continues to leverage its knowledge and expertise in the UGC space by allowing businesses to build and maintain a constant dialogue with their customers.

Reality Digital Opus platform is a “white label” service that allows verticals, such as retail, real estate and entertainment to support UGC content through a hosted service. Web sites can create or enhance their sites with video and media sharing and social networking features; quickly, easily and cost effectively. Reality Digital’s customers include Atom Entertainment’s AddictingClips.com, SPARQTraining.com and others. For more information, visit www.realitydigital.com.

Reality Digital Opus, Opus Dashboard and Opus AdCel are trademarks of Reality Digital. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.