A friend sent me a link yesterday, noting the sale of the Lonely Planet company to the BBC. I don’t really have any impression of how the BBC has treated properties it acquires, so I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. The BBC says that the deal will “allow Lonely Planet users to access BBC content – such as Michael Palin’s New Europe.” Well, umm, okay – didn’t I have “access” to that before? In any event, my advice to the BBC is twofold – concentrate on improving LP’s online presence. The “Thorntree” – LP’s online forums – is one of the Internet’s great wasted opportunities. LP users are the type that love to share useful info, but the forums are so poorly designed that they are near unusable. The books, on the other hand, are perfect. Don’t touch the guidebooks. Not even a little.