Did someone flub a fact? TripAdvisor lets you fix it

A wiki website allows visitors to add or edit content, as with Wikipedia, perhaps the best-known such site.

Wiki will make it possible for visitors to TripAdvisor to contribute original content to an online guidebook. Anyone with more current or additional information can then edit and update it.

"We're bringing out what we think will be the most useful travel guidebook for anywhere in the world," said Steve Kaufer, chief executive officer of TripAdvisor.

User-generated content is one of the fastest-growing areas in online travel. Sites such as www.tripadvisor.com, www.igougo.com, and www.virtualtourist.com rely on everyday travelers to post reviews, tips and hints for travel to far-flung destinations. TripAdvisor is now the third-most-visited online travel-agent site, up from eighth place in just the last year, according to ComScore Media Metrix data for March.

Until now, the content on TripAdvisor has been reviews, primarily of hotels. It allows anyone who says that he or she has stayed in a hotel to post a review of that property. There are now more than 4 million reviews posted. They don't have wiki functionality -- nobody can edit or alter a review that someone else posts.

That new functionality is being gradually rolled out on the TripAdvisor website over the next few weeks. Britain and California were the first two locations, and Washington, D.C., Boston and Honolulu were added shortly thereafter.

I took the wiki for a spin, checking out the information posted about Los Angeles.

The easiest way to get to the TripAdvisor Inside wiki information is to go to tripadvisor.com, then type a search for the city you are interested in. On the Los Angeles page, I found information laid out in three general categories: "background," "transportation" and "things to do." I clicked on the public transportation link.

The content was sparse. There was general information about the subway and light rail lines, a brief mention of buses and a few links to official sites.

At this point, there is no original content beyond what can be found in outside sources. Nobody says, for example, that if you're looking to get from Hollywood to the beach (useful information for a tourist in L.A.), take a certain bus. And there was, I thought, an error.