This may be the most interesting announcement I’ve seen in quite some time. It is still relatively rare for socially produced knowledge to make the transition from free service to for-pay product (especially outside of software), so it will be interesting to see how it works out for wikitravel.
I absolutely love the idea! In today’s world, being glued to my PC, I really miss books. Even though it is faster to click a link to go to the subject you are interested in, it is also more messy. That’s why I think that the information we get from books is remembered better.