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Kayak Redesigns Travel Search Portal ; Now Consistent With Mobile UI

Leena Rao — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:33 +0000

After redesigning its iPad app and consolidating the app with its iPhone cousin, travel search company Kayak is updating the UI for its web search portal today. The aim with the redesign is to create a more universal and comprehensive consumer experience across all Kayak platforms: web, mobile web and apps.

One of the biggest changes users will see is that there is considerable more white space on the search results page. Kayak is also using bold fonts less often. As co-founder and CTO, Paul English explains to us, the company studies what users are clicking on and realized that putting less information on the page would provide a better user experience for consumers.

Kayak will now be showing people fewer results by default, says English. For example, with flight search, Kayak will show a smaller set of results that give the greatest set of options for users. And there are fewer filters that are shown by default as well. For example, with hotels the filters that will be shown in results by default include star rating, price, brand and location. By clicking on a link, users can add more filters such as amenities, type of property and more.

English says that Kayak will also be more strict about which display ads will be shown to users. The aim is for ads to be more aesthetically consistent with the site to improve the user experience.

We know that Kayak has been eyeing a public offering for over a year now, filing its S-1 in 2010. As AllThingsD reported in September, the company put its IPO on hold until market conditions improved. In a recent S-1 filing, the company revealed that revenue and profits are up. One obstacle that could stunt Kayak’s growth is Google’s entry in the space with it its flight bookings and search portal.

Updating mobile offerings as well as cleaning up the web product and search to create a better user experience could be one factor in helping Kayak remain competitive in the long term.

Here are before and after pictures of the redesign:

BEFORE

AFTER

Eyeing An IPO, Kayak Adds HomeAway Founder And CEO Brian Sharples To Board

Leena Rao — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:03:01 +0000

Travel search engine Kayak has is announcing a new board member today—HomeAway Founder and CEO Brian Sharples. He joins fellow Kayak board members Michael Moritz, Joel Cutler, Terrell Jones, Hendrik Nelis, and Gregory Stanger

Sharples co-founded vacation rentals giant HomeAway in February 2005 and helped lead the company to a public offering in June 2011. Prior to HomeAway, he was president and chief executive officer of marketing and data research company IntelliQuest Information Group, helped complete two public offerings and the sale of Intelliquest.

Of course, considering Sharples’ experience in online travel space as well as taking a technology company public, the appointment makes sense. Kayak has been eyeing a public offering for over a year now, filing its S-1 in 2010. As AllThingsD reported in September, the company put its IPO on hold until market conditions improved.

In a recent S-1 filing, the company revealed that revenue and profits are up. Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue in Q3, up 28 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company also increased revenue slightly from the second quarter 2011, which came in at $56.7 million. Net income for the third quarter 2011 was $12.7 million, up 44 percent from the same quarter in 2010, in which net income was $8.7 million. Profits were up from $5.7 million in the second quarter of 2011.

One obstacle that could stunt Kayak’s growth is Google’s entry in the space with it its flight bookings and search portal. But clearly by adding Sharples to the board, Kayak could be getting more serious about a 2012 public offering.

Kayak Consolidates iPhone And iPad Apps; Updates UI, Adds Trip Itineraries And More

Leena Rao — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:00:10 +0000

Kayak is announcing a major update to its iPad app today. The travel search giant has made its iPhone and iPad apps universal, adding a bunch of new features to the tablet version of the app.

The free app has gotten a huge UI makeover, with redesigned flight and hotel search, including an easier to use calendar. The app has been totally redesigned in terms of layout. Kayak has also added car rental search, the ability to integrate Kayak’s trip planning features, and a new autofill assistant helps you complete your purchase on airline and hotel web sites.

Kayak says that while its iPhone app has been the most popular in terms os usage, the iPad app has been on par with its Android app in terms of usage.

The company recently revealed in a new S-1 filing that revenue and profits are both up. Kayak’s IPO is on hold until market conditions improve but it should be interesting to see if the travel search giant can continue to grow.

With IPO On Hold, Kayak Reports Q3 Revenue Up 28 Percent To $61M; Net Income Up 44 Percent

Leena Rao — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 03:00:47 +0000

As AllThingsD reported in September, travel search engine Kayak has put its IPO on hold until market conditions improve. Kayak filed its S-1 for a public offering nearly a year ago. Today, the company just filed a new S-1 with its revenue numbers from the third quarter ended September 30, 2011.

During the most recent quarter, Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue, up 28 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company also increased revenue slightly from the second quarter 2011, which came in at $56.7 million.

Net income for the third quarter 2011 was $12.7 million, up 44 percent from the same quarter in 2010, in which net income was $8.7 million. Profits were up from $5.7 million in the second quarter of 2011.

In the nine months ended September 30, 2011, Kayak processed 679 million user queries for travel information, which is up 45% over the nine months ended September 30, 2010.

It’s a good sign for Kayak that revenues and profits are increasing both yearly and quarter over quarter considering the intense competition the site faces in the online travel space. Google just launched its flight bookings and search portal, which is powered by the recent acquisition of ITA Software.

Of course, it’s important to note that in the filing itself Kayak says that the most ‘significant portion’ of its revenues is earned in the second and third quarters, with revenue declining in the fourth quarter.

These positive numbers could bode well for Kayak’s pending IPO. With Yelp, ExactTarget, Zynga and perhaps even Facebook in the mix, the IPO market for tech companies hasn’t dried up.

Kayak Offers Deals On One-Way Fares From Separate Airlines In Roundtrip Flight Search

Leena Rao — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:09:08 +0000

Most power airfare searchers know that buying two one-way tickets on separate airlines can sometimes be cheaper than buying a roundtrip ticket on the same airline. But on most travel search portals you have to do a little digging to find these one way fares, and sites like Kayak wouldn’t pair two one-way fares from different airlines. Today, Kayak is integrating these fares, which the company has dubbed ‘Hacker Fares’ into flight search.

So if you are looking weekend roundtrip flight from New York to San Francisco, and the best price is $600 for an economy ticket on Airline A, you’ll also see the price options for two one-way fares on Airline A and Airline B, which may be cheaper. Kayak calls these Hacker Fares because searching and matching separate airline and travel sites for these cheaper one-way fares requires a bit of hacking.

Kayak has even trademarked the term and filed a patent for the technology. CMO Robert Birge says that airlines won’t be upset over this because the company is simply searching what’s already out there via flight data on the web.

While Birge won’t reveal how often a roundtrip fare on the same airline is more expensive than two separate one-way fares on different airlines, he did say that Kayak expects the addition of Hacker Fares to impact a ‘significant percentage of queries’ on a daily basis.

Kayak, which filed its S-1 nearly a year ago, appears to be holding off on its plans go public. As the company reported in its most recent filing, revenue is up but net income is down. Kayak could be waiting for Google to launch its own ITA-powered flight search tools and services that will directly compete with Kayak.

How This Year's Tech IPOs Are Doing, And Who's Next

Leena Rao — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:00:32 +0000

Bubble or not, 2011 may go down as the year of the tech IPO. Not since the last bubble have we seen so many technology companies clamoring to go public. And halfway through the year, we still have many more companies who will be listing on either the NASDAQ or the NYSE in the next six months. Here’s a roundup of the tech companies that have gone public, where they are trading now, and who we can expect to see ringing the bell next.

LINKEDIN (NYSE:LNKD)

Professional social network LinkedIn probably had the biggest IPO in terms of hype this year because it was one of the first big social media companies to go public. After pricing its IPO at $45 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, LinkedIn began trading at $83.00 per share on May 19, giving the company a $7.8 billion market cap. In the first day of trading, shares popped up to as high as $122.70, soaring past a $10 billion valuation.

But these high stock prices didn’t sustain and LinkedIn’s value per share dropped significantly over the next month, dropping as low as $63.71 per share. However, the company’s stock rebounded last week, with shares rising as high as $95.50 on Friday, eventually closing at $94.54. That’s a 110 percent increase from its initial pricing.

PANDORA (NYSE:P)

Similar to LinkedIn, music streaming service Pandora also drew considerable attention to its IPO, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the desirable, single character symbol ‘P.’ The company priced its IPO at $16 per share (valuing the company at $2.6 billion), but opened at $20 per share on June 15 (up 25 percent), valuing the company at $3.2 billion.

In the two weeks following the IPO, Pandora’s stock took a bit of a dive, reaching as low as $12.16 per share. But like LinkedIn, Pandora’s shares saw an uptick over the past week, closing at $20.04 on Friday, which is up 25 percent from the company’s initial pricing in June.

YANDEX (NASDAQ:YNDX)

Russian search engine Yandex, which began trading on the NASDAQ on May 24, priced its IPO at $25 per share, but opened at $35, giving Yandex a market cap of roughly $11.2 billion. That’s a bigger market cap than both LinkedIn and Pandora.

Yandex has experienced highs and lows in the past month with the value of its stock, but the fluctuations have not been nearly as extreme as some of its contemporaries in the tech IPO market. Yandex’s stock dipped to a low of $29.73 in mid-June but rebounded quickly and closed on Friday at $35.69, which is a 40 percent increase from its initial pricing.

FUSION-IO (NYSE:FIO)

Fusion-io, the developer of flash- memory technology for companies, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on June 9. The company priced its IPO at $19 per share, valuing Fusion-io at $1.5 billion, but opened at $25 per share, giving the company a nearly $2 billion market cap.

Fusion-io’s stock has performed fairly well over the past month, reaching a high of $36.32 last week. The company’s shares closed at $31.19 on Friday, up 64 percent from its initial pricing.

HOMEAWAY (NASDAQ:AWAY)

Vacation home rental service HomeAway debuted its IPO last week, pricing at $27 per share. HomeAway, which listed on the NASDAQ, saw its shares pop over 30 percent in initial trading last Wednesday, giving the rental service as valuation of $3 billion.

HomeAway’s shares have maintained its value, relatively speaking, in its first week of trading, reaching a low of $34.92 and a high of $42.30. On Friday, HomeAway’s shares closed at $38.42, a 42 percent increase from the stock’s pricing.

RENREN (NYSE:RENN)

Chinese social network Renren actually went public before LinkedIn, pricing its IPO in early May at $14 per share, with a total offering size of $743.4 million. The company was pitching itself as a “Facebook” like site for the Chinese market, which resulted in an increase in the share price range from the initial $9-$11 to $12-$14. That increase resulted in a boost in the deal size to $743.4 million from the original price of $584 million.

RenRen opened at $18 per share, but the stock has since plummeted to as low as $6.23 per share. On Friday, RenRen closed at $9.25 per share, which is a 34 percent drop in value from the initial pricing.

BANKRATE (NYSE:RATE)

Bankrate provides free rate information to consumers on more than 300 financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, new and used automobile loans, and more. The company priced its IPO at $15 per share, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. The company’s shares, which began trading in mid-June, have remained fairly steady at this price, reaching a high of $17.89. Bankrate closed at $17.13 per share on Friday, up 13 percent.

Who’s Next Up To IPO

Zillow: Real estate listings giant Zillow filed its S-1 in April, so we could be seeing the company hit the public markets in the next two months. Zillow wants to raise $51.75 million in the offering, and while revenue has grown for the company year over year, Zillow has taked a loss for the past three years. Zillow will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “Z.”

Kayak: Travel search engine Kayak filed its S-1 last November, aiming to raise $50 million. No word on when the search engine is planning to IPO, but Kayak did reveal revenue growth in the past year, however net income is down. The company will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol “KYAK.”

Groupon: Daily deals giant Groupon just filed its S-1 in June, aiming to raise $750 million in the public offering. Though the company has an impressive revenue run rate of $2.6 billion for 2011, but has drawn criticism for a lack of profits and the fact that the founders have taken a significant amount of money off the table. The company is looking at an IPO in the Fall.

Zynga: Zynga just filed for its $1 billion IPO this past Friday, revealing impressive financials. Revenues grew 392 percent in 2010, up from $121.5 million in 2009. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, the company’s revenues reached $235 million (or a $940 million revenue run-rate), which is up 134 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Both Zynga and Groupon may be rushing to IPO ahead of Facebook, which is expected to file in the coming year.

Not Yet Filed, But Champing At The Bit:

Facebook: We know an IPO is in the works for Facebook, it’s just a matter of when. The company has been meeting with bankers to discuss IPO size and time frame for an offering. And the company just added Netflix founder and CEO (and an IPO veteran) Reed Hastings to its board. It’s been thought that the social network will go public by April 2012, but it could happen before this date.

Glam Media: We’ve heard Glam Media, one of the largest publishing and advertising networks on the Web, is planning to file for an IPO as early as this Fall. The company has hit $100 million in annual revenue, reaches 90 million people a month in the U.S., and is in the process of hiring bankers to lead its offering.

Yelp: Online reviews and daily deals giant Yelp has its sights set on an IPO, but the timeline is unclear. Yelp is now at 50 million unique visitors per month, mostly in the U.S., and has raised $56 million in funding.

Disclosure: My husband is an employee of Groupon.

In Front Of Its IPO, Kayak Reports Growth In Revenue But Income Down

Leena Rao — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:35:51 +0000

Late last year, travel search engine Kayak filed for an IPO, aiming to raise $50 million. The company just released a new version of its S-1 today, with updated financials. The company plans to list its stock on the NASDAQ under the symbol “KYAK.”

For the three months ending March 31 of this year, Kayak generated $53 million in revenue, which is up 43 percent from the same period in 2010. The company actually lost money in the quarter in terms of income, with a loss of $6.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $8.2 million.

In the filing, the company said it took a loss of $15 million in January 2011, when Kayak migrating traffic from www.sidestep.com to www.kayak.com. Kayak bought rival SideStep for $196 million in 2007. Because Kayak shut down SideStep’s site and URL, the company incurred a write-down of $15 million in the first three months of 2011.

From January to March, Expedia and its affiliates, including Hotels.com and Hotwire, accounted for 26 percent of Kayak’s revenues, followed by Orbitz, which accounted for 14 percent of Kayak’s revenues for the time period.

For the time period ending March 31, Kayak processed more than 214 million user queries for travel information, representing growth of 48 percent from 2010 and Kayak mobile applications have been downloaded over seven million times since March 2009. From January to March, Kayak saw one million downloads of its mobile apps, which include iPhone and Android apps.

While Kayak isn’t minting money, it’s probably a good sign for investors that the company is at least growing revenue.

One the risks Kayak identifies in the fling relates to Google’s acquisition of flight search software ITA Software. Kayak says that one of its risks is that it depends on a third-party (ITA) to query airfare results. Kayak licenses faring engine software from ITA under an agreement which expires on December 31, 2013.

ITA provides a large chunk (56 percent) of Kayak’s airfare query results and 29 percent of its airfare query results from January to March were obtained from other sources that used ITA. Basically, if Kayak somehow couldn’t use ITA’s software, it would be a big negative for the company. But Google cannot prevent licensing access to ITA’s software from third-parties, according to the DOJ mandate that pushed the $700 million deal through.

Kayak also acknowledged that with ITA’s technology, Google may also create other flight search tools and services that directly compete Kayak. Kayak is afraid that Google will include a better version of ITA’s software, that Kayak won’t have access to. From the filing: These services offered by Google could include enhancements or improvements in performance of the ITA software which may not be made available to us, such as improved performance that significantly increases the speed at which their software returns search results. Although the consent decree requires Google to renew our existing ITA agreement on the same terms, if ITA or Google limit our access to the ITA software or any improvements to the software, separately develop replacement software to which they claim we are not entitled or increase the price we pay for any improvements of replacement software and we are unable to replace ITA’s software with a comparable technology, we may be unable to operate our business effectively and our financial performance may suffer.

FlyRuby Aims to Be the Kayak of Private Air Travel

Rip Empson — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:52:45 +0000

Launching today at the Demo Conference in Palm Springs is flyRuby, a platform that enables you to search, compare, and book private air charters online. There is something to be said for startups that identify successful services and business models and apply those to under-served niche markets. Through its website, flyRuby hopes to deliver a quick and efficient way to book private air charter that is comparable to the instantaneous search, booking, and competitive pricing of commercial airline sites, like Orbitz, Kayak and Expedia.

The project of founder and CEO Michael Leek, flyRuby owes its technology to CTO Dr. Stephen Smith, who, working in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, developed the algorithms as part of a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) research initiative to assist the U.S. Air Force. Operating in a similar manner to the technology behind commercial airline booking sites, flyRuby’s artificial intelligence instantly scans thousands of flight routes and seating charts for private flights across the country, finding available seating, and streamlining the booking process.

There are several private jet booking sites already online, like OneSky, Blue Star, JetCharters.com, and hundreds of other one-off fly charter brokers, for example, but many of them require the user to enter an email address for further information, or a booking agent will call you back a day later. Although we all tend to prefer human interaction in our customer service experience, flyRuby hopes that the time saved by automating this process, by allowing instantaneous search and results, will be enough to beat other private jet services at their own game.

Virgin Charter tried the same thing beginning in 2007, providing customers with an online booking tool, but by 2009, it had folded. Granted, considering the price of oil and the soaring heights of the recession, it could have simply been an issue of timing.

flyRuby hopes to pick up where operations like Virgin Charter stumbled by allowing you to bypass the middle man, skip the travel agency, saving you — or your assistant — from wasting time on the phone searching and booking private flights. For those lucky enough to spend significant time traveling on private jets, check out this service — and save some money.

New GroundLink App Lets Travelers Book A Green Limo, Shuttle or Car Service

Lora Kolodny — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:31:50 +0000

GroundLink — a New York City transportation technology and travel services business — released a new mobile app this week. The second iPhone app from the company, GroundLink allows users to book a hybrid, electric or otherwise clean-vehicle car, shuttle or limo to get around cities around the world.

Users can also opt to book a ride by lowest price, highest service rating or soonest and nearest available driver with the app. The company’s chief executive Alex Mashinsky noted:

“Over 5,000 of our [transportation] providers offer green vehicles – all forms, including hydrogen fleets in Los Angeles, even. It’s not all hybrids and electrics. Some countries have promoted natural gas vehicles.

That said, we let the customer choose by their own preferences. If they want an SUV, a stretch limo or whatever, they can book that service, too.”

Mashinsky expects to see the user-base for his company’s phone apps grow in travel hubs in the U.S. and Europe, rapidly. GroundLink’s goal is to have 10% of its overall bookings being taken on smartphones by the end of the year, increasing to over 25% by 2013. It plans to release an Android app in March.

In late January, GroundLink struck a partnership with the travel search engine, KAYAK hoping to reach new audiences online and on mobile networks.

KAYAK now uses a GroundLink API to offer a ground transportation marketplace within its own applications. Overall, GroundLink’s service covers some 5,000 airports, 15,000 cities and 45,000 providers of ground transportation related services, today.

If it takes off in the Bay Area market, the GroundLink app could prove a competitive threat to Uber, the sometimes controversial California startup that also offers driver-booking services via iPhone.

As with Uber GroundLink users can view a map that shows a vehicle’s whereabouts in real-time, once it is booked and en route to a pick-up. Users can also share a map showing their whereabouts and progress towards a destination (Loopt-style) with authorized friends, family, colleagues, or employees.

Avoiding some problems that Uber encountered with the incumbent taxi industry and its regulators around San Francisco, GroundLink books rides through a central dispatch system that company representatives say is controlled by a local base, and authorized by relevant regional and national transportation authorities.

GroundLink deals with taxis but does not focus on or make revenue from sending business to taxi dispatchers at this time, nor does it advertise itself as a cab-hailing service. If users want an immediate taxi service, they can access a list of dispatchers in the area through GroundLink, which refers users to book through the dispatchers, directly.

Instead, GroundLink bills itself as the OpenTable of ground transportation, a reservations system and marketplace that lets travelers book a limo, car or shuttle ride within 30 minutes’ notice in the U.S., or in the world on 1 hour notice, seeing a price for the ride before they book it.

Travel Search Engine Kayak Files For $50 Million IPO

Leena Rao — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:08:50 +0000

Travel search engine Kayak just filed an S-1 statement with the SEC for a proposed initial public offering. The company hopes to raise $50 million, according to the filing.

Here are some interesting stats included in the filing. For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, Kayak generated $128 million in revenues, growing by 48% from last year. For the third quarter ended September 30, Kayak generated $48 million in revenue, representing a growth of 80% from last year. Net Income was actually down for the first three quarters to $6.2 million from $10.4 million in 2009.

From January until September, the travel site processed more than 469 million user queries for travel information, which grew by 37% from last year. For the last quarter, query volume increased 50% compared to the same period in 2009. Kayak’s mobile applications have been downloaded nearly four million times since March 2009. In the third quarter alone, Kayak saw one million downloads, representing growth of 152% compared to the same period in 2009.

Another interesting tidbit from the filing refers to ITA Software, the flight information giant that Google is trying to buy. Kayak says that one of its risks is that it depends on a third=party to query airfare results. Kayak licenses faring engine software from ITA under an agreement which expires on December 31, 2013. ITA’s software powered 42% of Kayak’s overall airfare query for the year. Airline travel queries accounted for approximately 85% of the searches performed on Kayak for the year and distribution revenues from airline queries represented approximately 26% of its revenue for the past nine months.

Here’s what Kayak said in relation to the Google-ITA deal:

“If completed, Google could pursue the creation of new flight search tools which will enable people to find comparable flight information on the Internet without using a service like ours. According to Experian Hitwise, in September 2010, approximately 30% of travel searches began with Google. Upon completion of its acquisition of ITA, this number could substantially increase, as Google may choose to offer services that directly compete with the services we offer. Google may also cause ITA not to renew any agreements with us, or to renew agreements with us on less favorable terms. If ITA or Google limit our access to the ITA software or any improvements to the software, increase the price we pay for it or refuse to renew our contract and we are unable to replace ITA with a comparable technology, we may be unable to operate our business effectively and our financial performance may suffer.”

That seems to be a significant risk for Kayak-and many thought that the Google-ITA deal would put off Kayak’s IPO for some time. But The Google-ITA deal under investigation, it’s unclear whether the Justice Department will give Google a pass on this one, especially since the online travel industry has been very against the deal.

The company said that Orbitz accounted for 18.8% of Kayak’s revenue for the year, and Expedia accounted for 24.9% of revenues for Kayak. And Google supplies 8.1 percent of Kayak’s revenue via advertising.

Kayak, which has raised $22 million in funding, was formed in January 2004 by co-founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia. The company co-founders include Steve Hafner (CEO) a co-founder of Orbitz, Paul English (CTO) a former VP of technology at Intuit, Terrell Jones (Chairman), founder of Travelocity, and Greg Slyngstad (Director), founder of Expedia.

Kayak Swoops On German Travel Engine Swoodoo

Contributor — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:47:47 +0000

German travel search engine Swoodoo has been acquired by the leading U.S. flight search engine Kayak. Although Kayak has lots of cash in the bank and is a major player in the US, it is still not well known in Europe, hence its need to make an incursion here. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. Swoodoo was founded in 2006 in Germany and since then has established its position as the self-proclaimed "market leader in online flight search in Germany" in a competitive market.

The Best iPad Apps At Launch

Erick Schonfeld — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:09:19 +0000

In preparation for the launch of the iPad tomorrow, iPad Apps are live in iTunes and we’re sorting through the best ones as fast as we can. But with more than 2,000 iPad apps in the App Store, the choices are already daunting.

To help you find the best apps at launch, we’ve put together the definitive list below. It includes all the iPad apps reviewed on TechCrunch, as well as other promising ones we have not gotten to yet. If you have a favorite you think should go on this list, tell us why in comments.

Here is our list, which we will keep updating through the launch of the iPad:

iBooks

Apple’s answer to the Amazon Kindle, iBooks turns the iPad into an electronic book reader with 60,000 books at launch to choose from (the app is free, the e-books are not). Although the Kindle has many more titles (450,000), iBooks lets you flip through virtual pages with your fingers on a color screen. The built-in search and dictionary will come in handy. The font size and brightness can be adjusted. Pages can be bookmarked or highlighted. Books can be read vertically in a full-page view or horizontally in a two-page view like a regular open book. The book store is part of the app and looks like iTunes for books, with best-seller and most-popular lists. Every time you buy a book, it downloads directly to your iPad.

Price: App is free; Each book typically varies from $9.99 to $14.99, many are free. (iTunes link)

Kindle for iPad

Not to be outdone by Apple’s iBooks app, Amazon released its own Kindle app for the iPad which nearly matches the iBook app feature for feature: Full-color touchscreen app, animated page-turning, adjustable font size and brightness (plus you can change the background color), portrait or landscape mode, and the ability to buy books right from the app. Of course, Amazon has a lot more books to choose from (450,000 vs. 60,000). (Search and dictionary functions are “coming soon.” It also includes Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which lets you pick up where you left off on your regular Kindle, your iPhone Kindle App, Blackberry, Mac, or PC. And the Kindle store includes all the regular customer reviews you can find on Amazon’s site. Let the digital book battle begin.

Price: Free, books priced individually (iTunes link)

Tap Tap Radiation

From our post: “The new game is similar to the series of iPhone games in many ways — you still tap on-screen buttons in time to the music. But some key changes were made to optimize gameplay for the iPad. For one, most people will be playing the game with their iPads lying flat on a table or on their lap (as opposed to held at an angle with one hand like an iPhone). Because gamers will have both hands free, Radiation’s gameplay is more involved, prompting gamers to rhythmically tap these glowing blobs as they dance across the iPad’s entire screen. Multiple people will also be able to play simultaneously on the same device.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Netflix

From our post: “Assuming you’re a Netflix member, the new iPad app lets you watch as many movies as you want (assuming they’re available on Netflix’s Watch Instantly service) streaming to the device. Yes, this gives you access to some 20,000+ movies and television shows. You can also browse movies and manage your queue from the app. And you can even pick up watching them from where you left off on your TV or computer.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Loopt Pulse

From our post: “The iPad may be better suited for planning events around location, rather than actively participating in location. With Loopt Pulse, you load up the main screen to see where you are and everything that’s going on around you. On the left side of the screen you get a list of places, and on the right, you can see each of those places on a map and more details about them.

“These featured places appear because a lot of Loopt users liked the place, or are currently there. Or maybe the place has positive reviews in the local paper. You can also sort by events and friends. On the friends tab, you only see places that your Facebook friends like (you connect via Facebook Connect). But Loopt also wanted to take advantage of the iPad’s big, beautiful screen, so they also built a new feature that allows you to browse local places by pictures.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

TweetDeck for iPad

TweetDeck’s iPad offering is very similar to its popular desktop stream reader. You can split up your Twitter and Facebook streams into different columns, and swipe across to see more or up and down to read through them. You can compose Tweets using the iPad’s touchscreen keyboard. One new feature is a map showing all the geo-tagged Tweets from the people you follow. It looks gorgeous. Watch the demo video.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Captain’s Log

This may just be the best app in the iTunes store. It turns your iPad into a Captain’s Log from Star Trek. You can add your own notes, or use it to post updates to both Twitter and Facebook. This app may not have all the bells and whistles you’ll find in TweetDeck, but it will make you feel like a Starship captain. It’s so retro, yet so futuristic.

Price: $0.99 (iTunes link)

SGN’s EXO-Planet

From our post: “While some game developers are merely converting the iPhone apps to the iPad format, the multi-player EXO-Planet is trying to elevate the shooter game experience by giving the player access to eight camera angles with a single spin of the finger. The first phase of the game takes place in a futuristic training ground for elite forces. Players leap and zoom across the zero-gravity futuristic space, outfitted in “Juggernaut EXO-suits”— hefty metal space suits. In the training phase the objective is to capture the other player’s (or team’s) flag. The eight-camera-perspective creates a very seamless viewing experience. In addition, if you are trying to look past your fighter, the character will briefly appear transparent to maximize your line of vision.”

PriceL $6.99 (iTunes link)

Pandora Radio

From our post: “Version 3.0 of Pandora is a Universal app, meaning it includes builds for the iPhone and iPad. The iPad version takes advantage of the large 9.7 inch screen of the device. Rather than having to switch views to see things such as your stations, they can reside on the left hand side of the screen as your album artwork and artist information is on the right hand side. Artist information is a particular area of emphasis with this new app. The top player looks similar to iTunes now, with play and pause buttons, as well as thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. There is also an easy-to-access search box along the top.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Epicurious Recipes And Shopping Lists

From our post: “The app, which is similar in features to its sister iPhone app, is essentially a tabbed digital cookbook which allows you to access 27,000 recipes from both Gourmet and Bon Appetit. You can browse recipe collections, search via keyword, and filter your searches by what’s in your fridge, seasonal foods, holidays and more. You can add any recipe to your favorites box to save it as well as email recipes to yourself and others.

“You can also add ingredients from your saved recipes to shopping lists and check off items as you buy them. . . . The nature of the iPad may breathe new life into cooking and recipe apps. While reading recipes on the iPhone and other mobile devices while cooking can be tough; the iPad’s large screen simulates a digital cookbook.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

NYT’s Editor’s Choice

From our post: “The iPad application offers a selection of news, opinion and feature articles chosen by Times editors that can be downloaded automatically to the tablet device. It delivers two pages of content with the top eight to ten articles in latest news, business, technology, opinion and feature sections with accompanying videos and photo slideshows.”

Price: Free for now, but a paid app is coming (iTunes link)

The Wall Street Journal

A limited version of the paper with all of its free articles. Subscribers get the full paper. The iPad app mimics the look of the paper edition, and also includes market data, videos, and photo slideshows. Subscribers get to download a week’s worth of articles for later reading.

Price: Free, with paid upgrade (iTunes link)

eBay for the iPad

From our post: “eBay is launching an iPad app that aims to engage the user by putting the image at the center of the design, using oversized thumbnails and bleeding image close-ups to the edges of the device. The iPad’s touch screen functionality augments the traditional eBay search by letting users dash through several search pages with a few swipes of the finger. There’s also a price histogram at the bottom of the page that will let you narrow your search to a certain price range— the histogram also includes a volume chart so you can see how the goods are concentrated along the price scale. It seems to be a vast improvement from the website and the iPhone app, in terms of feel and design.”

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Gilt for iPad

From our post: Gilt Groupe’s sales on luxury goods on its properties, including Gilt, Gilt Fuse, and Gilt Man, can all be accessed directly from the app. The app allows you to receive real-time sale alerts, check upcoming sales and receive an instant Gilt membership when you download the app. The app’s shopping cart, that is always visible, allows members to quickly touch and drag desired items into their cart.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Aurora Feint 3

From our post: “Aurora Feint is getting into the iPad game today with the launch of release of Aurora Feint 3, a free-to-play massively multi-player social gaming app based around virtual goods. Unsurprisingly, the game leverages OpenFeint X, which allows game developers to create Zynga-like free-to-play games including microtransactions and virtual goods. While the game is free to play, its main revenue source will be from microtransactions within its app. With the success of Zynga and PlayFish on Facebook, Aurora Feint wants to help grab a piece of the gaming pie, and wants to help create Farmville -like games on mobile devices.”

Price: Free, with microtransactions (iTunes link)

Red Fish

From our post: “Red Fish is based on a popular French kid’s learning Website called Poisson Rouge. FreshPlanet licensed the game and developed a version specifically for the iPad to start. There is no iPhone version. Red Fish teaches kids between 3 and 7 to count, read, spell, and even compose music all using the iPad’s engaging touchscreen. The app is free and comes with 12 different activities, but to unlock the rest (there are 50 total) will cost $9.99.”

Price: Free, with $9.99 upgrade (iTunes link)

ABC Player

ABC’s free episode player for the iPad streams ad-supported videos from the network’s roster of shows. You can watch full length episodes of select shows from the network including Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and Modern Family. You can also browse through shows and episodes, pause an episode, watch it later and see your viewing history. The videos stream into a player that takes up the top half of the screen, while letting you browse other episodes along the bottom. (Presumably, there is a full-screen option as well).

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Kayak Flights

Kayak is one of the more useful travel search engines on the web, and its iPad app brings the same functionality to the tablet device. The app lets you compare prices for flights from Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire and airline sites. Plus the app will save your search history, map your searches, and allows you to book directly from the app.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

NPR

NPR’s iPad app is similar to its iPhone app, in that it features links to NPR programs and over 1,000 member-station streams, allowing you to browse news stories and listen to programs at the same time. The NPR website has been modified for the iPad to support HTML5 and includes an audio player at the bottom of the screen so you can listen to media easily.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Scrabble

Scrabble’s iPad app features a more animated and entertaining vesion of its iPhone app, letting you connect with friends on Facebook and play up to 25 Scrabble games at once. And as you are playing, the app’s Teacher Feature will let you see what the best word choice was from your previous turn.

Price: $9.99 (iTunes link)

Yahoo Entertainment

Yahoo Entertainment is an interactive TV guide that streams in video from different Yahoo properties and partners (News, Sports, etc.)

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Square

From our post: Square comes with a peripheral credit card swiper that lets any store or business person take credit card (or cash) payments on iPhones, and now, iPads. It takes finger signatures on the touchscreen, generates email or SMS receipts, calculates sales tax, and comes with an online accounting dashboard to keep track of sales.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Gmail For iPad

From our post: This isn’t an app you get from the App Store — it’s a web app. Just head to Gmail.com from your iPad and you’ll automatically be directed to this optimized version of Gmail. The HTML5-based site, which is automatically activated when you visit Gmail.com from device, features a slick looking two-column view, with a list of messages in the left column and message content on the right.

IMDb (Amazon.com)

From our post: Amazon’s second iPad app for the Kindle is an optimized version of its IMDb (Internet Movie Database) iPhone app. According to the company, the IMDb Movies & TV App for iPad lets customers access more than 1.5 million movie and TV titles with information on 3.2 million celebrities, actors, actresses, directors and crew members.

Users can also use the app to watch movie trailers in HD, find localized movie showtimes in the United States, browse photo galleries and shop for DVD and Blu-ray releases. The app is free of charge – it hasn’t garnered any reviews on iTunes so far.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Fwix

From our post: The app aims to simulate reading your local newspaper. Fwix’s app allows you to view news stories in a map format, showing you the exact geographic location of news. You can access news by your location and then filter stories by subject (i.e. sports, arts, politics, crime). And you can share all content on Facebook, Twitter or via email.

Price: Free (iTunes link)

Kayak's New iPhone App Takes Flight

Leena Rao — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:52:01 +0000

Discount travel site Kayak has launched a new version of its popular, free iPhone app. The new app, which is already in App Store, includes a trips management tool, an upgraded user interface and faster search.

New features and upgrades include a two-dimensional desktop-style navigation system, an enhanced flight, hotel and car search design including a new scrolling calendar, faster search and additional search options and filters. It basically comes one step closer to bringing the web experience of searching Kayak to the iPhone. The app also serves as an itinerary management service that consolidates flight, hotel, car rental, maps and other events into a single itinerary. Kayak’s paid app ($3.99) for flights on business or first class has also been updated with the trip management feature and improved search and UI.

One feature missing from the app is the ability to conduct a transaction within Kayak; if you purchase a flight or hotel, you are led to the airline or hotel chain’s mobile page, which is often difficult to use on the phone. To remedy this problem, Kayak plans to add a booking assistant tool to its next generation of iPhone and mobile apps in 2010 that would allow users to buy the travel item without having to go the the airline, hotel or car rental site. Kayak will also be folding in advertising into apps but isn’t sure how ads will be integrated.

Kayak is continuing to expand its mobile strategy, with several iPhone apps, a BlackBerry app and and a recently launched Android app. The iPhone app is amounting to 5 percent of Kayak’s total search queries (around one million per day), and already has 600,00 downloads after launching in February. Kayak is pouring 20 percent of its development resources into mobile, says Kayak’s CMO Robert Birge.

Kayak, which has raised a healthy $223 million in funding, has seen steady growth in a over-crowded space. And Microsoft’s Bing newly launched travel search engine looks a whole lot like Kayak’s but isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

CrunchBase Information

Kayak

Information provided by CrunchBase

DealBase Finds $1 Million For Hotel Deal Database

Leena Rao — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:05:32 +0000

DealBase.com, an online database devoted to aggregating hotel deals and packages, has secured $1 million in Series A funding from angel investors including Russ Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Bob Zipp, managing director of Amicus Capital; and Josh Hannah, general partner at Matrix Partners and former CEO of eHow.com.

Launched in November 2008, DealBase crawls the web to create a database of hotel deals, special offers and packages, which currently number more than 22,000 deals, from over 3,500 sources, adding up to $4,660,093 in total savings on the site. The online travel industry is a competitive market chock full of sites that find consumer deals for travel, which makes the popularity contest incredibly tough. Expedia, Kayak, Travelzoo and others all offer packages and deals through their platforms and have a dedicated user base.

What makes DealBase’s site slightly more unique is its “Deal Analyzer” functionality that compares deal prices to regular prices, and then rates the deal for travelers so they can determine if they’re getting a good deal or not. Sam Shank, founder of DealBase, says that 15 percent of deals on the site have negative savings. But Microsoft-owned Farecast, a travel site focused in finding deals for hotels and air travel, also has a feature that measures how well-priced the hotel is compared to its original pricing and other hotels. The main difference is that Farecast doesn’t limit its search to just deals and packages while DealBase only lists deals and special promotions for hotels.

Shank also maintains that since DealBase lets any hotels post advertisements for free, with no advertising deals, the process is transparent and hotels have more of an incentive in the current economy to post a deal for free. Currently, DealBase features over 500 deals for New York City Hotels while Travelzoo lists only 7 deals. Expedia also features nearly 500 deals for hotels in New York. If DealBase’s database has the same reach and information of more established sites like Expedia, that could be a good sign.

Shank’s previous startup, TravelPost, was one of the larger hotel review sites in the US and was acquired by SideStep, a comprehensive travel deal search engine. SideStep was then acquired by competitor Kayak in December 2007 for $180 million.

CrunchBase Information

DealBase Corporation

Information provided by CrunchBase

FanSnap Is The New Kayak For Event Ticket Searches

Leena Rao — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:57:44 +0000

Event tickets are a big business and startup FanSnap is entering the game with a compelling ticket search engine. FanSnap is launching the public beta of its nifty Kayak-like live ticket search engine for sports, concerts, and theater events. FanSnap, through partnerships, provides free ticket search results for close to 60 of the leading ticket providers, including StubHub, eBay, Ace Tickets, AllShows.com, Barry’s Tickets,Gold Coast Tickets, Las Vegas Tickets, RazorGator and TicketNetwork. The results include more than 12 million tickets to 40,000 events.

FanSnap’s technology makes finding tickets to an event very simple. The site allows fans to see ticket selection and price ranges at-a-glance. FanSnap uses sliders to allow filter to see tickets by price range, date, time, number of tickets available, and by the series of the event (baseball homestand, a multi-night concert performance, or a week of Broadway shows). Users get a comprehensive list of comparable ticket offers from multiple providers. The search results also make it easy for users to see the full price of a ticket on a ticket vendor’s site, including all taxes, commissions, and fees that may come with a ticket. Similar to Kayak, when a user clicks on a desired ticket, he or she is taken to the vendor’s page.

Here’s the really cool part. Next to the search results, FanSnap has an interactive map of the event venue, which includes a “best value” feature that highlights at-a-glance those ticket offers that are priced significantly lower than surrounding offers. The value of the tickets are color-coded, with yellow being the lowest price and dark red being the highest price. The available tickets are distributed over the venue map, with the “best value” tickets as determined by FanSnap’s technology (the best tickets for the lowest price) represented by stars.

But that’s not all. FanSnap’s map then lets users zoom into a row-level view of the available seats map (only created for around 200 of the top venues of the U.S, but will be rolled out to more venues in the future), to see exactly where the desired seats are versus the rest of the stadium or event space. FanSnap says that they plan on including actual “views from the seat,” a photo from the actual seat, in the future (they already have a partnership with seating chart site SeatData to create this feature). Competitor SeatKarma already offers such court-view photos.

FanSnap is led by some pretty experienced people in the online tickets and search aggregation industries. CEO and co-founder Mike Janes used to be StubHub’s chief marketing officer. Steve Hafner and Paul English, co-founders of Kayak, are on the board of advisers. Co-founder Rishi Garg was the director of strategy and business development for MTV Networks. And FanSnap received $10.5 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst Partners, which is also one of the primary investors in Kayak.

Janes says FanSnap’s biggest competitor is Google, since many consumers will type in the name of a desired event to Google’s massive search engine. But FanSnap, he says, solves the problem of filtering the legitimate tickets from the fake ones, and also provides real-time data. Other competitors include event ticket aggregator TicketStumbler, but FanSnap appears to have more ticket vendors (and thus reach), more interactive images and more features.

FanSnap’s search engine is disarmingly good. Not only is it comprehensive, but FanSnap’s focus on visuals and images makes it really easy for users to see exactly what they are getting both in terms of value and location of a seat. Ticket selling is a dynamic industry—consumers often get ripped off or are charged unwanted fees. FanSnap adds transparency to the market by making side-by-side comparisons of fees vendors are tacking onto the value of a ticket. And FanSnap says that it fully vets each ticket vendor to ensure legitimacy and customer service.

CrunchBase Information

FanSnap

Kayak

StubHub

Information provided by CrunchBase

Travelzoo's Fly.com Launches Yet Another Travel Search Aggregator

Leena Rao — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:00:42 +0000

Publicly traded travel site Travelzoo has launched the beta version of its new comprehensive airfare search engine, Fly.com. At first glance, Fly.com is a Kayak-look alike (except that Fly.com searches are limited to airfares only). The two sites offer virtually the same search options, except that Fly.com’s price comparison sites are limited to Priceline and Hotwire, whereas Kayak offers comparison searches on Priceline, Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity and Airfare.com

What differentiates Fly.com from Kayak is the way in which a user can see the listed flight information. Fly.com includes a summary view, where each airline’s lowest and highest prices is listed. The user can then click on the airline to see the flight times and ranges. Also, the user can see the economy, business and first-class prices in one search. And Fly.com’s results include “Why Me?” boxes, which inform travelers about amenities on a specific route or airline. For example, a “Why Me?” box attached to Virgin Airlines informs the user about Virgin’s in-flight entertainment options. While some of these may be innovative, it’s doubtful that these differentiators will be enough to drive people away from a more comprehensive site, like Kayak, where a user can also search for rental cars, hotels and package vacations. That said, Fly.com does seem to have at least a few advantages – for one the site lists American Airlines flight options, ~~whereas the airline company ditched its listings on Kayak~~. Update: American actually returned to Kayak in October.

Travelzoo created buzz around its $1.8 million purchase of the domain “Fly.com” in January. Undoubtedly, Fly.com is a highly desirable domain name, but history has dictated that success does not necessarily correlate with a good name (just take a look at the Pets.com fiasco). Hopefully, Fly.com can figure out a way to truly stand out in the sea of travel search engines.

CrunchBase Information

Travelzoo

Kayak

Information provided by CrunchBase

What Will Happen to Lehman's Startup Orphans?

Erick Schonfeld — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:02:43 +0000

As Lehman Brothers sells off its assets following its bankruptcy, there is still a big question as to what will happen to its venture arm and, more importantly, how any change in ownership will affect the companies in which Lehman Brothers Venture Partners holds a stake. Like many investment banks, Lehman got into venture investing in the mid-1990s to try to capture some of those venture returns. The investment management group that it was a part of was sold off to Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman on Monday, but the venture arm was not part of that sale. Instead, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners is trying to spin itself off as a separate venture firm with about $800 million in assets.

But if it cannot do that, it will either go to hungry creditors or a financial buyer who may be more interested in liquidating the fund than in nurturing the startups in its portfolio. Those startups include Kayak, SearchMe, Jaxtr, Endeca, and about 80 more. (A partial list from CrunchBase is below. Other than comScore, most are still private). They could wake up tomorrow and find that they have a new shareholder who is even more impatient for a quick exit than its existing ones. It’s like being an orphan and wondering who your next foster parents will be. That can really mess with a startup’s development.

And this scenario may not be limited to Lehman Brothers. As other investment banks rethink whether they should be in the venture business, many more startups could find themselves with new shareholders. What if Goldman Sach, Morgan Stanley, or JPMorgan decide to get out of the venture business as well?

Company	Date	Round	Size	Participants
Clear ¹	8/08	Series D	$44.4M	7
Palo Alto Networks ²	8/08	Series C	$27M	4
Jaxtr ³	6/08	Series B	$10M	1
Nile Guide ⁵	6/08	Series B	$8M	4
SearchMe ⁶	5/08	Series E	$12.6M	8
Kayak ⁷	12/07	Series D	$196M	9
SearchMe ⁸	10/07	Series D	$15M	3
PowerReview ⁹	9/07	Series B	$15M	3
Kontera ¹⁰	8/07	Series B	$10.3M	3
Tumri ¹¹	6/07	Series B	$10M	3
Kontera ¹²	7/06	Series A	$7M	2
Endeca ¹³	6/04	Series C	$15M	6
comScore ¹⁴	6/02	Series D	$20M	7
comScore ¹⁵	8/01	Series C	$15M	5
SideStep ¹⁶	10/00	Series A	$6.8M	2
SideStep ¹⁷	12/99	Series A	$2.2M	1

Trouble in Online Travel: American Airlines Ditches Kayak (Maybe Orbitz Too)

Erick Schonfeld — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:56:54 +0000

After years of ceding the upper hand in online travel to booking sites like Kayak and Orbitz, American Airlines is about to fight back. According to the CEO of a competing travel site, American Airlines is about to pull its airline listings out of Kayak and is considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit.

Airlines don’t like the booking sites because they have to pay them a referral fee for every ticket they sell, as opposed to capturing the full fare when travelers book on their individual sites. Even though that only amounts to a few dollars per ticket, every dollar counts to the troubled airlines—especially now with fuel prices going sky-high and the consumer spending going down.

American Airlines has a particular beef with Kayak because it tends to show AA flights through its partnership with Orbitz instead of directly from American. That means American has to pay a double tax, once to Kayak and once to Orbitz. (The deal between Kayak and Orbitz, charges the competing CEO, was meant to drive up traffic numbers on Kayak as it was potentially seeking an IPO prior to raising $200 million instead last December).

The decision to sever ties with Kayak supposedly has already been made. The only question is whether Orbitz can salvage its relationship with the airline. This should strengthen competing travel sites, especially newer ones that link directly to the airlines like Mobissimo and Yapta.

CrunchBase Information

Kayak

Orbitz

Information provided by CrunchBase

Mobissimo Has Raised 1/223 The Capital Of Kayak (And Out Executes Them)

Michael Arrington — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:17:14 +0000

Connecticut startup Kayak has raised $223 million in venture capital and employs 58 people to build and grow its travel search site. Its chief competitor, San Francisco based Mobissimo, has raised $1 million and has just 15 employees. Mobissimo also became profitable last year, and the company doesn’t have to raise more money unless it’s to fuel faster growth or acquisitions.

It’s also clear even from a cursory comparison of the two sites that Mobissimo is trying harder than Kayak to help you find exactly the flight and hotel you are looking for. Kayak is largely similar to other travel search sites – enter where you want to go and get back results from a number of providers, sort by price, etc.

But Mobissimo has implemented a number of just plain smart features that provide the kind of travel options that you usually need a human operator or travel agent to get to. In addition to normal search results, for example, users also see options for the lowest priced non-stop fares, the lowest priced alternative dates, and the lowest priced business class fares (without doing new searches). And if there’s a train between the two destinations, Mobissimo will show those results along with the flights – you may get there faster and cheaper that way, and you’d never think to search for train schedules separately.

And even better, the service will look for related destinations and show you the lowest fares there, too. For example, a search for flights to Poland may show other Eastern European destinations if the prices are a lot lower. Or if you are looking for flights to an airport near a beach, Mobissimo will show you other flights to other beach destinations, perhaps thousands of miles away (and skiing, and wine regions, etc.). It’s very hard to find these kinds of travel options with online searches. If you are flying to Warsaw, you just don’t think to do a search to Prague, too, to see if it’s vastly cheaper.

And if all you want to do is find a quick getaway to gamble, play golf, drink wine, go to a beach or just about anything else, you can search primarily by activity, too. Mobissimo also has widgets on the site that pull in third party information about the destination. Weather, Flickr photos and (soon) travel guides are included in the left sidebar.

All of this isn’t to say that Mobissimo has more traffic or sales than Kayak – see the Comscore chart here for their relative sizes. But Mobissimo is a solid, profitable startup with a great user experience. And they’ve done it with next to no financial resources.

The company was founded by Beatrice Tarka in October 2003.

CrunchBase Information

Mobissimo

Kayak

Information provided by CrunchBase

Farecast Now Offers International Flight Price Predictions

Contributor — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:35:41 +0000

Seattle based Farecast, a service that predicts and guarantees airline prices, has expanded its reach outside of the United States, with international coverage in key markets.

Farecast, which launched in May 2006, tries to predict flight price changes for consumers so they know whether to buy now or wait. In late 2006 they added guarantees, effectively allowing consumers to buy insurance policies against price increases in the event they decide to wait. More recently, Farecast added hotel bookings as well.

The site now offers predictions for over 200 markets between U.S. cities and Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and Canada. According to USA Today, travelers can search for international trips up to two weeks long and six months out and Farecast will predict whether fares will go up, down or hold steady over the next week.

The new extended service still has limitations, for example a search for San Francisco International (SFO) to London Heathrow (LHR) offers airfares, but doesn’t provide a prediction service despite LHR being a major gateway into Europe, where as SFO to Mexico City now does. Farecast can be used in a similar fashion to general travel sites such as Expedia as a general airfare and booking service; a search for Melbourne (MLB) to SFO gave similar results to the SFO-LHW search, although despite Farecast providing price comparison links to sites including Expedia, there was no price advantage at all over the other sites.

Farecast operates in a highly competitive space, more so since Kayak acquired Sidestep in December. Farecast’s traffic has trended up over the long term, but it is still lagging in third place (see comScore chart below).

CrunchBase Information

Information provided by CrunchBase

(thx to Mark Douglass for the tip)