"hipmunk" (I really hate domain squatters if this is best URL you guys could find available?) looks good, but I wonder if it's all flash 'agony' and name recognition (hey you got cnn to write an article already, sweet hook up!). As far as I can tell it has a pretty 'info graphic' interface, but doesn't really do the thing that would get me to use it: save money on flights.
Does hipmunk do anything different? It doesn't look like it can tap into sabre, ryan air db, etc, looks like it just scrapes and organizes, nor does it look like it has any fancy back end db of extensive flight info with a smart heuristics engine to predict future prices. So, beyond help those who have trouble visualizing a schedule, I'm not sure how this is any better than farecast et all. Can hipmunk predict if a particular flight's price (not willy nilly flights, I'm looking at you farecast) will go up or down?
That's a bit unfair to judge a recently graduated startup on its current face value. I am sure they have more under the hood a-brewin'. They already solved my pain indirectly for group travel - I was screen sharing with my friends and the layout helped us figure out a time much faster! I do hope there could be some sort of group travel exploration feature down the road a la chat or group search :-)
"Hipmunk" is a cool pun - it's a hip c'hipmunk' (or could be Hip Monk :-p) Either way, it's much more personified with the mascot (like the Reddit alien) than vowel dropping startups.
It may not the best URL available for what they currently do. I just did a 5-minute IDS check and pickfly.com (WAY better IMHO) is available, for example.
But see, then they would get "stuck" to the market they're starting in, would lose having a Google-unique name and would probably even have to fight their way up to the first result in travel's very-cutthroat SEO environment.
There are so many trade-offs that are hard to evaluate from the outside that I'm a lot more understanding of "weird" names (typified by the notorious Google example) than I used to be.
Aah, the penny drops. (Hipmunk site was top of reddit a few days back). It looks great, but it would be amazing if they could incorporate Ryanair, Easyjet, Fueling and German Wings.
I wrote my own client-side multi-flight planning app about four years ago, using web scraping to include Ryanair, Easyjet and others, in order to plan a cheap vacation. A particular problem with Ryanair is, I believe, that they are explicitly against any kind of disintermediation or technology-enabled price competition.
Speculating, I'd say reap referral revenue. Orbitz has a program http://www.orbitz.com/App/Affiliate, and hipmunk can probably negotiate better at some point. For an acquirer: drive sales.
Oh, there are a few segments where traffic is money, and it's not hard to work out a deal to convert it. Travel is one of them. Visitors are usually ready to become customers somewhere so it's not hard to get referral fees.
I loved the story at the first SS from TripAdvisor co-founder Langley Steinert about how they got their first referral deal. They simply got permission from Expedia to start sending them free traffic, no strings attached. After they did that for a couple weeks, they just turned off the spigot... and soon got a call from Expedia asking them where the traffic went and how to bring it back. Expedia later bought TripAdvisor. If only it were always so easy...
[+] [-] inboulder|15 years ago|reply
Does hipmunk do anything different? It doesn't look like it can tap into sabre, ryan air db, etc, looks like it just scrapes and organizes, nor does it look like it has any fancy back end db of extensive flight info with a smart heuristics engine to predict future prices. So, beyond help those who have trouble visualizing a schedule, I'm not sure how this is any better than farecast et all. Can hipmunk predict if a particular flight's price (not willy nilly flights, I'm looking at you farecast) will go up or down?
[+] [-] samratjp|15 years ago|reply
"Hipmunk" is a cool pun - it's a hip c'hipmunk' (or could be Hip Monk :-p) Either way, it's much more personified with the mascot (like the Reddit alien) than vowel dropping startups.
[+] [-] zach|15 years ago|reply
But see, then they would get "stuck" to the market they're starting in, would lose having a Google-unique name and would probably even have to fight their way up to the first result in travel's very-cutthroat SEO environment.
There are so many trade-offs that are hard to evaluate from the outside that I'm a lot more understanding of "weird" names (typified by the notorious Google example) than I used to be.
[+] [-] richardhenry|15 years ago|reply
Angles. Angles including Ron Conway.
[+] [-] gojomo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] presidentender|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfung|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adnam|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spez|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frossie|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrkel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cemregr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billpaetzke|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ouxp|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zach|15 years ago|reply
I loved the story at the first SS from TripAdvisor co-founder Langley Steinert about how they got their first referral deal. They simply got permission from Expedia to start sending them free traffic, no strings attached. After they did that for a couple weeks, they just turned off the spigot... and soon got a call from Expedia asking them where the traffic went and how to bring it back. Expedia later bought TripAdvisor. If only it were always so easy...
[+] [-] BlazingFrog|15 years ago|reply