Demystifying Horizontal vs. Vertical Searches

By Guest Author Saad Fazil In an earlier post I argued that Google would benefit from acquiring search engines in verticals such as travel, jobs, and products. By doing so, Google can retain “rich” traffic which otherwise might directly go to those search engines for specific needs.

Top 8 Blog-related Startups

Blogs have clearly turned the media industry upside down,, with many providing coverage superior to that of newspapers and television. While most of them read poorly, some are excellent, and these are monetizing by quality ad networks with their content and traffic. Here are eight players in the blogosphere worth watching:

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 7)

SM: What is your read on some of the other travel and ad network players out there? There are some vertical travel ad networks which have been reasonably successful so far. SH: There are three things you need to do to have a viable vertical ad network. You need to get a set of publishers,

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 6)

SM: The major gains from purchasing SideStep were adding their display advertising business and their email marketing platforms? SH: That is right.

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 5)

SM: Obviously you made a big departure from established business models in the travel industry. Can we discuss that in terms of growth? SH: Our business model is very similar to Google’s. We get paid for the referral. We are unbiased which is great for consumers because when you have an advertising driven model the

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 4)

SM: Let’s discuss the competitive landscape. What was it like when you started and what is it like now? SH: The market has evolved quite a bit but not as much as we expected it to. Initially the only competition came from two companies. One was called FareChase and they did not have a consumer

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 3)

SM: When did you launch the service? SH: It was October 2004. SM: Can you give us an idea as to what kind of ramp you saw in terms of traffic building and adoption? The vertical search concept was still new in 2004. SH: There had been folks who tried to do it in the

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 2)

SM: What gave you the idea for Kayak? SH: Orbitz was a great company, but it never fulfilled on its original mission which was to help consumers find great airline and hotel deals. The reason it did not fulfill it’s original mission is because we could not convince every airline, hotel, and rental car company

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