categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
travelocity
Deal Radar 2008: UpTake
UpTake is a travel site that offers users options to help them plan themed trips such as kid- or pet-friendly trips, girl getaways and romantic escapes. The site caters to the millions of people who have yet to decide what type of holiday they want – where to go, what to do, where to stay,
Deal Radar 2008: Groople, Interesting Use of Context
Groople is an online group travel site, which helps with searching, planning and booking group travel. (Read my Interview with Groople CEO Mike Stacy) Groople is different from Expedia and Kayak in that it serves only group travelers, no individuals, and is thus a great focus on a specific “Context“.
Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 4)
SM: How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM? What is your business model? CL: We’ve reviewed a great deal of research on how large the market is for online travel advertising and very specifically banner advertising on travel websites. Forrester says that online travel advertising is an $8-billion-a-year industry in 2007, growing
Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel
As we have discussed, Online Travel is a large category, and active in entrepreneurship. Web 1.0 produced giant companies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline), and in Web 2.0 we have a couple of vertical search engines that are pulling ahead. Kayak, the world’s largest travel search engine, receives more than 6 million unique visitors per month.
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 3)
SM: Was Saber under American Airlines or on its own? JK: Saber, by that time, was a public company. It was not controlled by American Airlines anymore. The Chief Financial officer at United had the idea that the airline industry needed to form its own competitor to Travelocity and Saber, otherwise the industry would be
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 2)
SM: The Airlines had huge optimization problems. JK: They really did. In fact, there was a huge optimization problem on every front; how to set capital, prices, routes, seats, everything. I joined American Airlines in 1980, and over the course of 17 years at American Airlines I got sucked from one role to the next.
Facebook’s Monetization Strategy (Part 3)
I’ll give you one more vertical, and then stop. You can figure out the rest yourselves. Travel is a great vertical for Facebook, and in fact, creating contextual services like Group Travel could be very cool. According to the latest data published by eMarketer, online travel sales zoomed to over $78.8 billion in 2006 in
Web 3.0 & Group Travel: Groople CEO Mike Stacy (Part 5)
SM: Please describe some of your team building experiences. Is your management team complete now? It seems like you’ve had a founder transition, and the company has already burnt a lot of capital. These are indications of problems with the team, normally. MS: Yes, we’ve had some problems, but they were not with Founder transition.
