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Google and the Future of Travel
An anonymous reader writes "It's been one year since Google's $700 million acquisition of ITA Software was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice after an antitrust review. So what does the search giant's strategy in online travel look like now? Google's Flight Search and Hotel Finder tools have met with mixed reviews in recent months, but a new bit of analysis argues that the future of travel is not about search, it's about data. More specifically, Google wants to make available everything from airfares and restaurant reviews to maps and transit schedules, throughout the entire travel process. And it wants to use travelers' online behavior to serve up better targeted ads and content across all of Google's sites and services."
I stopped using Lonely planet for travel advice because everything they suggested was congested with other Lonely planet users.
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
this is an area where there's a market that I was really hoping google would bust into. All I want when booking a vacation is: - What's the cheapest flight to X. I don't care when or what carrier. This functionality used to exist. Then it disappeared. I never understood why. This was a killer feature on a variety of vacation sites. If they want to blow my mind, I'd cream my pants at: - Ability to search for cheapest flight anytime including taxes/fees and assuming one carry on bag. I'd even be willing to accept a 30s must watch video add with flashing lights if the above were offered.
...Instead of taking you where you want to go, or what is the best place for what you want to do, he will take you where he will get commissions from anything you spend... For me, Google is largely the same. That is how they make money.
No, I don't think the people at Google are that stupid. They make their advertising money by being the biggest in search, and the only way they'll stay the biggest is by continuing to give the best results. It really doesn't make sense for them to squander their advantage for the few extra pennies they might get by skewing. And they know that very well.
Google's business model is built on the assumption that the days of traditional Big Media are numbered. The way people get information is changed forever. Now you make money by being better at gathering information and making it available, not by "owning" information and selling it.
But Big Media is not dead yet, and they are fighting back. They are using what's left of their hold on the public's attention to attack Google, and the concept of a free Internet in general, in every way they can. The amount of blatantly distorted anti-Google articles in traditional news media and on their web sites lately is astounding.
Don't get me wrong. The old slogan of "do no evil" is impossible to sustain for a for-profit company as big as Google has become. They'll do whatever they can to be the *only* ones who can present information as well as they do. They'll push the bounds of privacy, as long as it doesn't risk causing their basic business model to be clamped down.
But don't be fooled by Big Media into thinking that they'll be stupid and destroy their own business model.
Right now the best bet is just to pick up a sim with data in each country. I am hoping sooner or later will see international sim cards with decent rates. It's frustrating when I get in my car, drive for 2 hours and lose my data because I just crossed the border.
I've seen some o.k. smart phones that are dual sim. I'd really like to see that feature in a higher end model. Then you can always keep in your 'home' sim and switch out as needed when you are traveling on the other slot. Google Voice needs to go international too - that would really solve the dual sim stupidity immediately.
Which, following this rabbit trail, leads to my biggest reservation about google knowing where I am. Way too many things they release are only available to users in certain countries (often just the US) and I depend on them not knowing where I am to use some of their stuff I really like. Our legal systems lag so far behind our technology and it's frustrating at times.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Airfare search is hard. Really hard. The guy most responsible for ITA's (now Google's) flight search engine wrote up a presentation:
http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/img0.html
See in particular "Some complexity results": http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/img24.html
Who are "they"? Google's text ads don't seem anything like what you describe.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC