Google and the Future of Travel 93
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."
big is bad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is ITA Software? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [demarcken.org]
See in particular "Some complexity results": http://www.demarcken.org/carl/papers/ITA-software-travel-complexity/img24.html [demarcken.org]
Who found this surprising? (Score:2, Informative)
"And it wants to use travelers' online behavior to serve up better targeted ads and content across all of Google's sites and services."
Seriously? Who thought this wasn't Google's goal?
And that's why I'm getting increasingly frustrated with Google's services - they're increasingly designed to serve their customers, and the user be dammed.