Just happened across this:

"TripAdvisor also recently announced the acquisition of smartertravel.com, bookingbuddy.com; SeatGuru.com; TravelPod.com; and Travel-Library.com. TripAdvisor also recently announced the acquisition of smartertravel.com, bookingbuddy.com; SeatGuru.com; TravelPod.com; and Travel-Library.com"

Wow. They're buying everybody that could control consideration and reach at the very early stages of travel planning. Not a bad idea, as long as you don't prostitute yourself (as TripAdvisor itself has done, in my opinion). Keeps the cost of reach down in the long haul, and keeps them from being meaningful sources for suppliers.

Neat to see TravelPod in there - they are an Ottawa-area based travel blog roll-up site.

 

Congrats to former Hotwire (Expedia-purchased) colleague Gregg Brockway on the launch of TripIt.com (http://www.tripit.com) at the TechCrunch40 event happening this week in California.

TripIt is a kind of pull-it-together travel itinerary tool, whereby you can make reservations in multiple locations and still end up with a single itinerary. In Gregg's words:

"TripIt helps you organize your travel plans. You simply forward all your travel confirmation emails to TripIt and we automatically create a master itinerary with your combined plans plus daily weather, local maps, directions and more. Then you can expand your master itinerary and share it with your friends"

It's not hard to see other possible revenue sources via affiliate relationships, meta search or advertising. As more of the US market's vanilla air / hotel / car business continues to move from third parties to suppliers, this type of a service starts to make a lot of sense.

(via BlackBerry)

 

Amazing to see 200+ people all from the tech world sitting here at the Toronto Board of Trade, grooving on some pretty cool stuff being done right here in T.O.

Man, it feels *great* to see all this capability and energy, focused on solving problems, and being done right here in Ontario.

Yay, us.