Farecast, a Seattle-based travel start-up, is in private beta. I was invited to try it out, and I did. On the whole, it's pretty good - but I am fearful that beyond the relatively small amount of whiz-bang buzz their "hook" adds, they are really just another meta-search site. Albeit a clean and well-designed one.

Their "hook" is that they claim to be able to predict what will happen with fares, thereby providing customer value by guiding when someone should buy to maximize their fare savings. Pretty cool on the face of it, and the visual presentation is also pretty neat. But does it really add a lot of value? I think it's a snappy feature and no doubt the algorithm is impressive, but will it pull them in and keep them? I'm unconvinced.

Beyond that, the site is clean, nice and ajax-y and the search display is easy to interpret. But I can't say that it is orders of magnitude better than any other meta-sites, or say Orbitz's grid for instance.

Another unfortunate negative (mentioned by Michael Arrington in his post) is that, despite pulling schedule info from Southwest and JetBlue, they don't pull pricing info into the initial fare display. This is a pity, as it pushes those options to the bottom of the display and potentially skews the prices listed. Said another way, if one of those carriers offered the lowest price, you'd never know it and the prices shown as lowest might be wrong simply because they aren't shown. But Southwest has a longstanding history of not allowing their fares to show in an aggregated display (possibly because head-to-head they frequently don't compare as well as people might expect) so Farecast getting this access would be quite a coup - and one they haven't managed as yet.

Net/net: The predictor is a nice little whiz-bang feature that has some PR value, but essentially Farecast is just another meta-search entry in what is becoming a crowded market.

Update: TechDirt says that if it casts light on airline pricing, it will have value. Maybe at the highest or industry level, but adding stress to travellers lives by telling them to wait before they buy won't necessarily make their lives better. And how are the carriers going to feel about a site that drives them to lower yields?

Update 2: The folks at Farecast gave me 25 invites to share with others who might like to kick the tires, too. If you'd like one, let me know here or at stuart [at] stuartmacdonald [dot] ca.

Thanks Mike - another Expedia alum - for the invite.

Tags: farecast, travel, metasearch

Profit fell by 51% and the stock tumbled after hours.

What to say? Well...

1. Not a shocker. Anybody looking at public reach numbers on the US business could tell they did not pull in their typical Q1 "pop". If people don't come, they can't buy.

2. They appear to be spending like drunken sailors.

3. Their recent ad campaign appears to have failed miserably (to wit: their Price Guarantee, which they can't really offer because they don't control the price, and worse yet customers neither believe nor care about). Or they cut spend dramatically, or both.

4. I've heard that something like 50% of Expedia Bellevue employees are new in the past 18 months. Virtually all of the senior team are new.

5. They continue to look at international growth for their future, but suppliers getting smarter and the rise of paid search must be making it harder to stake a claim.

6. Margins must be under serious pressure, as suppliers try to reduce distribution costs and reliance on third parties.

That said, my call is that the Canadian business is likely still doing okay, and I feel good about that.

The rest? Ouch.

Tags: expedia, q1

All great that Google is set to make a bunch of big announcements at their Press Day next week, and there is certainly much chatter about a big Health play. Though in fairness, some like mesh Keynoter Kedrosky are calling for a ban on new Google products until they get the ones they already have in prime-time shape.

But nobody is talking about Travel. I don't get it. Huge category, big dollars, obvious play, and yet zero discussion.

Odd, no?

Tags: google, travel, troogle