Kayak buys SideStep: Travel web shakeup

by Brad Linder Dec 21st 2007

We're fairly certain that one day there will only be two or three sites on the web. We're not saying the web will look like it did in 1994, but that two or three companies will have a stake in every site you ever visit. We're probably exaggerating, but every time we see a major acquisition/consolidation of competing services, we start to wonder.

Today's big acquisition? Travel site Kayak is reportedly paying $200 million for SideStep. Both companies have web sites that do pretty much the same thing: let you find cheap airline tickets by searching multiple airlines for deals.

VentureBeat reports that Kayak will maintain two separate sites at Kayak.com and SideStep.com, but that SideStep will begin to use Kayak's search technology. What does that mean for people looking for cheap plane tickets, hotels, or rental cars? We're not really sure. While we tend to check out several online travel sites each time we travel we're not really convinced that one has a better track record than another of providing the best deals.

What's your favorite online travel site, and why? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: kayak, sidestep, travel

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

bnosach said 11:54AM on 12-21-2007

Kayak is definitely my favorite. Ad-free interface, loads fast, gives pretty accurate results (cannot say the same about Orbitz). If I had to name 1 major advantage of Kayak.com, it would surely be a remarkable minimalism of its design.

tony said 2:34PM on 12-21-2007

Kayak and Farecompare.com both rock. I use them both tons.

minnesoder said 2:58PM on 12-21-2007

Farecompare.com typically has the best deals, but the site is admittedly confusing. They use kayak for their search / results page.

Travelocity has a great way to search for flexible dates, but is cluttered.

Overall, one more vote for Kayak.

Elliott Ng said 7:42AM on 12-22-2007

I'm part of the team launching a new semantic travel search site called Kango.com. If we were out of private beta I would say its my favorite. :) But shameless plug aside, we think this is a marker event for further growth and opportunity in the travel space. We've posted on it at our blog at kango.com, about the 4 stages of online travel usage - planning, shopping, booking, and sharing. Kayak and Sidestep are making it easier to price shop, and we think there's plenty of room for growth there. Kango is focused on planning, and this is another greenfield opportunity. So maybe the market will support 3-4 dominant players by the specific consumer problem they are trying to address?

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