March 5, 2014

The Open Booking Debate

Tweet Over the last 18 months I have sat back and observed the heated debate over open booking. My strongest critic of this debate is not about the pros and cons (though I will share that in a moment), but on how definitions vary across articles and thus cloud the very essence of the debate. So before I give you […]
March 8, 2012

How OS Travel Buttons (iTravel, Google Travel) Will Change the Mobile Travel Landscape

Tweet It has been nearly 2 years since Apple filed the patent for iTravel, a comprehensive effort to capture the full cycle of travel booking, itinerary management and airport check-in. Last spring, Google completed its acquisition of ITA software and last September Google launched Flight Search while continuing to add features to its Hotel Finder. Also last year, RIM BlackBerry […]
September 13, 2011

Google Flights

Tweet   The much anticipated  integration between ITA Software and Google arrived today with the launch of Google Flight search. The most visible enhancement in this new interface is the instant loading of fares and schedules when you enter the city pairs. The ability to launch flights from the standard Google box which leads you to the flight page ties […]
April 8, 2011

DOJ Approves Google ITA – What does it mean?

Tweet   Today’s announcement about the conditional approval by the U.S. Department of Justice of the acquisition by Google of ITA Software  is sending some shock waves through the travel industry. But at the end of the day what does this really mean? Here are some of  my initial  thoughts: General search becomes meta-search – There are very valid reasons why sites […]
February 15, 2011

Sentient Things and NFC

Tweet We have entered a new era of sentient things. The world around is now being augmented with tags. Whether they are Quick Response (QR), Microsoft Tags or an NFC enabled sticker, the world around us has come alive with information and links. Howard Rheingold author of  Smart Mobs, first talked about sentient things in 2001 predicting: ” Information in […]
July 27, 2010

Google / ITA and the GDS

Tweet Now that the Google acquisition has been announced a great deal speculation has emerged as far as Google’s intentions. Given the fact that regulatory approval is required and that the deal has not been completed, ITA itself has been unable to speculate on Google’s strategy. Google has devoted some energy in stating that it will not become a seller […]