FareCompare introduced a Twitter beta today that mashes-up Google Maps, FareCompare deal tweets from consumers’ favorite departure airports and Twitter users who are following those alerts from selected airports.
Fare alerts on social networks like Twitter and Facebook have become a hot arena as companies like FareCompare, Travelzoo, Travelocity and countless others vie for bookings and the allegiances of deal-hungry consumers.
FareCompare’s Twitter beta takes the competition to the next level by attempting to further engage consumers with a Web 2.0, community-oriented flavor.
“This is the first pass at creating tools that help establish a multi-way social conversation and interactivity from the Twitter channel,” FareCompare CEO Rick Seaney says.
In the beta, FareCompare uses its 170 flyfrom Twitter accounts, pulls recent fare-alert tweets from an API, and displays them on a Google Map. Consumers can click on a deal and then launch the FareCompare calendar-based search. Here’s what the Where-to-Go Getaway Map looks like with airfare deals from Newark Airport:
One of the cool things about the beta is that the profiles of Twitter users who have signed up for FareCompare’s deal alerts from a selected airport appear below the map so consumers can tweet to one another about the merits or demerits of the deals or about anything else. Below is a depiction of consumers who are following flyfromEWR:
And, the Twitteratti can retweet the fare alerts or e-mail them to whomever like this:
“The basic idea will be to send deal tweets on our channels to this location and highlight the deal, not to just get a price quote, but to let the user interact with the deal or change their mind and interact with other possible deals with their friends and colleagues,” Seaney says.
The interactivity has its limits for now, Seaney concedes, but he promises more to come.
“The interactivity at this point is consumers being able to interact wiht a map display with all current deals, e-mail or retweet the deals, and check out other people in their area from the flyfrom account,” Seaney says. “We’ll soon have a variety of new interactivity to their own follower list.”
If in 2009, the first-movers in sending fare alerts through social media were happy just to get them out there on Facebook, Twitter and other networks, the FareCompare beta signals that in 2010 the fare-alert proposition will have to get more interactive and sophisticated.
Perhaps we’re moving toward Fare Alert 2.0.
Joebertl: Ya, that’s the definitely the downside. Not enough international focus for FareCompare, although it appears to be readying an international launch. You’ll have to get your fare alerts from Vienna from elsewhere for now:) You should tweet @rickseaney to tell him he’s got to put Vienna on his agenda:)
I don’t understand how it works. When the map says one price and I click on it, I get Fare Compare’s website with a higher price… nothing close to the price on the map. Why??
Sandra: I now see the same thing you are seeing. When i click on a $265 fare, Newark-Memphis, I only see that fare for one day on the FareCompare monthly calendar. Will get you an answer.
Question 1: on Vienna we have the data touching the US/CA from Vienna just not the accounts, in early January we will have all the data not touching US/CA as well.
Questions 2: Soon the mashup will have a departure month filter at the moment it defaults to 14 days advance purchase. The prices listed are the airline cheapest published price on that route departing at least 1 day in that month included surcharges and estimated taxes. When a click occurs in we are checking 200 different date combinations in 30 day window for seat inventory. Airlines can release seats at their cheapest published priced at any time, thus the real time query, if airlines continue to file airfares with no seat inventory in a 30 day window with several lengths of stay we will remove them from our system (this has happened from time to time especially for intl fares). We monitor the “match” rate continuously and typically see 80% within the 30 day window.
Quote: The prices listed are the airline cheapest published price on that route departing at least 1 day in that month included surcharges and estimated taxes. When a click occurs in we are checking 200 different date combinations in 30 day window for seat inventory. Airlines can release seats at their cheapest published priced at any time, thus the real time query, if airlines continue to file airfares with no seat inventory in a 30 day window with several lengths of stay we will remove them from our system (this has happened from time to time especially for intl fares). We monitor the “match” rate continuously and typically see 80% within the 30 day window. ..End Quote
HUH?? That’s about as clear as mud.
Sandra: I agree. Rick’s explanation is not crystal clear. If you look at the calendar, you should find the tweeted fare at least for one-day that month. So, you’re apparently out of luck if your travel dates aren’t flexible. I guess it’s the same with a lot of “deals” — if you don’t book quick, the flight or hotel room soon is unavailable. If the deal or tweeted fare doesn’t mesh precisely with your travel plans, then you are out of luck. So, these fare alerts have limits to their practicality.
actually sounds plausible just like any other metasearch, farecompare is caching the results as the infrustructure just doesn’t allow to query all possible connections with each and every visitor to the site.
only when you do look for a specific period, the availability gets checked and correctly displayed.