Okay, so we now know plenty about Google, ITA Software and that acquisition story. But is it important?

Yes, of course it is. What Google does, matters. However, we seem to be missing the long-term picture. Google is mainly great at keyword based search.

But will keyword based search be the dominant search form in 20 years? Ten years? Five years even? Doubt it.

Mobile search is much more about location. Ecommerce search will be much more about your social connections and their experience with the same product.

If I am still typing in keywords in five years time I consider that as bad as travel agents still typing in cryptic command line messages for flight/hotel bookings. (And, yes, I understand the efficiency argument about an expert using a concise well matured language).

What is the alternative to keyword search? Well one step forward is destination/travel date based search. Not exactly a UI panacea but probably more useful than a keyword based research query in terms of pitching back destination inspiration ideas or available travel product.

Yet, Google is not winning that game. In fact it is not even playing in it. The game has changed and it is Bing with its Farecast acquisition just 16 months ago which is playing the game of converting mainstream searches from keyword based search to destination/date based.

Is that 16 month head start sufficient? Will Bing have built sufficient knowledge to be able to fend off any Google-ITA mainstream solution?

It’s a big question. I don’t have the answer. What I am sure though is that Google have a fight on their hands and they are not first to market. In that situation regulators are bound to give them the green light.

If Google ultimately lose the battle (such as it has with book ecommerce moving to consumers searching on Amazon first) then I believe they will regret the five year period between 2005 and 2010 where it basically squandered a lead.

Can you name a single big innovation in travel search that Google has delivered to market in the last five years? Nope.

Oddly, Expedia is making noises about the Google-ITA Software deal expressing concerns to the US Justice Department.

But Expedia is actually in the same boat as Google. Expedia has also squandered a leading travel search position. Compare for example this 2003 hotel search result to a 2010 version.

2003

2010

Remarkably similar, although the Expedia quality rating has been replaced with a user generated one and wireless has trumped breakfast!

What both Expedia and Google have achieved is the fallacy of the local maximum.

They have both made brilliant efficiencies on their core UI design. Undeniable. However, alternatives now exist that are fundamentally different and none of this will be uncovered by A/B testing that just sandpapers existing approaches.

[NB: Expedia continues to keep the faith, as Dan Lynn, managing director of Expedia Asia-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney this week: "Whenever we A/B test, consumers confirm that the typical layout of OTA is the right one"]

The tortoises are just building up momentum and could overtake the hare.

A new TripAdvisor subsidiary stealthily is working to launch a new private sale offering of four- and five-star hotels.

The new Expedia Inc. operating company, working under the project name RICO because details weren’t public, would be part of Smarter Travel Media [including BookingBuddy, SmarterTravel, SeatGuru, Airfarewatchdog and FrequentFlier.com], which in turn is part of the TripAdvisor Media Network.

Plans may be subject to change and there are a lot of lingering questions about the under-the-radar initiative since nothing has been officially announced about project RICO, which likely won’t be the ultimate name of the company.

But SmarterTravel Media is outlining the following details to prospective hotel partners.

The new website, slated for a soft launch in late August or early September, would offer four- and five-star hotels only and give them the ability to offer their properties exclusively — at least by region — for up to seven days to qualfied members.

Initial plans call for RICO to target high-income individuals, particularly affluent women 35-55 years old.

The target RICO consumer-member, who supposedly can join by invitation-only, is a “selective, brand-conscious shopper who loves to brag about the rare find she’s scored” and is “always aware of the trends but doesn’t necessarily follow them,” according to sales materials.

Hotels signing up for this Smarter Travel Media private sale offering would offer net rates, have no up-front costs and do not need to sign long-term contracts.

As is standard with the merchant model, consumer hotel bookings would be nonrefundable.

The hotel can control the room type and blackout dates, and reservations are handled via Excel spreadsheets, with no extranets or rate codes required.

Karen Kirsten, a spokeswoman for Smarter Travel Media, wouldn’t discuss project RICO or confirm its existence, saying the company never discusses new products before they are launched.

“As a leader in travel deals business, deals are our sweet spot and we will continue to evolve and grow our products,” Kirsten says.

Smarter Travel Media’s entry into private sales coincides with the travel industry’s new flirtation with this trend, as evidenced by the relatively recent launches of JetSetter, Kayak Private Sale, RueLaLa.com, Vacationist and Tablet Private Sale, to name just a few companies in the segment.

RICO would be a departure for Smarter Travel Media, which until now focused exclusively on the advertising and media business and not merchant-model hotel transactions.

It’s unclear whether RICO would handle the transactions itself or outsource them to a third-party company, as Kayak did with its private sale effort.

It also remains to be seen why Expedia Inc. decided to add a new operating company for the RICO effort instead of having Expedia.com, SmarterTravel or another existing subsidiary merely introduce a new private sale product to its portfolio.

There are a number of theories on the new subsidiary angle, ranging from speculation about the possibility of TripAdvisor having acquired an as-yet undisclosed company to kick-start project RICO to the advantages of focus that a separate operating unit would bring.

So, what do competitors think of the fact that TripAdvisor President and CEO Stephen Kaufer now would have a private-sale transaction site to round out TripAdvisor’s advertising and metasearch businesses?

Says one competitor: “It’s great to see validation of the category. Everyone likes this space.”

Sometimes I feel like a giant lab rat online – in a maze with a bunch of super beings observing my every move and then controlling what I can and cannot do.

No I am not paranoid –  “They” are really out to get me. As regular readers know – we have a pretty strong focus on the user experience here at Tnooz.

I have personally worked on the user experience since the earliest days of the web and, indeed, before that in things like Videotext (now that really dates me!).

There are way too many things which say “Beta” on them because too often that’s code for:

“We are putting this product out there and we want you to debug it for us because frankly we are pretty lazy and we got tired of doing it ourselves…”

Nevertheless, one of the things that is a little worrying in the UEX department is the way search results come back differently on computers with the same characteristics and even in the same location.

I either put this down to Google tracking my every move or to the fact they were actually looking at the interaction as a specimen where the web is their personal large petri dish.

I think the web is becoming more like the Googlesphere every day. Well, friends, we are NOT ALONE.

We now have proof, confirmed by Google, confirming they are indeed always experimenting with us.

Messrs Brin, Page and Schmidt (sounds like a 1970s folk band) seem to be running a giant experiment.

Indeed the paranoia seems to be well founded. Not only is Google experimenting with the results but they are actually tracking keystroke activity.

My attention was caught by an article on Infoworld and a follow-up on Tnooz, Google results now updating like a travel metasearch site.

SEO expert Rob Ousbey captured video of a Google experiment that displays search results that change as you type – a process which is just a little disturbing.

And if you think this is just a one off – apparently not.

Google itself gave some insight into this on their blog from Friday, announcing the following:

“Today we’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site.

This is enough to drive anyone to becoming a conspiracy theorist. What worries me more than anything else is that now so much power and infrastructure flows through Google that there is almost no possible way that Google cannot do evil. (Yes, a double negative).

I am not doubting their desire to be good and to “do no evil”, but when they can mess with the results as they are doing on both a minor and a macro scale, I know am being abused.

Couple this with the ability to make money and maximize the results to tweak search to suit Google’s commercial ends and we have an end to net neutrality.

But that’s okay because Google has already decided that it is good for us to dispense with that arcane concept.

So next time you feel that “They Are Watching You”, just remember they are and tracking your every keystroke. You have been warned.

This will either be a bit of a storm in a teacup or a fundamental change to how Google produces search results when users are searching for brands on the web.

First picked up by search blogger Malcolm Coles and now Search Engine Land, this is what is supposedly happening.

On SOME search queries for big brands (”Apple iPad” was the one Coles used), Google is returning a first page of results dominated almost exclusively by results from Apple.

What’s the wrong with that?

Well, previously the results algorithm worked by displaying the most relevant pages found across the web, based on page rank, originality of content, title, influence, etc.

This would be the same across verticals, content types as well as photos, video and news.

A traveller searching for Expedia, for example, would ordinarily see results for the brand itself, news items, affiliate sites, high ranking content sites which mention Expedia.

But perhaps no longer:

Eight of the ten results on the first page when searching for “expedia” belong to Expedia or a Expedia-run domain. The remaining two are a Twitter profile and Wikipedia page.

The same could also be found for “opodo”:

Seven of the ten belong to Opodo.

The point here is that results are being served regardless of page rank and existing SEO disciplines. Maybe it’s just a freak of the searches carried out on a particular day for a particular brand?

A clearly concerned Search Engine Land eventually got a statement from Google [officials have yet to respond to calls]:

“We periodically reassess our ranking and UI choices, and today we made a change to allow a larger number of pages from the same site to appear for a given query. This happens for searches that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain.”

So there you have it. Big is beautiful… when it comes to SEO.

Andrew Girdwood of BigMouthMedia is playing down the change:

“Search is about finding what you’re after. Google wants to be the best at doing that for you. This tweak doesn’t favour brands, certain types or anything like that. Google just used to think that searchers probably didn’t want t see more than two results from the same  domain – now they’ve changed their mind.”

How quick many were to scratch their heads in puzzlement over an augmented reality project launched by Hotels.com in May 2010.

The Expedia-owned hotel service created a rather surreal mash-up between a promotion, game and trip planning tool to form VirtualVacation.

Essentially it was a microsite bolted on to Hotels.com that allowed users to explore ten cities in the US by combining webcam technology with live interaction and storytelling.

A clip is still the best way of explaining the idea:

Fast forward three months and Hotels.com is claiming some pretty mind-blowing statistics as a result of the campaign around the VirtualVacation project.

Speaking at the InterACT Conference in the US last week, Hotels.com senior director of brand marketing Vic Walia outlined what the project had contributed to in terms of key performance metrics.

• 277 million media impressions (apparently worth around $14 million of advertising)
• Hotels.com traffic increased 26%.
• Transactions up 36%.
• Welcome Reward programme registrations up 32%.

Although Hotels.com launched a TV ad campaign in the UK at around the same time, this would not account for the some key indicators soaring by around a third each time.

So, AR does work then…?

NB: Waiting for further detail on the reporting period statistics.

Although not a user experience expert I have the benefit of having built many different ecommerce businesses.

In my view the front end is as critical as the back end functionality but it is always a very delicate and difficult balance to get right.

My attention was again drawn to the topic by Delta Airlines new website. Here is one of the most frequently used sites in travel ecommerce anywhere, but being kind to them it is a work in progress.

So what about just the user interface portion of travel websites? A few months ago I wrote another piece about the same idea… Are consumers getting tired of travel websites?

For travel, serving up the right mix of functionality for an ecommerce (as opposed to a pure content, although the rules apply to all) site can best be described as describing an iceberg from the surface in the dark wearing dark glasses.

The user experience always ends up in a battle with different people in the organization fighting to drive their point of view as the dominant one.

Keeping it relevant and interesting is actually a pretty hard thing to do. And everyone has an opinion…

One of the leading exponents of good design is Gerry McGovern.

He is also one of the few people who approach the issues from a holistic view which covers not just the screen interaction but also the other supporting parts of the experience such as the customer service via email, chat and call center.

If you go to the Wayback machine you can watch the evolution of most websites. I often do this when I am speaking to groups who are responsible for managing the interface to a user.

For example, Google’s search page is simplistic and clean, it has changed little over the years.

However, its iGoogle pages are the usual dog’s dinner of eye-straining attention-seeking elements.

Since I was there at the beginning, I look at the evolution of Expedia and each time they do a refresh I am happy to see they have clean up the clutter.

I love how the team in Bellevue cut corners and reuse content – sometimes inappropriately.

Until he last refresh they were re-using images of a small group of models as a call center person.

They didn’t always get the right ethnicity for the website. It was a tad tacky. I see that has essentially disappeared in the latest round of refreshes.

But with mobile now becoming a necessity not a luxury, there is the need to allow for the device to be from anywhere, using a plethora of different devices and browsers.

It is getting REALLY hard to deliver a consistent and working experience to the different users.

One tool I use to illustrate this is the Google Browser window sizer – it shows clearly what your community is missing.

Lately I have stopped using my regular browser (Firefox seems to not like me any more) and begun using four different platforms – Safari, Chrome, Opera and good old Internet Explorer.

So, yes, I do have favorites. I like the way search/meta search companies present their information – my favorite is Skyscanner. But I do wish they would go back to the original design. I loved that one.

I have more I dislike. I am not really a fan of Kayak’s interface, for example.

Among the online travel agencies, I still think that Orbitz does the best job. I love SeatGuru but have been disappointed since Expedia-owned TripAdvisor took over.

I hate the British Airways site. It is a pile of broken links and spaghetti. How they get customers to navigate is beyond me?

I dislike intensely Delta’s results server. They have no clue what I am about. I used to have airline favorites, but since they all went for further complication I find them actually harder to navigate.

I often have a horrible feeling that they are out to both confuse me. That lowers my trust in them.

My favorite OTA for the input screen is Cleartrip, and they are by no means perfect.

I hope that people will start re-thinking their whole approach and start thinking about what I call natural search as the driving force behind their designs.

We can now do this – the technology behind the scenes and access to the content easily allow for it.

So here are some suggestions for UX people when contemplating the user experience for travel websites.

1. Remember what your mission is for the site. To make a booking, for example

2. Stop throwing unnecessary and complex stuff at me. It does little other than to lower trust and annoy me.

3. Clarity. Make things clear please. Don’t make the monkey work hard for getting the treats.

4. Remember that time is money. If I have to spend lots of time using the site to save a few dollars then in real terms it is actually cheaper for me to call a travel agent and they do the work for me.

5. Tell me what is going on. Don’t assume I know. I love sites with breadcrumbing that tell me where I am in the process

6. Oh yes, finally, PLEASE KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Simple? Just ask the BBC. They removed many useless and unnecessary links and their new site is faster, more appropriate and, well, it just feels nicer (highly technical term, I know…)

Software house Rezgo has released a new feature it claims is unique for the tour and activity market, allowing suppliers to import the confirmation emails they receive from resell partners such as Expedia.

The feature, inspired in part by TripIt’s itinerary importing capabilities, allows suppliers to set a unique @in.rezgo.com email address  in their administration system and to forward emails that they receive from Expedia for bookings that have been made through the Expedia website or affiliates.

“We have a number of suppliers on the system that resell their tours and in-destination activities through partners such as Expedia, Viator, Isango, and others,” says Stephen Joyce, Rezgo CEO.

“Since our primary goal is to help the supplier manage their inventory and provide a single source inventory solution, being able to account for bookings made by third party partners like Expedia is critical for suppliers. “

Joyce says there are no standards in place for tour and activity transaction messages, so directly integrating with partners like Expedia and Viator for the purposes of pushing or pulling reservations into a supplier reservation system is difficult.

“I was convinced there had to be a better way to manage the disconnected bookings that are received from these sources without requiring them to integrate. I’ve been a fan of the TripIt system for years and it occurred to me that if they can import and parse consumer emails, then we should be able to do something similar for businesses who receive confirmations.”

Imported confirmation emails are linked directly to a product through an Expedia code that is stored with the tour or activity  in Rezgo.

Once a confirmation is received and imported, Rezgo creates a booking for the tour or activity using the matched product.

Since Expedia sends multiple bookings in a single confirmation report, as shown in the image above, Rezgo also splits the confirmation into individual bookings if required.

The passenger manifest reports, revenue reports, and booking summaries are updated automatically allowing the supplier to see all of their bookings in a single view and to report on revenues from specific channels.

The Expedia confirmation email import is the first of about half a dozen channel partners that Rezgo is planning to support in the coming months.

NB: Disclosure – Stephen Joyce is also a Tnooz Node.

Expedia is running the travel search and booking functionality on six of Yahoo’s travel major portals across Europe, edging out previous metasearch partner Kelkoo.

The multi-year deal sees the full suite of Expedia services, including flights, hotels, car hire, package holidays and dynamically packaged combos, integrated into Yahoo Travel sites in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Users are able to search from a Expedia-hosted widget on the homepage as well view a special, real-time deals on other parts of the portal.

After completing a product search, users are directed to a co-branded site within Yahoo Travel to continue with further searches, product filters and bookings.

Expedia Europe director of online partner marketing, Alex Gisbertt, says the idea is to combine the strong travel content already within Yahoo Travel with a system that helps complete the plan-search-book-manage cycle for consumers.

“We have big plans which we think we can really work with this particular type of partnership with Yahoo,” he adds.

The deal with Expedia ends Yahoo’s long-standing agreement with Kelkoo across the majority of markets in Europe.

Kelkoo, which was bought by Yahoo in 2004 but sold again in 2008 to private equity firm Jamplant, previously had a search widget on the homepage of most Yahoo Travel sites, directing users to results on its existing price comparison service.

But perhaps the most interesting elements of the Europe deal is the switch from metasearch partner to OTA or tour operator. This is not the first time a media portal has turned from one to the other – the Telegraph newspaper site moving from Travelsupermarket to Thomas Cook being one of the more high profile.

In the US, Yahoo also toyed with metasearch but eventually closed the company it bought, FareChase.

Yahoo in the US recently extended its deal with Travelocity to include the full range of products from the OTA, ending its involvement with Orbitz for cruise and packages.

Orbitz Worldwide posted a profit in the second quarter and its gross bookings rose 21%, but like Expedia Inc., Orbitz didn’t keep pace with Priceline in growth of hotel room nights booked.

For Orbitz, hotel room nights stayed is a key metric because the company has established growing its hotel business as the number one priority.

In the second quarter, Priceline’s room nights increased 48.2% to 23.2 million, Expedia’s lagged with a 12% jump to 20.3 million, and Orbitz came in third among the publicly reporting online travel agencies with a modest 9% increase in hotel room nights.

Starting from a lower base than hotel-market leader Priceline and Expedia, Orbitz discloses the percentage gain or loss in hotel room nights, but doesn’t specify the number of room nights.

Still, there were bright spots on the hotel front for Orbitz Worldwide.

Its ebookers unit saw room nights increase 58% compared with the second quarter of 2009.

Orbitz Worldwide’s hotel net revenue increased 13% to $52.1 million, and that includes an increase in net revenue for its U.S. hotel business because of a hike in the number of standalone hotel transactions, the company says.

However, net revenue at Orbitz’s Australia-based HotelClub business declined because of lower volumes in Europe and shift toward bookings in markets where margins are lower. Ash cloud disruptions may have contributed to some softness in Europe.

Overall for Orbitz Worldwide In the second quarter, its net income decreased 5% to $9.7 million on revenue of $193.5 million, a 3% increase.

Orbtiz Worldwide’s global gross bookings increased 17% to more than $3 billion, primarily because of higher airfares and increased transaction volumes.

That, too, highlights Orbitz Worldwide’s ongoing reliance on air as it continues its heavy-lifting to build its hotel business.

UPDATE: Expedia Inc. says it intends to raise $750 million in its offering of senior unsecured notes.

The offering of the notes, at 5.95%, is expected to close Aug. 5.

In its original announcement, Expedia hadn’t revealed the pricing, but did so in a second announcement later in the day.

The original story follows:

Expedia Inc. may be raising some money with acquisitions in mind.

The company announced today that it will begin a private offering for senior unsecured notes, with the principal amount and terms to be determined at the time of sale.

The net proceeds, Expedia says, will be used for general corporate purposes, including “repurchases of its common stock and future acquisitions by it or any of its subsidiaries.”

Over the past year, Expedia has spoken of being open to acquisitions involving its advertising and media business and/or those which would expand its geographic reach.

However, Expedia officials last week also issued stern warnings about the threat posed by the Google-ITA Software deal, and Expedia is believed to have been an active player with Kayak in attempting to keep ITA Software out of Google’s hands.

If Expedia is shopping around for an acquisition to serve as a defense against Google’s acquisition of ITA Software, it wouldn’t be the only major travel industry player pondering such a move.