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Ad-soaked bully? Like who? I'm still a fan of Adioso.com's UI (another YC alum), and the TripAdvisor/Bing/Kayak experiences, from memory, are fairly subtle wit

Ad-soaked bully? Like who? I'm still a fan of Adioso.com's UI (another YC alum), and the TripAdvisor/Bing/Kayak experiences, from memory, are fairly subtle with their advertising.

blhack 16y ago
You're right about this. Kayk et al aren't saturated with ads, but they don't feel nearly as...something as hipmunk. Clean? Maybe? Shiny? I don't know but every time I've shown the site to any of my friends or coworkers they remark that it's pretty. Hipmunk vs Kayak or bing is the difference between a cheap casio watch and a nice, heavy, automatic winding watch with a pretty window on the back of the dial. They both tell the time, they both sit on your wrist, but the latter just...feels nicer.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Thoughtful. I think what you're grasping for is thoughtful. Hipmunk is very v1, but nonetheless you can tell how much thought has gone into the presentation of flight data. The agony sort, for example, is so blindingly obvious once you see it in practice, but no one bothered to give it any thought until now. Simplicity is actually really hard. They got it to work.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  If that's all hipmunk has going for it (shiny?) than I wouldn't bet on them. Nasty interfaces often win (i.e. craigslist). The guys who started kayak are ex-orbitz people, so they've been around awhile and have data on what works. Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for hipmunk. I would love to see them succeed. But they need more than shiny.
  - blhack 16y ago
    >Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for hipmunk. I would love to see them succeed. But they need more than shiny. I'm not just talking about the interface, I'm talking about the experience overall.
danilocampos 16y ago
Like the incumbent travel sites that everyone's mom uses: Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline. http://blog.danilocampos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hipmunk-compare.png http://blog.danilocampos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hipm... Here's Travelocity, for example. Bing's flight search isn't bad, in that it's minimalist, but they're not doing anything terribly exciting beyond the Farecast action they acquired. TripAdvisor can die in a fire. I'm never, ever using any of their products again, thanks to the constant (user-hostile!) "book a flight to this place right now damn you!" pop-ups they used to do on the browser and, worse, on the iPhone. They would try to get me to book a flight to a place where I already was, searching for things to do or places to stay. It's just asinine, jackass behavior and representative of everything that's wrong with online travel sites.
- timcederman 16y ago
  And it also monetizes like crazy. The product team there recognises it's a problem, but it's hard to argue with millions in revenue at stake. All sites start out idealistic, and then start making compromises in order to survive. The actual flight product itself at TripAdvisor isn't too bad (apart from auto-selecting Orbitz as an alternative search so they can do some flag-planting). It's the main site that does all the pop-unders and in-line pop-ups. Try going direct to flights - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Flights http://www.tripadvisor.com/Flights
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Windows monetizes like crazy, too. As did Blockbuster. As do highway robbers. Companies can monetize at the expense of goodwill all they want. It doesn't impress anyone but their accountants and investors. Meanwhile, users grow resentful. Companies with a user product should value the user first and configure their business accordingly — it's just the only viable long term play. If you do crappy things to the user for short term cash, that becomes your long term play because you become dependent on the money. And in the long term, you lose to the guy who doesn't treat users like crap. Edit: >All sites start out idealistic, and then start making compromises in order to survive. And if Zappos had taken this advice and compromised by screwing their customers for cash, would they have sold for a billion dollars? I mean, a billion dollars, all for not being a dick to users or cutting corners at their expense. Thats the value of ideals you won't compromise.

Ad-soaked bully? Like who? I'm still a fan of Adioso.com's UI (another YC alum), and the TripAdvisor/Bing/Kayak experiences, from memory, are fairly subtle with their advertising.

blhack 16y ago

You're right about this. Kayk et al aren't saturated with ads, but they don't feel nearly as...something as hipmunk. Clean? Maybe? Shiny? I don't know but every time I've shown the site to any of my friends or coworkers they remark that it's pretty. Hipmunk vs Kayak or bing is the difference between a cheap casio watch and a nice, heavy, automatic winding watch with a pretty window on the back of the dial. They both tell the time, they both sit on your wrist, but the latter just...feels nicer.

danilocampos 16y ago
Thoughtful. I think what you're grasping for is thoughtful. Hipmunk is very v1, but nonetheless you can tell how much thought has gone into the presentation of flight data. The agony sort, for example, is so blindingly obvious once you see it in practice, but no one bothered to give it any thought until now. Simplicity is actually really hard. They got it to work.
Psyonic 16y ago
If that's all hipmunk has going for it (shiny?) than I wouldn't bet on them. Nasty interfaces often win (i.e. craigslist). The guys who started kayak are ex-orbitz people, so they've been around awhile and have data on what works. Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for hipmunk. I would love to see them succeed. But they need more than shiny.
- blhack 16y ago
  >Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for hipmunk. I would love to see them succeed. But they need more than shiny. I'm not just talking about the interface, I'm talking about the experience overall.

danilocampos 16y ago

Like the incumbent travel sites that everyone's mom uses: Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline. http://blog.danilocampos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hipmunk-compare.png http://blog.danilocampos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hipm... Here's Travelocity, for example. Bing's flight search isn't bad, in that it's minimalist, but they're not doing anything terribly exciting beyond the Farecast action they acquired. TripAdvisor can die in a fire. I'm never, ever using any of their products again, thanks to the constant (user-hostile!) "book a flight to this place right now damn you!" pop-ups they used to do on the browser and, worse, on the iPhone. They would try to get me to book a flight to a place where I already was, searching for things to do or places to stay. It's just asinine, jackass behavior and representative of everything that's wrong with online travel sites.

timcederman 16y ago
And it also monetizes like crazy. The product team there recognises it's a problem, but it's hard to argue with millions in revenue at stake. All sites start out idealistic, and then start making compromises in order to survive. The actual flight product itself at TripAdvisor isn't too bad (apart from auto-selecting Orbitz as an alternative search so they can do some flag-planting). It's the main site that does all the pop-unders and in-line pop-ups. Try going direct to flights - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Flights http://www.tripadvisor.com/Flights
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Windows monetizes like crazy, too. As did Blockbuster. As do highway robbers. Companies can monetize at the expense of goodwill all they want. It doesn't impress anyone but their accountants and investors. Meanwhile, users grow resentful. Companies with a user product should value the user first and configure their business accordingly — it's just the only viable long term play. If you do crappy things to the user for short term cash, that becomes your long term play because you become dependent on the money. And in the long term, you lose to the guy who doesn't treat users like crap. Edit: >All sites start out idealistic, and then start making compromises in order to survive. And if Zappos had taken this advice and compromised by screwing their customers for cash, would they have sold for a billion dollars? I mean, a billion dollars, all for not being a dick to users or cutting corners at their expense. Thats the value of ideals you won't compromise.