
Hipmunk CEO: Yeah, Entrepreneurs Think It’s Getting Wacky, Too  - jayjay666
http://www.pehub.com/106152/hipmunk-ceo-on-todays-climate-yeah-entrepreneurs-think-its-getting-wacky-too/
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jcampbell1
Hipmunk is a cool startup, but if you want cheap airfares,
<http://matrix.itasoftware.com/> is the best kept secret on the internet.
Since itasoftware (now part of google), sells a flight search service, they
don't advertise their search engine and purposefully keep it ugly.

~~~
ansy
ITA's site actually predates Hipmunk and the Google merger.

The reason ITA keeps it a secret is because ITA is a middleware company and
not consumer facing. Bing, Hipmunk, Kayak, Orbitz, Hotwire, and many more are
all customers of ITA[1] and it takes pains to not compete with its customers.

That's also why everyone was freaking out when Google offered to buy ITA.
Google could have easily pulled the plug on all of those sites and taken over
the industry. So Google had to commit to tons of concessions to ensure that
wouldn't happen in order to get approval for the merger. Basically, Google has
agreed to ongoing audits by the Justice Department for years after the merger.
[2]

[1] <http://www.itasoftware.com/about/customers.html>

[2] <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/technology/09google.html>

~~~
jcampbell1
For a long time matrix.itasoftware.com was password protected but
bugmenot/bugmenot worked. I am not sure when they made the search service non-
password protected. I imagine if it gets popular, it will go back to being
password protected, as it is rude to compete with your own customers.

~~~
alec
The older version of matrix - currently available at
<http://matrix1.itasoftware.com> \- had a not-so-inviting page asking you for
a login if you had one, but never required it. There's a "Log in as a guest"
link that gets you to the same page you'd have as if you had registered as a
typical user.

The new version, <http://matrix.itasoftware.com/>, has no such login
requirement.

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tehjones
They need to change their background, that scrolling effect really is not
nice.

~~~
pkamb
Ugh, it almost gave me a seizure.

~~~
joshu
It's always been like that, sadly.

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bhaile
Good stuff Hipmunk. Looking forward to when I can modify by fare class and
further customization. I've used itasoftware.com almost since they started
with a beta and I like the fact that I can do /f bc=w for example to price a
specific fare class.

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derrida
I don't understand Hipmunk. I see a simple user interface. But that user
interface doesn't help me search anymore than any other site. I live in
Sydney, and I use this api-mashup here destmapper.com. It opened my eyes!

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wallflower
How do you get invited to Foo Camp when you are just in high school?

I am awed.

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jordanbrown
That sites background is terrible on the eyes.

