From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SideStep.com is a travel search company
based in Santa Clara, California.
Description
SideStep is a metasearch engine for travel: it
searches and consolidates results from more than 200 travel
websites. The site searches more than 150,000 hotels and 600 airlines
in the United States and worldwide. After acquiring TravelPost, SideStep
started offering 300,000+ user-generated reviews and also has
editorial travel guides through its partnership with Frommer’s and
other content providers. In late 2007, SideStep was acquired by
rival Kayak.
History
SideStep was founded in 2000, with the launch of their
downloadable application (the SideStep toolbar) and launched its
website in the beginning of 2005. Investors included Trident
Capital, NVP and others.
In 2006, SideStep acquired TravelPost, a hotel review and user-generated content website.
In December 2007, SideStep was sold to Kayak.com for about $180m.
Business
model
SideStep makes money through advertising and referral fees.
However, advertising does not bias the ranking of results in their
metasearch engine—and the prices are the same as the ones found by
directly searching their partner websites.
Product
lines
- Travel metasearch: SideStep’s metasearch
engine finds real-time price and availability information on
airfare, hotels, car rental, vacations, cruises and
activities.
- Travel guides: Editorially-written travel
guides from multiple sources include travel information and
research, ranging from trip planning, hotels, restaurants,
shopping, etc.
- Travel deals: Travel deals and promotions
aggregated from a variety of online sources.
- Toolbar: The original SideStep product, the
toolbar can be installed on Internet Explorer 5+ browsers and lets
the user do travel metasearch and compare prices alongside searches
on other Web sites without having to visit SideStep.com.
Sale to
Kayak
In December 2007, SideStep was sold to Kayak.com for about $180m.
References
External
links
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