Google buys destination specialist Frommers for an undisclosed amount. What Google is going to do with Frommers is still unclear. Is Google planning to shutdown Frommers like what Facebook did with Gowalla in 2011? Answer is clearly NO. Google is well known for acquiring a product and seamlessly integrating it with their existing products. Once such instance is the smooth integration of Panoramio (acquired in 2007) in their Google Maps and Google Earth products.
Having said that, there is also an instance where Google acquired a product - "Ruba" (a visual travel site and a community with focus on guides, photos, maps and interactive tour listings) in 2010 only for their strong team and not for the product. This Frommers acquisition by Google has triggered lot of speculations on many areas.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
All New Google Travel Ecosystem
Five years ago, when someone asked "What's Google famous for?", the answer would have been unanimously - "their lightning search". Now in 2012, when someone asks the same question, there is no single answer. Google has branched out from being a mere search engine. Google's expansion is needed and its for good. Google has been acquiring many products in the recent past and integrating it with its suite of existing products.
One industry that Google is clearly keeping close to its heart is - Travel. With its earlier acquisitions - Zagat, Panoramio and ITA Software, it triggered series of thoughts among the industry experts about Google venturing into travel business. Now, with its recent Frommers acquisition, it's evident that Google is filling up empty slots in the end-to-end travel ecosystem.
We analysed all products of Google and short-listed the products that are relevant to travel industry. Then, we mapped the short-listed products to travel ecosystem and we ended up creating below diagram. Will this be called by Google as "Google Travel" basket? We have to wait and watch.
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One industry that Google is clearly keeping close to its heart is - Travel. With its earlier acquisitions - Zagat, Panoramio and ITA Software, it triggered series of thoughts among the industry experts about Google venturing into travel business. Now, with its recent Frommers acquisition, it's evident that Google is filling up empty slots in the end-to-end travel ecosystem.
We analysed all products of Google and short-listed the products that are relevant to travel industry. Then, we mapped the short-listed products to travel ecosystem and we ended up creating below diagram. Will this be called by Google as "Google Travel" basket? We have to wait and watch.
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Google Search Tweaked For Good (With Knowledge Graph) - Travellers Are Going To Love
Last week, Google acquired destination specialist company 'Frommers'. In May 2012, Google launched theKnowledge Graph that has received great positive feedback. The graph encompasses more than 500 million objects and more than 3.5 billion facts and about relationships between these objects. With Knowledge Graph as the base, Google has made three solid changes to its Search. Clearly, Google is on a roll with respect to
travel industry. The nice tweaks they make to their products are always a welcome gift for users. All three changes have direct (positive) impact for travellers. Yes, there is a negative impact for a small sector of travel companies, we will discuss that later in the article. Here are the three changes that Google made in its Search product:
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travel industry. The nice tweaks they make to their products are always a welcome gift for users. All three changes have direct (positive) impact for travellers. Yes, there is a negative impact for a small sector of travel companies, we will discuss that later in the article. Here are the three changes that Google made in its Search product:
1. Super intelligent recommendation & Enhanced visual search result
a) Larry Page defines a search engine as "understanding exactly what you mean and giving you back exactly what you want". This is what Google is trying hard to achieve. Now, Google has associated context and semantic to the search queries. With the help of Knowledge Graph, Google will now be able to understand a search term "rio" as three different items - it can be the city in Brazil, it can be an animation movie, or it can also be the casino in Vegas. Refer screenshot below.Continue Reading
Hospitality India Conclave 2012 - Part 1
Last week, we attended a hospitality industry event "Hospitality India Conclave 2012" in Mumbai. The event was organized by Confianza in association with Hospitech. It was a day long event attended by 160+ executives from leading hotels. Few titles of the attendees were - Head of IT, Sales Head, Purchase Head, Director, CEO, Marketing Head, Vice President. We will be publishing all discussions happened during the event in series of posts. We will pickup key discussion pointers from the event, do our own research, add pointers and publish posts (starting from this one).
In a panel discussion, there was a very interesting point made by Alan D'Mello, Associate Director, Marketing & Communication, Daman Hospitality. Alan said that design of a hotel is very important, because the most engaging thing in social media is 'picture'. Photos attract customers the most than anything else in social media.
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In a panel discussion, there was a very interesting point made by Alan D'Mello, Associate Director, Marketing & Communication, Daman Hospitality. Alan said that design of a hotel is very important, because the most engaging thing in social media is 'picture'. Photos attract customers the most than anything else in social media.
Continue Reading
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