Comments on: VibeAgent Raises $3 Million To Join Crowded Hotel Search Market

By: ceb

ceb — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:28:42 +0000

I love VibeAgent – they always have better rates than Expedia!

By: york

york — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:19:46 +0000

Is tinycomb for sale?

By: MS

MS — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:11:33 +0000

@ gregor: Yes, but Google’s advertising model was fundamentally different than Yahoo, etc. There’s nothing fundamentally different about VibeAgent. They’re scraping traffic from the same sites as everyone else (Travelsearch, BookingBuddy, etc.). What’s different about that?

By: VibeAgent recibe 3M

VibeAgent recibe 3M — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:16:54 +0000

[...] un agregador de información hotelera, ha recibido una inversión de 3 millones de dólares en Serie A liderada por una serie de inversores individuales. El sitio presta un servicio de [...]

By: jb

jb — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:17:20 +0000

Snooze. A review of Hong Kong hotels indicates that they scrape the same sites that everyone else already scrapes. Nice visual map interface gadget, but not useful enough to make me abandon my existing tools.

By: toots

toots — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:16:15 +0000

yeah. totally. good comment.

By: Hotel search site VibeAgent raises $3M » VentureBeat

Hotel search site VibeAgent raises $3M » VentureBeat — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:04:01 +0000

[...] deals with hotels directly. Instead, it pulls listings from other sites — TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid compares it to travel site Kayak, which seems about right. VibeAgent says it aggregates listings from more than 30 other sites, [...]

By: huh

huh — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:17:15 +0000

Yeah. They should have bought tinycomb.com instead.

By: VibeAgent raises $3M in Series A funding round | Startup Meme - Technology Startup and Latest Tech News

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:44:00 +0000

[...] raised $3 million in a Series A funding round which was led by some individual investors. VibeAgent is a hotel information aggregator startup and is a hotel meta search engine. CEO Adam [...]

By: jon

jon — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:19:04 +0000

I think their mapping area utility is pretty nifty for finding hotels. Kayak seems to be more flight oriented, so if they can out-Kayak Kayak in the hotel space they could be successful. But I agree with others on the name – they really need a new name that actually makes sense. Their logo looks very generic.

By: gregor

gregor — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:13:05 +0000

@MS – I think people said the same thing about Google vis-a-vis Yahoo, Excite and Lycos when they launched in the “crowded” search market ten years ago…

By: Pokin

Pokin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:10:30 +0000

Hotel search is definitely a crowded market, but like Greg mentioned above, I find that I am still getting different prices for hotels by going to different travel sites (mobissimo, hotelscombined, etc.)

As for whether people are cutting back on discretionary spending – I was at a travel event recently for tour operators where the sentiment was that travel bookings have definitely been effected – yet, in our own survey of about 570 travellers on GeckoGo.com, we found that, while people felt pretty down about the economy, they weren’t planning to change their travel plans. They were still going to see their relatives and go on vacations, but would seek out more deals, book farther in advance, and consider alternate methods of travel. So changes for sure, but people are still out to see the world.

By: MS

MS — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:45:24 +0000

What’s VibeAgent’s action plan to drive traffic to their site and gain a loyal user base? I would assume it would be difficult to gain and switch the critical mass of LOYAL Kayak users. Isn’t this why they canned their focus hotel reviews? Couldn’t get users from TripAdvisor?

I just don’t see this as a sustainable business given their GIANT competitors…especially in this economy.

By: greg@audiolunchbox.com

greg@audiolunchbox.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:00:50 +0000

How they thought up that silly name, I have no idea. But, to their credit, I have consistently found better hotel rates on vibeagent than on orbitz, mobissimo, kayak (usually) and the like … esp. in Europe. So they’re clearly bringing some magic potion to the table, crowded or not. cheers to anyone who is managing to raise money & build a co. in this market

By: chance

chance — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:59:17 +0000

I agree, the name is a bit too bland to be memorable.

By: VibeAgent.com Raises $3 Million for its Hotel Search Engine. | Chris Konizer

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:51:00 +0000

[...] Read the full press release on TechCrunch.com [...]

By: Vibe Agent Launches Hotel Search Engine : tinyComb

Vibe Agent Launches Hotel Search Engine : tinyComb — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:47:33 +0000

[...] TC November 17, 2008 | jason | travel | [...]

By: JP

JP — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:41:29 +0000

Aren’t people cutting back on discretionary spending, such as traveling?

By: jason@tinycomb

jason@tinycomb — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:36:28 +0000

They should have spent some of that financing on a better name.

By: Michael C Taylor

Michael C Taylor — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:36:02 +0000

[stops] Herman, how could you? We’ve all thought about
counterfeiting jeans at one time or another, but what about the
victims? Hard-working designers like Calvin Klein, Gloria
Vanderbilt, or Antoine Bugle Boy. _These_ are the people who
saw an overcrowded marketplace and said, “Me too!”

By: Michael C Taylor

Michael C Taylor — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:34:34 +0000

I admire companies that look at an overly saturated market and say, “Us too!”