UpTake.com, formerly Kango.com, launched today with features on thousands of destinations and over two million reviews aggregated from other travel websites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Virtual Tourist, and Yahoo Travel.
Working to bring semantic search to travel, Uptake:…. tries to understand travelers’ intentions - if a traveler is looking for a hotel that is “good for kids”, UpTake interprets it to have the same intent as phrases such as “child friendly” or “family vacation.”
The online travel space is one of the most competive in the online world but the semantic approach to search and aggregation of reviews More»

Labels: kango, travel, uptake, web 2.0

Hyatt has launched an online travel community called yatt’it. Hyatt said the goal of the web site is to offer travelers credible, candid, fellow-traveler advice, lively discussion forums and direct-booking options. The site features expert insight, advice and tips frequent travelers as wells as Hyatt’s concierges in more than 40 destinations around the world.
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Labels: social networks, travel

Today’s New York Times has an article on hotel and restaurant reviews. They mostly talk about TripAdvisor and IgoUgo (which I had never heard of until today) and compare them to Zagat. Most of the information in there has been thoroughly discussed before (user reviews vs. editor reviews, moderated vs. un-moderated comments) but one quote from Tim Zagat (Zagat’s co-founder) really stood out for me. Talking about consumer reviews, he said:
“Some Internet companies are running into the problem that anybody can throw up things on the wall, and after a More»

Labels: travel, user reviews