May 9, 2007

Yahoo Enhances Travel Maps

Yahoo has added some mapping features to Yahoo Travel, using AJAX to add layered images right on a Yahoo Map. For example, a map of the Boston Freedom Trail can be overlayed on a map of the city. Or a map of the Philadelphia International Airport can be matched to the highway map.

The opacity of the layers can be adjusted, so a user can choose to see one or the other map, or a mix of the two.

Greg Sterling has more details at his Screenwerk blog, and says that he expects the functionality to be extended to other parts of Yahoo, including local search, in the near future.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:34 PM | Permalink

October 4, 2006

Yahoo Travel Upgrades Maps, Adds More Features

Earlier this week Yahoo upgraded its Travel Guides with more dynamic mapping (including satellite and hybrid maps), more community features and the addition of a "My Travel Module," not unlike the recent introduction of "My Local" on Yahoo Local.

Here are some of the additional new features according to Yahoo:

* Pop-up icons providing quick user rating and review snippets on all listings * Booking capabilities direct from listings * Cool "Add to Trip" animation * Yahoo! Answers and Trip Plans display prominently for all cities * Photo Albums for points-of-interest and ability to upload photos * Display of user submitted photos on cities and points-of-interest

Maps and more community content have been rolling out across Yahoo's properties. Real Estate, for example, became more "map-centric" recently. But in my view one of the fullest expressions of Yahoo's social media strategy is Trip Planner.

Yahoo travel properties and content are a bit of a crazy quilt right now, with video, FareChase metasearch, its main travel property, Trip Planner (which, as I mentioned, is especially valuable) and Answers. At some point Yahoo will integrate all these assets into a more coherent whole I would imagine.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:03 AM | Permalink

July 10, 2006

Yahoo Trip Planner Released From Beta

Yahoo is taking is community-travel site Trip Planner out of beta. The site has reached a kind of content critical mass and Yahoo has added some cool features in this general release:

Trip Journals (blogging; photos can be imported from Flickr)
Map-Based Search (You can drag the map and zoom to areas within countries for more specific options)
Yahoo! Search Integration
There are also a travel recommendations engine based on travel search history, as well as clipping and tagging functionality

In addition to being a useful travel site, with rich user-generated content, in many ways its the most impressive expression to date of Yahoo!s social media strategy. Yahoo! Answers has received a great deal of attention recently (theres an Answers integration with Travel) but the new Trip Planner is more fully realized as a product.

You can read a more detailed post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:01 AM | Permalink

April 27, 2006

Why Yahoo's FareChase May Disrupt the Travel Industry

A couple of weeks ago, Yahoo took its FareChase travel service out of beta, added a link to the service on its home page and is now integrating travel search results in main web search results. FareChase today gets scant traffic compared to major online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity, but the service may be the catalyst that completely shakes up the online travel space, writes SEW correspondent Brian A. Smith in today's SearchDay article, Yahoo's FareChase: The Stealth Disruptor?.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:22 AM | Permalink

April 12, 2006

Yahoo's Farechase Adds Features

Yahoo has announced that its Farechase travel service is "generally available," with a number of new features including integration with Yahoo web search, a social search tool called Trip Planner that enables users to create, tag, share and print personalized trip itineraries, and the integration of Yahoo Maps with satellite imagery so you can check out whether that hotel actually has a beachfront location or not.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2005

Two from Yahoo: Plan a Trip With Yahoo and Print Flickr Images

Two news items from Sunnyvale (aka Yahoo HQ) this afternoon.

The Yahoo Search Blog has news of the Yahoo Trip Travel Planner (beta). Now, if I could find some time to take a trip. Basically, in just a few clicks create a personalized travel guide ready for printing. It sure would be nice in future releases you could download your guide to your PDA or Smartphone. Like many thing Yahoo, it's very easy to share travel guides with friends and other Yahoo users. I'm looking forward to diving more deeply into this one soon.

And for the Flickr users out there, it's now possible to order prints of your Flickr images online and then pick them up at your local Target store. More on the Flickr blog.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:18 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2005

Overture Becomes Yahoo Search Marketing & Comparing Listing Products At Yahoo To Google

The rebranding promised in March has happened. Overture has officially become Yahoo Search Marketing, marked by the launch of a new Yahoo Search Marketing site that lists all of Yahoo's search-related listing products.

It's a good change that ought to help new advertisers. Rather than having to explain that they need to buy "Overture" to be on Yahoo, Yahoo can now direct them to a site that retains its branding.

But with rebranding can come confusion, so I thought it would be helpful to look at all the products listed at the new site and also compare them to Google products. In particular, an email I got from a reader prompted the idea:

I am trying to find the "comparable" Yahoo program to Google AdWords. Since their rebranding of Overture last week, I'm still looking unsuccessfully for something like Precision Match, but it looks as if the program has been axed?

We've been using Google AdWords since it launched and are very happy with the format and back office (most of all the results). Is Yahoo offering a similar program? Honestly, I've read about their "Sponsored Search" and it's simply not obvious.

Meanwhile at our Search Engine Watch forums, a thread on the rebranding shows similar confusion:

I thought Overture was being renamed to Yahoo Search Marketing, but this page boasts a range of products, including Shopping, Travel, Directory, PPI & Overture (sponsored search).

The chart below gives you a side-by-side look at all the products listed on the new Yahoo site, along with some other listings areas that I thought made sense to add. If you're a Search Engine Watch member, see this extended post that provides commentary and additional advice and information about each listing area.

Listing Type Yahoo Google Web Search Listings Yahoo Submit Your Site Add Your URL To Google Web Search Paid Inclusion Search Submit Express & Search Submit Pro n/a (but advertisers can get listing support) Search Ads (Paid Placement) Sponsored Search AdWords (search targeted) Contextual Ads Content Match AdWords (content-targeted; AdSense is name for PUBLISHER program) Shopping Listings Product Submit Froogle Feed (free) Travel Listings Travel Submit n/a Directory Listings Directory Submit ODP Submit Local Search Ads Local Sponsored Search AdWords Regional & Local Targeting Local Search Listings Local Enhanced Listings & Local Listings (free) Google Local Business Center News Listings Yahoo News Submissions Google News Source Suggestion

Want to discuss the change from Overture to Yahoo? Visit our forum thread, Yahoo! Search Marketing is Released. Also check out Yahoo To Buy Overture for background on Yahoo buying Overture back in 2003, GoTo Makes Overture To New Name for the last rebranding Overture went through, that of losing it original name of GoTo back in 2001 and GoTo Sells Positions, about GoTo's launch in 1998.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:48 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2005

Yahoo's FareChase Releases Hotel Search Beta

A beta released by Yahoo's FareChase service today allows you to simultaneously search multiple sites for hotel rates in the same manner you're able to search for airplane ticket prices.

Yahoo FareChase allows you to search for hotels by city, airport, or street address. The beta currently does not support searches for non-U.S. or Canadian locations.

A search for hotel room rates in San Francisco quickly searched more than 30 sites. Results pages include numerous refinement options (price, type of bed, hotel star ratings, etc.) Results change dynamically as you refine your results. A map, marked with the locations of the hotels, is also provided on results pages.

Other travel search services also provide hotel search tools including: + Kayak.com + Mobissimo + SideStep.

The new Yahoo FareChase hotel search beta works with Firefox or IE.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:34 PM | Permalink

March 9, 2005

FareChase Announces Enhancements

FareChase, the travel search site that Yahoo acquired in 2004 is announcing a few enhancements to the service. A post on the Yahoo Search Blog says that FareChase is now available for Firefox and Safari users and offers more search and refinement tools including the ability to sort results by price and departure times.

FareChase is one of a growing number of travel research tools that simultaneously search and aggregate results from disparate databases. Competitors include Mobissimo, Kayak, and SideStep. More about these services in the Charlotte Observer article: Search engines revved up for one-stop travel service.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:37 PM | Permalink

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