- SideStep
Infobox_Company
company_name = SideStep Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
company_slogan = The traveler's search engine
foundation =Palo Alto, California , USA (1999)
location =Santa Clara, California , USA
industry = Travel Metasearch
key_people = Rob Solomon,President & CEO
products = SideStep Travel Search Website and Downloadable Toolbar
homepage = [http://www.sidestep.com/ www.sidestep.com]SideStep.com is a
travel search company based inSanta 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 150,000hotels and 600airlines in the United States and worldwide. After acquiringTravelPost , SideStep started offering 300,000+ user-generated reviews and also has editorial travel guides through its partnership with Frommer’s and other content providers.SideStep is one of several travel metasearch websites and is second only to
Kayak.com in size, with 3 million visitors a month in the United States (September 2007,comScore ).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 anduser-generated content website. In December 2007, SideStep was sold toKayak.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.External links
* [http://www.sidestep.com SideStep] , USA/English site.
* [http://www.sidestep.co.uk SideStep UK] , UK & Ireland site
* [http://www.travelpost.com TravelPost] , TravelPost
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