Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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Ok, this may sound a little bit strange...
But you know there are all these sites where you can essentially 'compare' flights to a destination, for a certain date etc.
- I personally, would like a service (am tempted to make one) - which keeps things as simple as possible and is ideal for people who like to go somewhere new / on a budget. (If you've seen yes man, it's similar to the bit where they just turn up and take the next flight out of there).
Essentially it'd be something like 'Randomdestination.com', 'GoAnywhere', or 'FlyCheap'.
Something along those lines.
You'd come to the website and have only one compulsary field to fill in. Which is your current destination.
If you wanted to you could press 'GO' now.
It would then go off and return you loads of 'random' places you could go to ordered by lowest price first.
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Alternatively, you could actually input your destination and press GO. and it'll find you flights to that destination starting with the cheapest first (so it tells you when the cheap flights are).
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Or, you could maybe load it up and just give a price range ... e.g. I want to spend £200-£300 on return flights. Press GO and it tells you where you can go and when.
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Finally you could just put in a time frame if wanted and do similar to the above.
............
Ok, so you're probably thinking... these sites exist? You can already go to a comparison site and search by location, date, price etc. The problem is, it requires you to care about the date, location or price.
If you just 'feel like going somewhere' - don't really care when or where, as long as it's fairly cheap. Then I'd use the service often for a laugh to go see the world.
The other reason is that, for example I would like to go to Japan. I don't really care when, but I'd like it to be cheap. All services require me to put a date of when I would like to go there, therefore the only way for me to find potentially 'cheap' times to go, is to keep searching on different dates.
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Typical use cases.
I come along, put location as London and press GO.
-- I see there's a flight to italy for £128 in two weeks time (fly out fri, return mon) and book it up.
or
I come along, put my location as london and destination as Tokyo and press GO.
-- It shows me that if I go on the 3rd of August it'll only be £340 return. (as opposed to £1000 + in june).
or
I come along, put my location as london and price range of £200-£300 - Press GO.
-- It suggests to me this weekend I could be in South Africa Cape Town for £240. For a laugh I book it up.
etc. Opinions? Does a site like this exist (as I want to use it for a laugh).
[Edited on 13-05-2010 by Paul_J]
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GF-91
Banned
Registered: 8th Jul 09
Location: Burnley!
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Sounds good 
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Budgie
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Registered: 2nd Dec 09
Location: Basingstoke
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Sounds like a good idea what about hotels when you get there tho?
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Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by Budgie
Sounds like a good idea what about hotels when you get there tho?
I guess I'm thinking about it too much from when I used to be travelling. Hotels etc never really bothered me. I'd just turn up with my bag on my back and just wander around till I found somewhere cheap enough to stay.
I'd probably just look up the hostels in the area to any of the desitnations after I've booked it up. Obviously this wouldn't be appropriate for everyone, but then again - the service would be fairly niche anyway ... targetting the people who are up for adventure.
You could even have a page which allows you to tick off the place you've been to / never want to go to (e.g. belfast), so it doesn't re suggest them to you. That way, when it offers me a trip to Mongolia - I can say 'hell yeah!'. 
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a_j_mair
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Registered: 23rd Jan 04
Location: Scotland
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sounds good as alot of these searches are very specific
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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Social-Travel-Media-Scraper. Sounds nice a Web 3.0 to me 
Certainly sounds like something that could take off with the right marketing and promotion...
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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It sounds like a good idea, but the big sites which are already popular for flight searches would just change their system if it appeared yours was taking off and you'd have no chance of competing.
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gravesy
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Registered: 21st Apr 10
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Sounds a bit like some of the services lastminute.com offer. Great idea if you can find a unique selling point though.
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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I'm not sure how it works in computing, but coming from a design point of view...
Couldn't you produce a system like this and then licence out the API? Obviously you'd need more than copyright protection to be able to do this...
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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Whats the point though when all the big players could make simple changes to what they already offer so they can offer this type of search?
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Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
It sounds like a good idea, but the big sites which are already popular for flight searches would just change their system if it appeared yours was taking off and you'd have no chance of competing.
I'm not totally sure they would.
It's firstly a niche market. Secondly, would require them to complicate their interfaces - they want it to be simple for users, not have to explain that you can enter all the standard details or do something strange.
- plus with most things, the competitors will often only take note when you are sufficently successful, e.g. you're taking their market share / making a lot of money from it.
At that point, they do one of two things. Try to implement the system as their own. Or Buy you out (aquire you).
- Either way, would be win win...
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GF-91
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Registered: 8th Jul 09
Location: Burnley!
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How would them trying to implement the system be a win win for you?
People will just go to them then you don't get the money  So it's a loss Or have I misunderstood you?
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Skylined
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Registered: 27th Sep 05
Location: Sideways, Surrey
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I'm not certain enough people would want/afford to jet off somewhere random for you to make a big business out of it.
Certainly not like thousands of people each day like other normal flight websites would get.
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Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by ed
I'm not sure how it works in computing, but coming from a design point of view...
Couldn't you produce a system like this and then licence out the API? Obviously you'd need more than copyright protection to be able to do this...
To be honest, there's probably a lot of processing behind it ... = cost.
I'm fairly sure these existing comparison sites offer api's to do searches, which in turn you will get a affiliate based commission from... e.g. 10% of the sale.
I would probably (at least the start) aim to utilise existing services / api's to do the requests. Therefore my system would literally be a landing page, a search screen (simple as possible) and a results page... which essentially re directs you to a certain suppliers site - thus getting me my 10% commission.
Advantage with this is that costs are kept low, but the potential rewards (relatively for me running it) would be high. e.g. 100 users in a day, average flight £300 ... = £3000 commission to me.
It's also a unique enough / bizare enough / simple enough idea to gain media attention and thus grow the site rapidly.
Finally it's a service which would not need to be at critical mass to be successful... e.g. the service given would be the same if 1 user used it or 1000 users used it (maybe a bit slower lol).
- The only problems are, these api's will require multiple requests (e.g. 52 requests for every week of the year or whatever) and then processing on my side to figure out the results. Overall it could be an extremely slow service.
I guess I'd have to look into it and see what is out there and what can be done.
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul_J
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo
It sounds like a good idea, but the big sites which are already popular for flight searches would just change their system if it appeared yours was taking off and you'd have no chance of competing.
I'm not totally sure they would.
It's firstly a niche market. Secondly, would require them to complicate their interfaces - they want it to be simple for users, not have to explain that you can enter all the standard details or do something strange.
- plus with most things, the competitors will often only take note when you are sufficently successful, e.g. you're taking their market share / making a lot of money from it.
At that point, they do one of two things. Try to implement the system as their own. Or Buy you out (aquire you).
- Either way, would be win win...
You're thinking too simply, that just does not happen in business!! They'd just offer the service using their already made contacts with the flight suppliers and promote it using their already huge marketing plans - it would be a minimal cost to blow you out of the water without having to buy the business.
They will be constantly looking at the market, and they wont pass up an opportunity if they saw one - which they would if you started to get popular. Yes this would mean short term success for you whilst you're the only one offering this service - but I doubt it would be anywhere near enough to cover the cost of promoting the site to a level which makes it worth your while.
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Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by GF-91
How would them trying to implement the system be a win win for you?
People will just go to them then you don't get the money So it's a loss Or have I misunderstood you?
It would be win win, as if it's successful enough to warrant competitors thinking it's worth them implementing it, I will already be RICH 
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gravesy
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Registered: 21st Apr 10
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This is the lastminute.com search. It includes a lot of "I don't mind" options.
http://www.lastminute.com/site/travel/holidays/holiday-search-advanced.html?searchType=advanced
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GF-91
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Registered: 8th Jul 09
Location: Burnley!
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul_J
quote:
Originally posted by GF-91
How would them trying to implement the system be a win win for you?
People will just go to them then you don't get the money So it's a loss Or have I misunderstood you?
It would be win win, as if it's successful enough to warrant competitors thinking it's worth them implementing it, I will already be RICH
I see. Wouldn't you want it to last though? 
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Paul_J
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Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by gravesy
This is the lastminute.com search. It includes a lot of "I don't mind" options.
http://www.lastminute.com/site/travel/holidays/holiday-search-advanced.html?searchType=advanced
Ok
Nice one... that's exactly what I was talking about
Thanks for pointing it out, that's half the reason I made the thread to be honest, to see if there was something already out there.
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Budgie
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Registered: 2nd Dec 09
Location: Basingstoke
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for accommodation could you not just have 3 places for each destination to keep it simple.
basic hostel
nice hotel
fancy hotel
i'll give you £2 for 35% of the business 
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GF-91
Banned
Registered: 8th Jul 09
Location: Burnley!
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Budgie
for accommodation could you not just have 3 places for each destination to keep it simple.
basic hostel
nice hotel
fancy hotel
i'll give you £2 for 35% of the business
I see you, and I raise you £3
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by GF-91
quote:
Originally posted by Paul_J
quote:
Originally posted by GF-91
How would them trying to implement the system be a win win for you?
People will just go to them then you don't get the money So it's a loss Or have I misunderstood you?
It would be win win, as if it's successful enough to warrant competitors thinking it's worth them implementing it, I will already be RICH
I see. Wouldn't you want it to last though?
it's irrelevant though... because if lastminute.com are doing it - I don't want to compete with someone already existing.
With the costs it would cost me to get the site up and running, and the fact I would rely on it self promoting itself mainly through its uniqueness - I wouldn't care if it only made £30. It'd be a profit. I'd still be working my day job.
Cosmo. Take the lastminute.com as an example of what I was talking about.
They're doing it, but not all their competitors are. This is what I mean, not every competitor will jump on any idea, just because it's an option that could be done ... if it's outside their typical business model (e.g. fly.com) they won't waste resources / confusing the site - to implement something which is quite niche.
Either way, it's irrelevant if lastminute.com offer that service, I won't bother... still cool though, as I want to use a service like this and now I've found one
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul_J
Cosmo. Take the lastminute.com as an example of what I was talking about.
They're doing it, but not all their competitors are. This is what I mean, not every competitor will jump on any idea, just because it's an option that could be done ... if it's outside their typical business model (e.g. fly.com) they won't waste resources / confusing the site - to implement something which is quite niche.
Either way, it's irrelevant if lastminute.com offer that service, I won't bother... still cool though, as I want to use a service like this and now I've found one
They will if its a successful idea though as its hardly a massive jump from what they are currently offering (i.e. expedia, teletextholidays, lastminute, etc) - and although that would mean short term success for you the market just has too many big players who would blow you out the water.
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Budgie
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Registered: 2nd Dec 09
Location: Basingstoke
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quote:
Originally posted by GF-91
quote:
Originally posted by Budgie
for accommodation could you not just have 3 places for each destination to keep it simple.
basic hostel
nice hotel
fancy hotel
i'll give you £2 for 35% of the business
I see you, and I raise you £3
FUCK! Paul im out 
well played Gary i tip my hat to you good sir
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GF-91
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Registered: 8th Jul 09
Location: Burnley!
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I feel bad now, you can have 5% for a tenner.
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