Articles tagged “kayak”

It isn't the CEO, but the technical brains that wins the biggest. One for the engineering talent on this one.

The reaction has been muted, for most part, as industry players and analysts wait to see how the Priceline-Kayak deal plays out.

Priceline is buying a much smaller, younger travel tech company in Kayak, but one that has earned a lot of fans for its innovation.

The culture clash between relatively button-down Priceline and sometimes sockless and irreverent Kayak couldn't be more stark. But Kayak will operate semi-independently and the merger may finally help Kayak become the global brand that Priceline's Boyd thinks it can become.

It will take couple of quarters before the deal closes, so Kayak will still have couple of opportunities to report separate earnings.

With 3.1 million downloads of its mobile apps in the third quarter (bringing total to over 20 million overall), and increasing prowess in monetizing queries from smartphones, Kayak is certainly a leader in mobile within the travel industry.

This ends the short life of Kayak as a public company -- it just finished its first post-IPO quarter. Priceline will gain a great online and mobile team to build its portfolio and will put muscle behind the Kayak brand.

With Kayak's co-founder still answering customer service calls from time to time, the company is showing it is nimble and not too big for its britches.

Kayak's advertising agency obviously knows more about commercials than we do. In 2010 a Kayak spot featured sexy Mandy cavorting on a pier while the latest ad features a crooner who's way past his prime. See one and done.

Kayak is increasingly a hybrid as its direct-booking option gathers momentum. It's a competitive advantage over other travel metasearch companies, and it shouldn't be long before some of them follow along.