Startups

If accurate, it's good news for Waze. Especially since the app's appetite for data and battery power has become a turn off for many of the early adopters.

Oyster has great content, but will potential buyers, such as media companies or hotel sites, really be brave enough to accommodate a business that bills itself as "The Hotel Tell-All?" Many will shy away from this candor because they don't want to offend hotel partners. That being said, critics said from day one that the Oyster's premise of professional reviews was unsustainable, and so far that is turning out to be true.

When HomeAway says Airbnb isn't a direct competitor, we think HomeAway doth protest too much. These markets will undoubtedly converge over the long term.

BusBud intends to use the funding to expand its number of employees, and its breadth of bus-schedule coverage. "Your worldwide bus travel companion" can now get a bit more global.

HotelTonight blazed a trail in the U.S. as a first-mover in same-day, mobile hotel bookings. Although it has strong financial backing, achieving the same rate of success abroad may be a lot more problematic.

Funded, lean and focused, Hipmunk can take its sweet, little time honing its product to get ready for a larger profile. Whether it ever emerges from beautiful product to major player is a very open question. There is plenty of money to be made even as a relatively small company, but Hipmunk's ambitions are huge.

The fate of the pilot program will be decided on by Monday, but we are certain that this will not be the end of legislative confusion, no matter what that “final” decision is.

Expect a lot more from Skift, as we add new services and accelerate our growth with this new funding.

The manual transfer of keys would be a major barrier to RelayRides’ growth while its competition like Zipcar and Getaround make it easy for users to independently unlock cars.