Hipmunk your way to lower air fares online

Adam Goldstein came up with this summer project he could do. This Hipmunk ended up being more than that as it became the best place to find cheap flights. CNN Money explains that Goldstein had some help from Steve Huffman, Reddit co-founder, when doing this new program. The website is user-friendly and has many colors, making Goldstein a genius within the website business.

Travel booked online will change with Hipmunk

Normally there is a boring list of flights on websites. Hipmunk changes this by making it more easy to read and colorful. Just this week there was a launch. Reviews are really great in just that short time. As outlined by TechCrunch, “When you see the results you’ll never want to see flight results in any format.” Lifehacker has comparable praise for the “fantastic” visual interface, which is gratifying to Goldstein, as that his team spent a great deal of time on that aspect of Hipmunk. There’s no clutter of text and buttons, just a color-coded arrangement of airlines. Searchers and very easily zoom in on a favored in the grid at any time for additional info.

Maybe winning with ‘a small, cute animal and a good logo’

Goldstein and Huffman met with a number of online flight booking websites before settling on a deal with Orbitz, one of probably the most popular online travel aggregators. Flights found on Hipmunk are booked via Orbitz and both websites benefit monetarily from the transaction. Hipmunk’s chipmunk in flight goggles will no doubt bring the company the kind of brand recognition Twitter enjoys with its bluebird. Goldstein’s girlfriend, as outlined by CNN, chose the mascot.

“She said, ‘If you pick a small, cute animal and a good logo you’ll never go wrong,’” Goldstein says.

Storing acorns for winter

Hipmunk is still in the early process of its evolution and is stockpiling ideas for how to improve. Issues like expanding search functions and monetizing the site in ways that don’t bombard users with spam are on Goldstein’s agenda. There’s going to be added functions. These will consist of hotels and auto rentals. It can be interesting to see how Hipmunk maintains its Zen-like design as additional content is added to the user experience. Of course, all of us know that getting a flight will change. It will be less frustrating to do.

Additional reading

CNN

money.cnn.com/2010/08/19/technology/hipmunk/

Hipmunk

hipmunk.com/