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Comment by SriniK | Hacker News Reader

I am big fan of hipmunk as well. However as a product point of view I am afraid other folks(kayak/bing-travel) can easily copy/tweak their front end to match. I couldn't find stickiness in their business model.

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They could, but they'll be playing catch-up. Hipmunk has the merit of, pro-actively, knowing the value of user focus. If they stick with that theme, there are innumerable places in the travel purchase experience that can be polished and made less miserable. You can copy ideas after the fact, but not the active brains that drive them. The brains are Hipmunk's greatest asset.

What makes you think the other sites don't know the value of user focus? I am not sure that the aggregator experience is as miserable as you make out.

That's what I thought too. But then again, if they had the people to get that interface right, why haven't they done so before? The idea is not so far out, they simply don't compromise of ease and simplicity... like all good products.

Web design does not evolve that way. It evolves in fits and starts. In other words, someone does something new and other quickly follow. Half of the Web looks like either 37signals or Mint. :-)

Hipmunk funding may also be a clue to the 3 big online travel aggregators that they need to provide better search UI. I agree that the front end is not difficult to copy.

If even one of the Big 3 rolls this out, Hipmunk will be challenged to pull traffic... because their improved UI will be where the existing travel visitors are searching already.

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