It could also be viewed as epic validation that the ideas are gold. I most certainly believe Hipmunk can compete against Google; the team is completely awesome and they're far more nimble and agile. Although Google does have an unbeatable vision of Maps I'd imagine...there's no real reason you shouldn't be able to get bus times and airplane times in the same place. And perhaps if you could then pay for the bus and the plane using your Android NFC...

Oh jeez. I love the future.

Evolution in action.

Luckily google sucks at squashing startups and ends up buying them for ridiculous amounts of money.