20 May 2013
  • Five startups that want to define the future of travel in five different ways

    Digital

    Between business and leisure travel, transportation that ranges from planes to bikes, and booking platforms for everything from hotels to tours, there are endless opportunities to define the future of travel. This week’s SkiftSeedlings speaks to that breadth of opportunity by including everything from a media company looking to launch the world’s largest consumer travel [...]

19 May 2013
  • Top ten iPhone apps for business travelers

    Digital

    Travel is high-tech – especially for business travellers who need to stay in touch with the office and keep communications secure. An iPhone or iPad can be a handy tool to finding your way around an unfamiliar city, but now it can also be used to check in at your hotel – as our feature [...]

18 May 2013
  • Do Hailo and Uber taxi e-hail apps defy a NYC judge’s orders? Nobody knows

    Transport

    New York City’s much-anticipated e-hail app program was cut short by a temporary restraining order (TRO) just days after launch, but that hasn’t halted the operations of the two startups that were already approved for participation. Hailo and Uber‘s cab drivers continue to pick up passengers via the companies’ mobile e-hail apps every day. Why do they [...]

15 May 2013
  • The new Google Maps products are the killer travel apps

    Digital

    The most popular travel app on smartphones has always been Google Maps, but today’s announcements at the Google I/O developers conference makes life even more difficult for what few mapping, planning, and local information competitors the search giant has left. Google’s updated Maps products for smartphones, tablets, and desktop improve on what’s already the best [...]

13 May 2013
  • Facebook Android app can play photographer without your confirmation

    Digital

    CNBC’s Eli Langer put together a Storify collecting tweets and posts that suggest the Facebook app on Android might be a security risk. Yep. That says that the app has permission to “record audio at any time” and “use the camera at any time” without your confirmation. [View the story "Android Apps Accessing Your Microphone [...]

12 May 2013
  • Great for global travelers: Mobile messaging apps overtaking text messages

    Digital

    WhatsAp is one of Silicon Valley’s most buzzed-about companies, yet it actively avoids the spotlight, operating out of a small office in Mountain View, Calif., with no sign on the building entrance or on the office door. Unlike most start-ups eager for media attention, WhatsApp Inc. says it doesn’t want or need it. Its popular mobile [...]

11 May 2013
  • TripAdvisor advises against mobile apps for its hotel customers

    Digital

    TripAdvisor is advising its hotel customers that they should definitely fine-tune their mobile offerings, but should probably steer clear of mobile apps. “They can be expensive to create, so only develop an app if you have enough frequent travelers who’ll use it often enough,” TripAdvisor says, referring to downloadable mobile apps, in a new TripAdvisor [...]

10 May 2013
  • Gwyneth Paltrow City Guides app certainly isn’t a rough guide

    Destinations

    If you’re tired of using the Internet to find the best, coolest, hippest places to hang out in a new city, you can now skip Google and take your travel advice from your dear old friend, Gwyneth Paltrow. The actress-turned-lifestyle guru chatted about her series of travel apps, The Goop City Guides, at an event [...]

06 May 2013
  • Five travel startups hack HotelTonight and taxi apps in the U.S. and abroad

    Transport

    If there were ever a question whether travelers from different cultures have similar concerns, one would only have to look at the global startup scene. Developers in Hanoi are working on the same problem as entrepreneurs in Chicago, and travelers in both destinations are downloading apps and testing new sites to find cheap deals on [...]

04 May 2013
  • Desktop still dominates mobile as travelers’ preferred booking platform

    Digital

    Mobile websites and apps have so far failed in their coup to overtake online bookings. Their rise in popularity and functionality is indisputable, but laptops and desktops are still the preferred platform for booking travel, according to a study by Mobiquity. Sixty-nine percent of travelers looking to book travel on a laptop or desktop plan [...]