Startups

Ride-sharing is becoming an attractive employment and transportation alternative as long as there is some regulation, and the ride-sharing companies don't gouge riders. On the other hand, they won't succeed if they become to pricey.

These established startups are mobile, offer consistent service across major cities, appeal to young business travelers, and are positioned to replace slow room service that are quickly becoming a limited outdated option.

Many of the newest tour offers are rooted in current events, taking advantage of recent developments to create relevant and timely guides for travelers.

Twitter is slowly building additional features into the main service, and this new acquisition means it will make its formal entry into a local-travel and discovery sector, and may give a run for the money to other larger startups like Foursquare.

A focus on people supports what we’ve argued is Foursquare’s best use case: a local discovery and recommendation engine. To know where and when your friends go makes Foursquare the most personalized searched engine out there.

Don't write off Ostrovok yet, but clearly the Russia hotel site faces some huge challenges from Booking.com and the nature of the Russian market.

If done, this will be among the largest consumer Internet acquisitions in India's nascent digital sector, and show that building utility services that are layers on top of unorganized sectors matter more in countries like India, than flashy apps.

UberX’s greatest competitors might not be peer-to-peer ridesharing startups; they’re the taxi e-hailing apps that are gaining legitimacy and providing users a cheaper, faster way to access a transit option they already know and trust.