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Google Flight Search

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Re: Google Flight Search

#171

Post by bonamy »

geuis wrote: post #143
geuis wrote: post #25

General question here. Almost all flight search sites default the search dates to about 3 weeks out. Now, I find this annoying but I'm wondering if its done because there is statistical evidence that most customers search in that range of time, or rather if it's just what someone thought would be a good idea by "following their intuition".

Well this is some interesting research. Out of my off-hand and roughly scientific research, my statement of "almost all" was quite off. I found that all of the major carrier websites I could remember off the top of my head did not employ the date-ahead practice. Delta - no US Airways - no Southwest - no Virgin America - no Continental - no I followed that by a Google search for "flight search" and checked the sites t…

I cannot vouch for the other sites, but at Skyscanner we looked at the aggregated search history (12 million users a month) to make a best guess at the default dates to set.Interestingly the defaults we use are different for the mobile platforms. (We use our own backend technology)

Re: Google Flight Search

#172

Post by kellysutton »

mlinsey wrote: post #88
kellysutton wrote: post #39

"5 unknown price" Looks like it needs another QA pass.

Were those Southwest flights? I think SWA doesn't let any of the aggregators display prices for their flights - I was pleasantly surprised that I saw Southwest flights at all.

I was pointing out the obvious typo. It should read "5 unknown prices."

Re: Google Flight Search

#173

Post by shoota »

Permit wrote: post #111
Omnipresent wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its' tough for a company to keep impressing customers with everything that comes out of it. That is what google has been doing for a long time now. It really is impressive. As a developer, I just HOPE that one day google takes a service like this and makes a long blog post out of it describing and bisecting every aspect of the app and how it was built. I'm tired of clicking 'view source' and finding nothing but minim…

A tip I found the other day is that in Chrome you can actually de-obfuscate minimized Javascript and throw break points in there if you'd like. In Chrome 12 you just right click the scripts pane in the developer tools and click "De-obfuscate Source". In Chrome 13 you navigate to the scripts pane and click the "{}" icon. I honestly have no idea why they got rid of the right click functionality, but it's incredibly use…

Thanks for the tip. I did not know about this.

Re: Google Flight Search

#176

Post by listic »

goldfish wrote: post #90
marquis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the first site that has JetBlue and SouthWest comparisons with the major airlines will have my traffic. I usually prefer to travel on price when it's not business so I love how Google has made this clear - that's my core problem with Hipmunk and I'm not sure why they don't just tell you the cheapest days to fly, like Kayak at least tries to. I also like how http://skyscanner.com does it.

We (Hipmunk) have Jetblue, and so does Kayak and Google. We also let you figure out the cheapest days to fly: just click "I'm flexible."

Maybe you should have "I'm flexible" on the results page, too? Skyscanner does. I would not find it without your hint.

Re: Google Flight Search

#177

Post by kelnos »

rudiger wrote: post #156
_urga wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you drove past a restaurant that had a big sign outside that said "no cockroaches here", what would you associate with it? I have always been amazed that some people would consider "don't be evil" to be a motto with any power to motivate or lead people, since it ventures no strong opinion, and points in no clear direction. "Do good" is far more costly, less likely to be politically correct, and more likely to invi…

Think of the Golden Rule: Should one treat others as one would like others to treat oneself? (the positive form) Should one not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated? (the negative form) I consider the maxim “Don't be evil” to be more actionable, useful, and meaningful than “Be good.”

I think Don't be Evil is just easier, since you could make the argument that you could theoretically actually enumerate a list of things that most people would consider truly "evil". Do Good... well, good luck making that list.

So, uh... in hindsight I guess I'm just agreeing with you :-P

Re: Google Flight Search

#179

Post by kelnos »

throwaway32 wrote: post #153
haberman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say this, maybe believing it fulfills some deep-seated need for cynicism, or makes the speaker feel wise and worldly. But what is your actual argument in support of this? Just saying it does not make it true. If profit is the only motivation for decisions at Google, why did it pull out of China? I'm sure you're cynical and wise about that too, but here's what I can tell you. I saw Sergey up on stage sa…

I never said profit was their only motivation, but it is the reason they are a corporation, and not a charity. I refer you to the comment above by jey What Google "wants" as an entity is different from what the individual component humans want. Although Sergey is an obviously important influence at Google, he is not Google.

I never said profit was their only motivation, but it is the reason they are a corporation, and not a charity.

Not necessarily. To parrot one of the other posters here: saying it doesn't make it true.

You could also argue that being a charity would be a very slow and inefficient means to achieving many of the things Google has set out to do. Being a for-profit corp gets them there faster and with fewer distractions not core to their purpose. I'd even venture to guess that it wouldn't be possible for Google to do what it does as a non-profit.

Sure, profit is a motivation, but it's certainly not the only (or even necessarily primary) motivation.

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