Uptake.com, is another website by Yen Lee, a former general manager of Yahoo Travel (YHOO).

After a quick peek, I got a sense that this could be Yelp for travel. Yelp did start out in San Francisco and I even saw a lot of their Craigslist listing for college kids to review restaurants and retail stores for like $5 per review. (when they were unknown that is)

Perhaps that’s not what uptake can do as travel covers so many different places but they could target major tourism areas like Las Vegas, New York, Hawaii, and San Francisco.

This site does have potential to become a lot bigger as I do like the site layout plus the GoogleMaps API looks great for a travel site. Now, they might even do better if they add a travel blog and write about places they go for promoting their site… (hint, hint?)

Looks great though and they could end up killing competitor sites like Orbitz one day.

(click to enlarge)

Is there room for another? Perhaps. Enter, Uptake, the invention of former general manager of Yahoo Travel, Yen Lee.

Having previously carried the name “Kango,” in its private beta days (circa, December 2007), UpTake is a site that purports to offer a collection of “the travel industry’s largest database of hotels and attractions,” plus an analysis of “more than 20 million online opinions.” All of it intended to carry out the industry promise of helping travelers “make better decisions.”

via mashable

Tags: api, college kids, competitor, decisions, different places, hawaii, hint hint, invention, kango, las vegas, peek, retail stores, san-francisco, tourism areas, travel industry, travel site, yelp, yen lee, yhoo

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 10:27 am and is filed under Launched, Niche, web2.0.
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