More deals to report. Thanks to Kevin and Travolution for breaking that Expedia's TripAdvisor has continued its targeted content acquisition plans and bought HolidayWatchdog for an undisclosed sum. This adds TripAdvisors collection of targeted sites including smartertravel.com and bookingbuddy.com; TravelPod.com; Travel-Library.com; SeatGuru.com; and Cruisecritic.com.So while the TripAdvisor site begins to look more and more like an OTA site than a content site they see more and more expansion opportunity from outside the TripAdvisor brand. This means that behind the scenes the revenue generators at TripAdvisor (ad sales guys and girls) begin to look more and more like members or a advertising network than product owners. That is not necessarily a bad thing but if taken too far goes away from the core of success - tight relationship with customers - and closer to the usually disinterested eyeball pushing that you associate with an ad network.
Oh.. and the for sake of my continued access to search engine traffic and to help all those who missed the memo let me once again confirm that since March 2004 Expedia Owns TripAdvisor...
UPDATE - Travolution are reporting the purchase price is rumoured at GBP9-10mm
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