Fly for less with Hipmunk

Adam Goldstein started a summer project which might just be the best way for online flight search called Hipmunk. CNN Money explains that Goldstein had some help from Steve Huffman, Reddit co-founder, when doing this new program. In strokes of brilliant color and user-friendly interface arrangement, Goldstein may have just painted his way to the big time.

Online travel gets hip with Hipmunk

As opposed to a uninteresting text list of flights, Hipmunk dresses the entire process in color and arranges flights on an easy-to-analyze grid. Just this week there was a launch. Reviews are really great in just that short time. TechCrunch makes clear, “When you see the results you’ll never want to see flight results in any other format.” Lifehacker has similar praise for the “fantastic” visual interface, which is gratifying to Goldstein, as that his team spent an excellent deal of time on that aspect of Hipmunk. There’s no clutter of text and buttons, just a color-coded arrangement of airlines. A specific grid can be looked at closer effortlessly. All one has to do is zoom in a little closer.

They just use ‘a small, cute animal and a good logo’

Goldstein and Huffman met with a number of online flight booking online websites before settling on a deal with Orbitz, one of one of the most popular online travel aggregators. Orbits and Hipmunk work together to book flights. Hipmunk books it through Orbitz making both win. When going to Twitter, the bluebird is acknowledged as the logo. Hipmunk is about the exact same considering the chipmunk in flight goggles that will soon be recognizable. Goldstein’s girlfriend, according to CNN, chose the mascot.

“She said, ‘If you pick a small, cute animal and a good logo you’ll never go wrong,’” Goldstein says.

Storing acorns for winter

Hipmunk has been evolving a bit. It is trying to improve each day with new ideas. Some of the things it’d like to improve would be stopping spam and expanding search functions. It’s more likely that hotels and auto rentals can be added on. It could be interesting to see how Hipmunk maintains its Zen-like design as additional content is added to the user experience. It is much less frustrating to search for a flight now though.

Additional reading

CNN

money.cnn.com/2010/08/19/technology/hipmunk/

Hipmunk

hipmunk.com/