It’s interesting to say the least. Backed by its flight schedule technology, Google Flights seems like an evolutionary mash-up of Google’s Instant Search Feature and Google Maps. And while the system is not without its bugs currently–rates are not available for flights from the U.S. to international destinations and The New York Times reported that its flight search results are far from comprehensive–its suite of extra tools are impressive. Tools include a slider that allows you to filter by flight price and duration, and even recommendations for alternate destinations should a flight to your preferred destination be unavailable in your selected timeframe.

But what really sets Google Flights apart from Expedia, Kayak.com, and any number of competitors is its native audience. Thanks to products like Gmail, Blogger, its aggregated news channels, and so on, Google has a big advantage over competitors in that they could incorporate this new application into any of their other products. In fact, we’re already seeing this integration, as Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land points out. For example, a query of “flights from nyc to dc” generates the following result:

This might cause many SEOs to sit up and take note–as all their hard work results in listings that are now secondary to the output of Google Flights. By integrating Google Flights into its users’ extant internet habits (email and search alike), the internet titan stands to take over a lot of the market share in this particular niche from competitors like Kayak.com and Expedia, who, in addition to hosting external portals, lack the instantaneous results that Google Flights has, often subjecting users to intermediary loading pages.

This is also a sentiment echoed by Lifehacker’s Adam Pash, who writes, “It’s impressively intuitive, extremely fast, and though I hate to say it, I can see Google’s new flight search becoming a lot of people’s first destination for finding airline tickets online.”

Cross-published at the Blue Phoenix Network blog.

“WAYN is a travel community site that allows users to enter details of where they are and where they have travelled in the past. They can then contact one another to share information such as help each other find the best skiing in the French Alps, or the best bars in New York,” said Cree Lawson, founder and CEO of TAN.

A Deloitte Consumer Product Group-sponsored study recently showed that 62% of online users read product reviews written by other consumers.

Jerome Touze, co-founder and co-CEO of WAYN.com said “Ensuring our members receive targeted and relevant advertising is vital to the user experience. We are looking forward to working exclusively with the leading travel ad network to look after our US inventory which is increasing due to our very fast growing member base.”

Other perks of this service are other channels where consumers will be able to access travel content relevant to their needs faster, whether they registered with FareWatcher via email, RSS feed, or are just setting it up for the first time.

“Because our customers repeatedly tell us that FareWatcher is one of Travelocity’s most valued tools, we wanted to make it even easier for them to track deals to the destinations that truly matter to them. While we’re always working to find our members the best deals, we’re equally focused on giving them personalized information that adds real value to the entire trip experience,” said Jeffrey Glueck, chief marketing officer for Travelocity, in a statement.

By installing Microsoft Vista and then downloading FareWatcher, users can immediately gain access to the new feature, the key selling points of which are that it will continually update itself when Travelocity finds a price decrease for pre-selected routes, highlight featured flight promotions across the site, show booking capability options, and allow for consumer feedback.

According to stats from the Small Business Administration, the U.S. consists of over 25.8 million small businesses, with another 600,000 opening yearly. Although technology has advanced, many of these businesses consider travel a difficult issue when it comes to national and international clients. But Microsoft is aiming to change that.

Josh Linkner, founder and CEO of ePrize, which implemented the sweepstakes and instant win game, states, “Through software, Microsoft has always leveled the playing field for small businesses. The ‘Microsoft Office Live I’m Going Places’ sweepstakes takes that tradition one step further by giving small businesses a unique opportunity to live the big business dream of traveling in their own corporate jet.”

The “I’m Going Places” sweepstakes will run through March 7, 2007, and entrants can participate by going to Microsoft’s designated destination. Marquis Jets are only one of the prizes being offered to contestants of the “I’m Going Places” sweepstakes. Laptop computers from Dell and Sony as well as a $100 gift card to Best Buy and CompUSA are other prizes and benefits up for grabs.

The promotion will also be supported by placements on the Microsoft Office Live and Small Business Summit pages, as well as email communique to existing Microsoft Office Live customers.

This new deal will allow Ctrip to reach the 20 million MSN messenger users in China. The Shanghai-based travel agent signed the agreement based on this strategic move for access into MSN China.

Through MSN and the Microsoft portal, users have the ability to send messages to one another by using the former MSN messenger, which is now shelved under the Windows Live service.

Ctrip hopes to benefit from this partnership while also allowing MSN China to have more of an online travel booking presence. Users in China will be able to book hotels, purchase airfare and extended holiday trips by using the Internet service.

SideStep’s network includes 5 million consumers per month, while Orange Business Services can be found across 166 European countries. 15 million mobile customers are serviced in the UK alone with Orange and more than 2 million Internet customers are provided for in the country.

Charles Delamain, Director of Partner Solutions at Orange, says, “It is the aim of Orange to provide our portal users with the most exciting, relevant and easy-to-use information, of which travel plays a major role”. On the partnership Delamain confers, “we are delighted to be working with SideStep in providing customers a world-class online travel service.”

Claiming to be one of the first U.S. travel search businesses to have a presence within the UK, SideStep offers travel resources and more. In statement President and CEO, Rob Solomon said, “SideStep redefined the way people found and utilized travel information in the United States and we are thrilled to extend our innovations to the UK market through an established portal giant such as Orange. The UK represents the largest online travel market in Europe and we look forward to providing Orange customers with the ultimate online travel search experience.”

Founded by former MTVi President/CEO Nicholas Butterworth and former iFilm VP of Technology Tatum Lade, Travelistic features user-generated video, but also contains video from TV and original online content. Videos are categorized by location and can be tagged by users. For example, users may tag a video covering Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany with “beer” and “festivals.” Users can also embed the Travellistic videos in their own sites using snippets of code. A separate page lists the top videos and the top video uploaders. Some videos are preceded by 15 second pre-roll ads.

“Travel is all about personal connections, and Travelistic connects people by providing them the opportunity to tell their life-changing travel stories through video,” said CEO Nicholas Butterworth in a statement. “We offer a free boarding pass to the best of what’s been shot, allowing like-minded travelers to share where they’ve been and watch where they want to go. We want our viewers to see where video can take them, and so we seek out and welcome video from truly anywhere.”

Travellistic has been adding 100 new videos to the site each week and is talking with other travel and hospitality organizations to get them to post videos as well.

Trip Planner’s public release now sees the integration of Yahoo Maps, Flickr, and Yahoo 360 blogs. Users can see their trips plotted on a Yahoo Map, and can chronicle their journey by keeping a trip journal, illustrating it by dragging and dropping their Flickr photos.

“Just as other Yahoo! social search products like Flickr, Yahoo! Answers, del.icio.us, and MyWeb have created a platform for sharing information between users, Trip Planner is about offering a way for travelers to benefit from sharing their travel experiences,” said Jasper Malcolmson, Yahoo! Travel director in a statement.

The top trips are selected by the Yahoo community and plotted on a Yahoo map of the world. Yahoo users can get recommendations from Yahoo Travel Guide and have the option of printing out their trip guides to take with them. Trip Planner is also integrated into Yahoo Travel Guides and Yahoo FareChase, which helps travelers find the best rates for flights and hotels.

The deal, which includes providing static and moving property images, logos, maps, etc., will synchronize the company’s rich media content distribution to channels and resellers such as Pegasus, Yahoo, Opodo, Orbitz and Worldres.

Leonardo’s CEO, David Elton explains this move, saying, “Starwood Hotels & Resorts is a valued client that we have worked with for a number of years, and we are extremely delighted to be managing their rich content management and distribution requirements for the entire group. Hotel companies and channels utilize our products so they can optimize the operational efficiencies and cost savings that Leonardo solutions provide. The key industry players see Leonardo as the de-facto industry standard for the management and distribution of rich content.”