If you aren’t receiving the TravelZoo.com newsletter, I highly suggest it.

Though, the most recent newsletter left me rather disappointed.

Today’s newsletter talked about the beta launch of Fly.com, TravelZoo’s most recent launch of a travel service. I have to say that when I saw the domain name Fly.com, I started to conjure up some gnarly images of the types of things you could do with this domain. You could create a pretty killer web 2.0 app that would give a 3d interactive tour of airplanes for the purpose of picking your seat. It could be the largest archive for aircraft specifications in the world with a partnership with Google to properly organize the centuries worth of information.

But no. I get to the website, and it is just like SideStep.com, with a different logo. Furthermore, I prefer the sidestep.com interface to this one. I applaud the design, as it is simplistic and to the point. However, THIS SERVICE ALREADY EXISTS in a plethora of other spots. But to be honest, it is OK to create a new website that offers a similar service, but why create something that is almost identical? Not only that, but they are calling themselves the same thing, which is a “travel search engine”.

I suggest you open up two windows side by side, one of them is fly.com, and the other is sidestep.com. You don’t have to know anything about either site to immediately notice a difference.

To me, the lack of creativity in the travel industry is starting to show in spades. Back as far as I can remember, TravelZoo.com was always one of the first and greatest traveling resources on the net, dating back to the late 90’s. It is a shame that they lack the creativity to do something spectactular with all of their resources. Because if they own Fly.com, and they can replicate SideStep.com to such a degree, clearly they are capable of something more.

Maybe they need to move their offices to Silicon Valley and hang out with some of the ROR developers in San Francisco.

-Mr. Travel