If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B <i>combined</i>, I don't think they would even blink an eye.<p>Come here and the top discussion thread is about how little Priceline does, how they're "just middlemen", and that they don't add any value.<p>It's clear that HN (and techies as a whole, I assume) highly discounts the value of users, marketing, brand, and distribution.<p>Really is fascinating how different perspectives can be.
This is stupid. Really. Here we are in a world where the companies that own the assets (you know, the things that cost a lot of money) are worth less than the things that don't own anything. This doesn't seem "right" or "fair" in the sense that Priceline should be a middleman, unable to exercise any or all pricing power because it does not control the assets producing the revenue. I wonder how long this can last?
I used to code for a hotel chain, and I remember that Priceline had some sort of weird legacy deal that made them essentially the only OTA (online travel agent) that was able to undercut the hotel's lowest price.
Nice, who would've thought that kayak, opentable and booking were worth north of $100Bn a couple of years ago. Kudos to the folks that made this a reality.
Great timing, Acquired just did a podcast about their acquisition of Booking.com, which has been called the “second or third best acquisition of all-time.”<p><a href="http://www.acquired.fm/episodes/2017/7/25/episode-41-bookingcom-with-jetsetter-room-77-ceo-drew-patterson" rel="nofollow">http://www.acquired.fm/episodes/2017/7/25/episode-41-booking...</a>
For the past 2 or 3 years i saw commercials of kayak on tv. Everytime I'd be price shopping, I'd start with their website. It never worked. I couldn't understand why they would advertise on tv and then have a broken website.<p>You know that page where it says it is doing the price comparison in the background? That's where it always stopped for me. Frozen, never updating.<p>Last month, I was travelling again and went to kayak just to check. I get to that page and it's frozen again. But this time i notice the little red X on the top right corner of the browser.<p>> Popup blocked<p>I went to the next website of course, but it makes me wonder. How much money have they lost because they decided to use pop-ups for no good reasons?
Interesting, it seems like a company that had a very inflated valuation due to the dot-com bubble, was hit very hard when the bubble burst and it took almost 15 years for the stock price to get back to pre-bubble level...
I am amazed. In fact, I still remember when someone told me in 2011'ish that they are worth ~30b$; I had the same reaction.<p>Does anyone know how they justify their valuation? Is it mostly by acquiring other smaller companies (Kayak etc.) and who are the other big competitors to Priceline?
So many of the travel sites are owned by Priceline. Here is wikis list:<p>Booking.com
Priceline.com
Agoda.com
Kayak.com
Cheapflights
Rentalcars.com
momondo
OpenTable<p>I am surprised they haven't bought Expedia or the other major sites.
I think the reason why some people (including me) can't fathom how Priceline can be successful is the same reason why they won't be able to start or scale another Priceline to success
I have no experience in the travel industry, but I see the value in priceline (name your price).
They provide hotels a way to keep the rooms filled without disclosing to the public the low rates. It also provides a way to reach a different market.
Source: I use priceline (name your price) at least once a year. Pretty happy with them.
The headline should read "Priceline Group Inc. now worth $100B"<p>priceline.com is pretty tiny compared to the totality of the group... Mostly booking.com really.
IMO a company's "real" value is determined by how useful it would be if the Earth had a high likelihood of complete destruction in a century. Needless to say, Priceline would probably be worth nothing in such a scenario.<p>Interestingly, Google and Facebook would still be pretty useful, albeit maybe not as much.