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July 29, 2011

Google introduces Hotel Finder

July 29, 2011, 11:51 AM

Google Introduces Hotel Search

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Google on Thursday joined sites like Kayak, Expedia and Hotels.com by introducing a tool for searching hotels. 
The site is http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/

Hotel Finder, which Google calls an experiment because it is in early stages and only available in the United States, lets people search hotels in various cities, save those that interest them and book reservations.
The new service, which competes with other travel search engines, comes as Google fights antitrust investigations that include a look at whether Google discriminates against existing Web sites in search results when it enters new businesses.
For instance, since Google introduced local business reviews, social networking and comparison shopping, sites that offer those services have said they worry about whether Google will favor its own products in search results.Google has long said that it does not practice favoritism for Web sites, but gives the user the best result, whether or not that is a Google service.
Hotel Finder links to other hotel search sites, like Expedia and Hotels.com, for booking reservations if they are Google advertisers, and these sites provide Google with price and availability information. Google also links to the hotel’s own Web site. The hotel price ads, as Google calls them, also show up on Google Maps and the main search engine. Advertisers only pay if a user clicks on a price listing.
Google also shows hotels that its own search engine surfaces, which do not yet include price or booking information.
On Hotel Finder, travelers can search hotels in new ways. Google highlights the most popular areas of cities, which is similar to Hipmunk’s service, and Google lets users draw a shape around the part of town they want to search. Google shows whether a price is a good deal or more than most hotels in the area, similar to Bing Travel. Users can also save hotels they like to a short list for easy access.
Hotel Finder shows photos, information and customer reviews and star ratings from Google Places. The photos are provided by a hotel marketing firm called VFM Leonardo.

Google is interested in building more travel search tools, which is why it spent $700 million to buy I.T.A. Software, a flight search company. It has not yet introduced flight search tools and the company said the hotel search did not use I.T.A.’s technology. Microsoft, which also offers flight and hotel search with Bing Travel, fought Google’s acquisition of I.T.A.


Source: NYTimes
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/google-introduces-hotel-search/?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065
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July 4, 2011

How To Remove the Google big black bar

How to Remove the New Black Bar on Google.com
by James Plafke | 11:41 am, June 29th, 2011



Many people noticed the new black bar sitting atop Google.com like it owned the place yesterday, and since then, most of those people have sought out ways to remove said black bar and revert their Google to the less eye-popping, minimalist version they knew and loved. After searching through the settings tab like a madman, I could not turn up some kind of simple disable feature, so I took to the Internet to find a quick, easy way to remove that obtrusive bar and get my eyes to focus on the search box once again.

At the time of this post, I’ve found two different ways to remove the bar, both of which are easy enough, but admittedly, not as ideal as a simple, native option in the bar itself. Head on past the break to pick your poison and remove some unnecessary Google screen pollution.

1. Greasemonkey Script
First off, Greasemonkey isn’t compatible with all browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera, so if you don’t use a compatible browser, you’ll have to  use a workaround, detailed here. Currently the script just hides the black bar completely, which means it hides the links contained within the bar, but the creator, Keith Dsouza, is currently working on replacing the eye-popping black with a less obtrusive color, basically reverting Google to the earlier version we’re all used to. You can download and install the black bar hider script from here, and make sure to stay on top of Dsouza’s progress if you really care about the links the script removes and can’t wait for his modified script that brings them back.

The other easy way to remove the black bar is to employ the help of a user-created style. If you use Chrome, you can install Stylish from the Chrome Web Store. If you use Firefox, you can install Stylish from here. 

Full link below:

If you use another browser, it seems you’re out of luck. After Stylish is installed, simply navigate here and follow the quick instructions on installing the style (which boils down to clicking a link), which will revert the black bar to the previous light-colored theme. Unlike the current version of the above Greasemonkey script, this style will keep the links from the black bar, rather than remove them entirely along with the bar.

Hopefully one of the above two methods will placate your browsing eyes until 

Google either reverts to the old easier-on-the-eyes bar, or adds a native option to pick a preferred color. Happy browsing.

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