SIDESTEP

SideStep is a metasearch engine for travel which makes money through advertising and referral fees. It searches more than 200 websites looking for the best travel deals. SideStep has recently been aggressive in building up its offerings. They acquired [TripUp](http://crunchbase.com/organization/tripup) (a social network focused on travel) and TravelPost.com (a hotel ratings site) with the goal of becoming "the leader in online travel related information." In addition, they have launched tw... o [Facebook](http://crunchbase.com/organization/facebook) applications. The Trips Facebook application provides a trip planning service that currently has over 150,000 users. The Extended Info application allows users to add fields and categories of their own choice to a Facebook profile. SideStep is also developing a Facebook App for TripUp that should be launched later in the year. SideStep was acquired in December 2007 by their nearest competitor Kayak for roughly $180,000,000. Other popular travel metasearch sites and SideStep competitors include [Cheapflights](http://www.cheapflights.com), [Farechase](http://www.Farechase.com), [Mobissimo](http://www.Mobissimo.com) and [Qixo](http://www.Qixo.com).More