Vacations Blog

We launched UpTake to make the entire travel planning process easier and we started with the specific goal of improving the first step in the travel planning process – helping consumers decide where to go, where to stay and what to do. With our new Series B investment led by Trinity Ventures, we will build on the progress we achieved since our Series A investment from Shasta Ventures and accelerate our growth.

How do we plan to grow? First, we will expand our search offering beyond UpTake Hotels into new categories including: UpTake Lodging, UpTake Things to Do, UpTake Restaurants and UpTake Beaches. Second, we will improve our ability to deliver travel recommendations based on our analysis and filtering of collective intelligence and on consumers’ specific travel preferences. Lastly, when it makes sense, we will accelerate our growth through acquisitions.

We solve information overload to help you make decisions with confidence

We know from external research and internal consumer studies that the primary challenge for you (”you” being the quintessential consumer traveler more interested in your trip experience then the absolute lowest price) in deciding where to go, where to stay and what to do is that there is too much information scattered across too many sources. And when you can’t find a trusted friend who has been there before to give you advice, you turn to web search and swim through that ocean of unorganized, fragmented information to find the relevant bits of information you need. A Google study shows the average traveler completes 12 searches and visits 22 sites before booking. For every search for flights you might do, you will do ten more searches on what to do, where to stay, where to eat, etc. You also want much more then prices, you want photos, maps, descriptions, reviews et al. This translates to approximately 10 billion travel-related web searches annually.

At UpTake, we are solving this information overload problem. We have aggregated 20 million opinions and information from over 1,000 web sites on 400,000 products and organized it to help you find everything in one place.

We aren’t helping you ‘just’ with hotels, but also with campgrounds, beaches, museums, theme parks, spas and all the activities that make your trips memorable.

We recommend based on understanding collective intelligence

Our approach is unique. Like Google, we aggregate all the existing information we can find (but unlike Google, we just do travel).

However, we have a better understanding of the aggregated information so we can organize and present it better (e.g. romantic hotels, kid-friendly things to do).  How? That’s a long explanation. The short version is that we extract sentiments and metadata from reviews, descriptions, blogs, articles so we can recommend specific options tailored to your preferences – and explain why we are making the recommendation.

We are complementary to existing travel companies

We specifically built our product and our business to be complementary with the travel industry. We are an information search application that aggregates and analyzes travel information, displays the most relevant abstracts with the information provider’s brand displayed, and drives free, qualified leads to the information provider when the consumer wants more than we display. As a search company, we are not a content creator, a “destination site,” a community site, a content publisher, a trip organizing site, or a booking engine. We simply help people search existing travel information to make better decisions.

Because of our complementary approach, a number of information providers wanted us to display more of their information, faster. That’s why we created our Content Partner Program – so that you can send us feeds rather then wait for us to crawl your site. Let us know if you want to participate.

We are looking forward to improving travel search over the next few years, if you would like to partner with us, just have a few questions, or would like to send feedback please email me (yen at uptake.com).

p.s. we are looking to add a few, very talented data, search and application engineers to our team – please send along folks you think would be a good fit; thanks in advance!

National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center, NY, NY

There are many touching memorials to honor those who died on this day besides the new memorial being built in New York at the World Trade Center. The attack on 9/11 did not tear us apart as intended, instead it brought diverse cultures together to honor those who died:

Russia donated a memorial to a small town in New Jersey, a town in Connecticut came together to build a glass tribute, Ducks Unlimited and a park commission collaborated to create a space for reflection, Staten Island created an uplifting sculpture for their hard hit community. An airport in Boston just dedicated it’s beautiful shrine and the U.S. Department of Defense dedicates their memorial on 9/11–those experts in sadness created an eloquent monument for  those we lost.  All  honor those who sacrificed for us. All are built from the ground up. All are beautiful.

National Memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey, courtesy of sister72.

“Standing more than 100 feet tall, “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism” honors victims of 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and serves a symbol of solidarity in the fight against world terrorism. Created by Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, the memorial was a gift from the Russian people.”–Bayonne Redevelopment Authority.

National Memorial in honor of September 11, 2001 in the Meadowlands, New Jersey, photo courtesy of tonythemisfit

“The memorial site is directly across the  Hudson River from where the World Trade Centers once stood. A permanent memorial consisting of a curved deck with two projecting piers that face the Manhattan skyline was constructed along a marsh cove in the park. The piers are patterned after the World  Trade   Center   Towers  and surfaced with 110 boards representing the 110 floors of the towers. Where the piers meet the main deck, a porcelain enamel plaque dedicates the site in memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11.”–New Jersey Meadowlands Commission in partnership with Ducks Unlimited.

The Danbury September 11 Memorial in Danbury, Connecticut courtesy of carbonnyc

“The Danbury Memorial was constructed by taking huge sheets of e glass and cutting out the center parts of 28 inch squares and using a hammer and chisel to chisel out the inner space, forming a 21 inch square by 144 inch interior space – representing the absence of the World Trade Towers to their proportional dimensions. The interior empty space is the same proportional dimensions as the physical presence of both Towers. The inner polished glass panel has engraved, on the backside, the names of all the Connecticut victims. Danbury residents’ names are highlighted at eye-level.”– City of Danbury, Connecticut

Pentagon Memorial, Dedication is on September 11, 2008

The Pentagon Memorial “honors 184 people whose lives were lost at the Pentagon and  American Airline Flight 77, their families and all those who sacrifice that we may live in freedom.”– U.S. Department of Defense

9/11 Memorial Monmouth Park, New Jersey

“Monmouth County’s 9/11 Memorial has three symbolic components: a timeline walkway to recollect the day’s events; a stone base carved with the names, ages and hometowns of the county residents who lost their lives; and an eagle sculpture with a beam from one of the fallen towers. There were 147 people from Monmouth County who perished in the terrorists attacks of September 11th, 2001… For days and weeks afterward, people visited Mount Mitchill to reflect and remember.” –Monmouth County Parks

Staten Island photo also by acnatta

“Staten Island was one of the hardest hit communities on 9/11, losing nearly 270 loved ones in the terrorist attacks on New York City that day. As a result, Staten Island needed its own memorial, a place for the loved ones of the victims to mourn and reflect, and a place for all visitors to remember those who lost their lives on that tragic day.

A Memorial Advisory Committee was formed, which included members of victims’ families and community representatives. The committee selected Masayuki Sono’s postcards from nearly 200 submissions. The solemn, yet uplifting design features two thin structures resembling postcards, perhaps sent to lost loved ones. From afar,they appear to be outstretched wings or a flower about to blossom.In order to honor the individual lives lost, part of Mr. Sono’s design provides that each Staten Island victim be honored with a 9”x11” granite plaque that will bear their name, birth date and place of work on September 11, 2001 as well as their profile in silhouette.–Staten Island Memorial

The Logan Airport 9/11 Memorial

The Logan Airport Memorial shining cube in Boston “honors the passengers and crews of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, which departed Logan Airport that morning for Los Angeles. The Memorial also commemorates the dedication to duty of the Logan Airport community in restoring the aviation system to full operation and the contributions its members made toward comforting the families of the passengers and crew who were aboard those flights.”–Massport

 I realize there are many more types of memorials created by thousands of from quilts to tattoos. These spoke to me.

May you go in peace.