Web 2.0 has been a nichy phenomenon with hundred and thousands of microcap efforts addressing one of the Cs, lately, Community being the most popular force, producing companies like MySpace, Facebook, Piczo, Xanga, and Flixster.

Just in case you aren’t aware, Web 2.0 is a term coined to describe the phletora of websites that exists nowadays catering to Internet users to have a place where they can network and participate in a more interactive way. Examples of web 2.0 based are Flickr, where users can share photos, and Wikipedia, a place where users can help to contribute to an article’s content either by editing or adding to it.

And not forgetting, blogging is also included in the web 2.0 family. Compared to the conventional fashion of publishing, it allows readers to share their views by commenting on it. And recently there’s a discussion of the possibilty of the third wave to hit the web in near future, the web 3.0.

What exactly is web 3.0? It basically means web browsing with 3D experience. If Web 2.0 is built towards the social side of the online world, web 3.0 is expected to be where the money will be made by the corporations. Although it have existed for quite some time now, but the exposure is for web 3.0 based applications more towards focused groups. This is possible, thanks to the development of faster processors and hi-speed broadband access that keep on coming our way nowadays.

Web 3.0 based applications are expected to be a virtual reality location where consumers can try anything. An example would be the Second Life, where more than 1 million players, including offline merchants participate.

In Web 1.0, Commerce had been the driving force, that produced companies like Netflix, BlueNile, Amazon, and eBAY. It had also resulted in the Dotcom meltdown.

The same period that is seeing the surge of Web 2.0, has also seen a great deal of investment in Vertical Search, like Sidestep for Travel.

Personalization has remained limited to some unsatisfactory efforts by the MyYahoo team, their primary disadvantage being the lack of a starting Context. More recently, Netvibes
has raised a lot of buzz, but also lacks the same organizing principle: Context.

With the storm of web2.0 many indian travel sites like yatra, cleartrip, makemy trip etc either went online or got aligned with the trend and now its upto them how they want to move ahead wiht the web3.0 revolution. They have been catching up with the trens and continuousely went under modifications in order to provide better user experiences in terms to services to the end user, so far they have been successful and stood the test of time. Now i am sure everyone is unclear as to how to handle the web3.0 boast, should we go with it or not only the customers will say or a new strong competitor willl arise in the same domain with all web3.0 tools to lure customer which might give a test for true taste of end users. Question is how do we go along adopting web3.0, is it complete modification of existing system or just an enhancement/update that can help us achieve the web3.0

In Web 3.0, I predict, we are going to start seeing roll-ups. We will see a trunk that emerges from the Context, be it film (Netflix), music (iTunes), travel, cooking / food, …. and assembles the Web 3.0 formula that addresses the whole set of needs of a consumer in that Context.

Few facts about Indian travel industry, front and back players

• Travel portals in India did business of $800 million (of the total $15.5 billion travel market in the country) in 2006. This increased to around $2 billion in 2008.
• In 2006, India attracted 4.43 million foreign tourists; the same year, around 350-400 million domestic tourists are estimated to have traveled around the country
• Air passengers in the country increased from 22.788 million in 2005 to 32.172 million in 2006 to around 40 million in 2008
• Flight raja is already profitable and does business of Rs1 crore a day.
• On an average, commission from air tickets which account for the bulk of the business are the lowest and range from between 2% and 9%.
• For hotel bookings, the commission is much higher and varies between 8% and 25%

Now the above players are surviving either by a sustainable business model or by variour marketing campaigns held during the year but the points is all of them are well aware of they online presence and they spend a lot in catching up with the latest trends in technology, so far they have invested a lot in getting web2.0 and its it will be a big business discussion on rolling over to web3.0.
Today anyone with an Internet access and Credit card can just like that, plan for a week’s tour to South Africa or the Himalayas, thanks to the travel sites who offer trip planning at your finger-tips – flight booking, hotels and car rentals along with the reviews of the hotels, places of interest, and information on packaged deals. Clearly travel sites have been redefining the travel agency business.
Online travel is one of the largest e-commerce categories. According to Forrester Research the online travel industry is projected to grow from $63.6 billion in 2005 to $110.5 billion by 2008 in the US only . JupiterResearch on the other hand estimates $128 billion to be spent on online travel in the US in 2011. Jupiter expects 38% of all travel revenues to be made online by 2011. Over the last few weeks, we have analyzed the Travel sites based on the Web 3.0 framework.
The online travel industry is expected to continue its strong growth and this is one of the main reasons for the ongoing VC and entrepreneurial interest in this category. The fact that online travel is a booming industry is clear from the growing number of travel sites, emergence of travel metasearch engines like Kayak and SideStep and the mushrooming of niche sites like yatra, makemytrip etc.
Context is, by and large, poorly understood by the sites, although nuances like flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, vacation pacakges, maps, hotel and destination reviews, trip planning, sharing, etc. allow the consumers to plan their trips and make bookings. But few have created contexts like student travel, luxury travel, adventure travel, romantic travel, etc.
The Content offerings at many of the sites are good. Some, like Lonely Planet, come from Content roots, and do an especially good job. The CPM rates for these sites are similar and are in the range of $15 to $65 per thousand impressions. Considering the present boom in the online travel industry, ad rates are expected to rise in the coming years.
The Community features on most of these sites lack punch and leaves a lot to be desired. Trip Advisor has the best community section but the rest really needs to improve the community features and incorporate photo and video sharing, forums and blogs on different aspects of traveling like trekking, backpackers, family, summer holiday, etc.
Online travel is the largest Commerce segment and most of the revenues come from the commissions earned on the bookings made through the sites. However, most of the Indian websites are not taking full advantage of e-commerce and I believe there is an opportunity for these sites to retail a lot of travel related merchandise through their site.
What I would like in the Vertical Search space is that the sites allow users to Search by Context and by this I mean, if I am a student I would like to search for hostels for backpackers like me, as well as other travelers to hang out with, by destination.
Personalization is sub-par in most of these sites and they allow users to plan their trip, save and share their trip, photos, make posts and write reviews. They have email alerts for travel deals and newsletters. Endless possibilities exist, all the way to a Personal Concierge.
Conclusion
The online travel industry is projected to grow at 30% per annum in the next 5 years and this has resulted in a number of entrepreneurs, VC and PE funds entering the space. However, travel sites that are able to integrate the latest technology, differentiate their offerings, build their brand and provide consumers with the best Web 3.0 experience will have an edge in this highly commoditized industry, and that opportunity applies just as well to the major airline sites.
PS: I went through different Blogs and forums to develop my understanding and also took some data and material from different websites to make it an effective reading for the reader.