As reported back in November, SideStep has replaced Hotwire as Amazon’s travel partner. Well, the SideStep/Amazon co-brand site is now up and running.
Here’s the old Amazon travel page featuring Hotwire:
Here’s the new Amazon travel page featuring SideStep:
At this point, the link to the above page is still pretty much burried at the bottom of Amazon’s busy home page and SideStep doesn’t show up on any of Amazon’s travel related pages: Books, Magazines, Luggage, etc, but I assume this will change over time.
I have not received any emails about the new travel section from Amazon, but I assume they will promote the service to people who have travel related products in their wish list.
Below the fold, Amazon has added some links promoting its various travel related content such as Romantic Travel Destinations, Where to Ski, Swimwear:
Once you click through to SideStep by performing a search, there’s a bit of Amazon branding at the top of the page. I assume SideStep’s logo will fill in the blank space currently showing:
So that’s it. When the deal was originally announced, neither company had any comments, but I will follow up and see if I can find out anything new. SideStep is a travel search engine, so I hope the company doesn’t clutter its site with a ton of travel content from Amazon, but Amazon definitely has the opportunity to elegantly push SideStep along side its own travel related content.
In other SideStep news today – SideStep launches in Ireland
Related Posts:
Rob Solomon books a trip on SideStep – January 16, 2006
Mobissimo $100 Offer – November 23, 2005
Travel search hitting tipping point – November 23, 2005
Not broadly viewed as the best placement out there, he says, employing great understatement.
You can check the legal record on that one
– Stuart