Otalo.com

Otalo
Type of business Private
Founded 2009
Headquarters Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
Key people Baer Tierkel (CEO, Co-Founder)
Mike Giles (CTO, Co-Founder)
Industry Travel, Internet
Website otalo.com

Otalo.com (pronounced ō·tal·ō)[1] is a fare aggregator and metasearch engine for vacation rentals. It enables people to search across many different vacation rental advertising sites using a single search.[2]

The site was launched by Baer Tierkel and Mike Giles.[3] Giles was previously the founder of social bookmarking site Furl, which was acquired by LookSmart in 2004.[4] Tierkel was previously the co-founder of the social citizenship site Localocracy, which was acquired by Huffington Post Media Group in 2011,[5] as well as CMO of the enterprise software company PeopleSoft.[6]

History

Otalo.com was conceived of by Tierkel and Giles in 2009 in Amherst, Massachusetts . They came up with the name of the site, Otalo, by combining the Zen symbol enzo ("O") with the Finnish word for house ("talo") after having found so many website names already taken.[7][8]

Otalo.com was launched in 2009, providing search of over 200,000 vacation rental listings.[2] In February 2012, Otalo increased its search index to over 1.6 million vacation rental listings in 164 countries.[9][10]

Product

Otalo.com is a travel metasearch engine that enables visitors to search across many vacation rental sites with a single search. The site aggregates listings from multiple vacation rental sites, eliminating duplicate information and organizes the results into a coherent collection.[10] Visitors can either browse vacation rental listings by location or can search for specific locations, availability dates, how much they want to spend, number of bedrooms, and details about pets, smoking, and waterfront.[2]

Otalo.com has been called "the KAYAK of vacation rentals".[2][11]

Partners & Listings

Otalo.com does not take direct property listings - it only aggregates properties from large vacation rental sites.[12]

The firm's search index includes 1.6 million vacation rental listings in 164 countries.[10][13][14] The index includes 46 different vacation rental websites in its search index.[10][12][13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Otalo.com - About".
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ostrow, Adam (February 19, 2009). "Otalo's Genius Way of Finding Vacation Rentals". Mashable.
  3. ↑ Arrington, Michael (January 6, 2009). "Use Otalo to Search for Vacation Rentals". TechCrunch.
  4. ↑ Arrington, Michael (June 19, 2005). "Profile of Furl". TechCrunch.
  5. ↑ "Localocracy CrunchBase Profile". CrunchBase. October 26, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Baer Tierkel". San Francisco Business Times. January 30, 2000.
  7. ↑ Staff Writer (January 10, 2010). "Travel Website Founded by Amherst Duo Going Strong". Daily Hampshire Gazette.
  8. ↑ Felton, Robert Todd (April 20, 2009). "Interview with Otalo - Vacation Rentals Search". Wandering Educators.
  9. ↑ Staff Writer (February 4, 2012). "Otalo Expands to 1.6 Million Vacation Rentals in 164 Countries". Dallas Morning News.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Aamoth, Doug (July 11, 2012). "Otalo Corrals Vacation Home Rentals in One Place for Easy Browsing". Time.com.
  11. ↑ "Website of the Day: Otalo". GeekSugar. February 4, 2009.
  12. 1 2 "Otalo.com - About".
  13. 1 2 "Otalo Expands to 1.6 Million Vacation Rentals in 164 Countries". San Francisco Chronicle. February 4, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Otalo". TechCrunch.
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