City Search Travel
City Search Travel --Its back. CitySearch Travel.
Some great ideas come too early. Some come too late. Some come too early, flounder around for a few years and reinvent themselves again and again. The latter is City Search.
Founded in the mid 1990’s as a way for people to post information and details about travel destinations and cities, citysearch.com struggled through quick expansion and a wavering mission. They even purchased their biggest competitor at the time, “Sidewalk” which was owned by Microsoft.
The
original design was to have an editorial staff and local contributors
in almost every city in the U.S. and main tourist destinations abroad.
City Search Travel had design on being the local source for information.
But, like many things in the late ‘90’s, City Search Travel
was forced to try to reinvent itself in to a profitable business rather
than a big spender that promised profits later.
The evolving business model for City Search Travel is to act as a vehicle for local advertisers by providing content to the travel set about local markets.
As the web continues to evolve to become a more tailored experience for surfers, City Search continues to focus on local.
The biggest development in City Search’s bid to become a destination has been the amount of web content devoted to local information. No longer are people searching the traditional yellow pages for restaurant information, now they are going to local newspaper sites, alternative press sites, Yahoo local and other city specific sites that have a homegrown feel.
City Search Travel has remained viable in one market where it is a huge influencer on an affluent population. City Search moves back to its core business model as a local service by focusing its operations on San Francisco. In fact, entering citysearch.com will forward you directly to the San Francisco site.
In San Francisco, it has evolved in to the local site for reviews and travel tips. The San Francisco presence is strong and the content is reliably updated by local contributors.
City Search Travel - A Great San Fransisco Resource.