Demo Girl

When I’m searching for the best airline tickets I usually head to multiple search engines and travel sites where I spend hours comparing flight times, connections, prices, dates and alternative airports. I do all of this because I want to not only get the lowest price, but I also want to get to my destination at a certain time without dealing with long layovers and multiple connections. Yesterday, when I found Hipmunk, I was pleasantly surprised to find one site that filters all of my concerns into one search to help me find the very best flight for my money.

Just enter in your flight details and hit “search”.  Hipmunk will find the best overall flights for you based on price, duration, and number of connections.  The results are placed on a visually pleasing graph making it easy to remove certain flying times and allowing you to further filter your results by price only, duration, and departure or arrival time.

My favorite feature of Hipmunk is tabbed searching.  You can keep multiple tabs open within Hipmunk so you can easily compare different airports or dates, which is what normally kills me when looking for the best airline tickets.

To learn more about Hipmunk, watch the screencast below:

[via TechCrunch]

Google City Tours is a Labs project that has some pretty helpful features for people planning a trip to an unfamiliar city.  You can begin by entering in the name or address of the place where you’ll be staying.  From there, Google City Tours will load a map with various points of interest that you can walk to from your originating point.  Each destination shows an approximate amount of time it should take you to walk as well as walking directions from point A to point B to point C…

You can also remove and add points of interest to the map and include the number of days you’ll be in town so that your sightseeing can be spread out over a few days.

I really like Google City Tours, especially because my Mom is coming to visit me in San Francisco next month and I would love her to map out all the places we can walk to from her hotel.  With that said, these are my issues:

• How do you save your Google City Tour?  I couldn’t find a “save” link anywhere.
• Can you share your City Tour with, for instance, the person who’s visiting?
• I’d like options to switch from walking to driving to public transit.  My Mom is NOT going to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge from Union Square.

Of course, Google City Tours is in Labs, which means that it’s a work in progress.  Those are just some things that I think should be at the top of the “to-do” list for the people working on it .

To see Google City Tours in action, watch the screencast below:

[via Lifehacker]

SeatGeek is a service that wants to help you get the best deal on tickets to concerts and sporting events.  It uses a history of ticket sales to predict whether or not prices will drop and then compares prices from sites like StubHub, eBay, and  TicketCity.

Begin by searching by venue, artist, or team and then select the event you would like to attend.  SeatGeek will then search multiple ticket sales sites and tell you weather or not to buy or wait for prices to drop.

You can view the seat numbers as well as the face value of the tickets compared to what they’re currently being sold for.  If you don’t mind the price then you can continue on to buy the tickets.  Otherwise, just lick on “subscribe to alert” and you’ll be emailed if the price drops.

SeatGeek is currently limited to Major League Baseball Games and select concert venues, but hopefully they’ll have a wider range of events available to track sooner than later.  As of today, SeatGeek helped me see that I can get a better deal on tickets to a Giant’s game I want to attend…let’s hope their prediction is correct.

To see SeatGeek in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo 3BnJdeA9]

When I first moved to San Francisco I lived just 2 blocks from Golden Gate Park.  I would go running there about 4 or 5 times a week, usually taking one of the same 3 routes that I had discovered (yes, I discovered them, they’re mine).  By the time I got home I would assume that I had gone about 4 miles, but actually, I had no idea.  I did try mapping them out on a Google map once in hopes of figuring out exactly how far I was going, but there really wasn’t much I could do with that info, like track it and share it.  That’s where RunThere comes in.  RunThere allows you to create maps of your running and biking routes and gives you a way to easily send it to your own fitness blog.

After you sign up, you can start creating maps.  All you need to do is enter in a location, or select one from your saved locations, and then click along your route to add markers.  There are mile markers so you’ll know how far you’ve gone and you can enter in your time so you can track your pace.  Every time you go on one of these runs, you can simply click on “log run/ride” and enter in whether or not your ran or biked it, your time, add notes, set the date and time, and even add how you felt when you did it.  After you save it you’ll see that it’s automatically added to your fitness blog.

You can share your fitness blog URL with others (as long as you make it public in your settings) and add people as friends so you can cheer each other on.  Another nice feature about your fitness blog is that you can log treadmill runs too.  Not everyone is into running outdoors, so that’s a really great option and one that I looked for right away after signing up.  You can also create a profile, view other peoples routes, add comments or notes on routes, and search for routes based on location.

If you’re into group runs or bike rides, there’s an option to create an invitation to send out to your Facebook friends.  You can choose to plan a run, bike, walk, or swim, and even choose to have people bring their dogs along.

The only feature I would really like to see added is a way to log time spent on a stationary bike.  I have one at home and would like the option of adding the miles I put on that to my fitness blog.  They have the treadmill option, so it doesn’t seem like an insane request.

To see RunThere in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo xqDTKHUA]

When I was in my early twenties, I did a lot of random traveling/moving with a good friend of mine.  First it was Mammoth Lakes, CA, from there it was Maui, then Massachusetts, and so on.  Each time we moved to one of these places, we had no place to live and stayed in hotels or with friends until we could find a place to rent.  The same took place when I moved to San Francisco last September – I had to stay with a friend in a very tiny apartment until I could find my own place.  Staying in hotels is costly and some places we traveled to didn’t have a lot of hostels to choose from.  We were all about meeting new people and learning about the places we were living in, so something like AirBed & Breakfast is a service that would have saved us a lot of time and money.

Basically, AirBed & Breakfast allows you to post a spare couch, room, or futon and set a price of how much per night someone must pay in order to stay with you.  You can also include breakfast, which is sort of like a bed and breakfast – hence the name.    Travelers will be able to view your profile, which includes the basic info, but you can also add a link to your LinkedIn profile.  You can also choose to turn your listing on or off at any time.  If someone decides to book your place, they’ll pay AirBed & Breakfast your fees plus a 12% booking fee, which is how I’m guessing AirBed & Breakfast is going to monetize the site.  You’ll receive your payment via PayPal or check after your guest leaves.

I know that some people may seem skeptical about using something like AirBed & Breakfast.  That’s fine.  I don’t think they’re targeting skeptics.  They’re targeting people like me (or my former, younger self) who love meeting people, travel, and know how to be cautious when staying in a unfamiliar place.  It’s really not that much different than staying in a hostel somewhere in a room full of strangers, except for the fact that you can read comments from other people who have stayed with someone on AirBed & Breakfast.  I’m looking to go to Europe sometime in the very distant future, and if I’m on a tight budget, I’ll definitely be coming back to AirBed & Breakfast.  To learn more, check out the screencast below:

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Click Here To Watch Better Quality 2m50s

A couple of months ago, some friends and I were looking to have a nice dinner, some drinks, and good conversation, but we couldn’t find anything open.  The problem was that it was the middle of the week and it was after 10pm, and a lot of places in San Francisco aren’t open all that late during the week.  I don’t know why, but that seems to be the case.  Well, we ended up at a restaurant/wine bar that had nice ambiance, but the food left something to be desired.  We had no choice in the matter, though.  We just couldn’t find anything else that was open.  This brings me to GeoSpot – a service that allows you to do a deep search so you can not only search for where to eat, but where to eat NOW.

It’s a very basic concept, actually, and you can use it at home or on your mobile phone.  You enter in what you’re looking for (ie. pizza, cookies, martini), where you want to eat/drink it, and what time you want to do it (ie. now, 6am, after 10pm).  GeoSpot will give you a list of results that are only able to service you at the time you’re requesting.  You can even search for related results, view business information, and get directions.  Now, this may seem like a novelty if you’re at home and you have the time to search for a specific restaurant and see what time they serve until.  But, if you’re out and about and need a giant burrito to soak up the 15 tequila shots you just did, then GeoSpot on your mobile phone may save you a nasty hangover in the morning.  Just be warned that the GeoSpot blog says it’s really focused on the San Francisco Bay area for now.  I didn’t know that until just posting this. Here’s my screencast tour of GeoSpot:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m2s

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[via CenterNetworks]

As most of you may know, the way we monetize DemoGirl is by creating custom screencasts for various Web companies. Sometimes I need to keep these private and can’t share them on DemoGirl but when possible, I like to show you some of the things I’ve been doing — especially when I find the services actually useful. That’s where these next two sites come in:

UpTake is a service that wants to help make planning your next vacation, easier. It searches for hotels and things to do based on the type of vacation you want to take. For example, if you’re planning a trip with the family, UpTake has a family vacation theme as well as pet friendly, girls getaway, romantic getaway, and a theme if you just simply want to get away. It pulls results from 400,000 U.S. hotels and attractions and gives you reviews and ratings from different review sites all over the Web. You can also filter your search by amenity and price. If you’re planning your summer vacation and aren’t sure exactly where to start, I’d definitely give UpTake a look. Here’s a custom DemoGirl screencast of UpTake:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 1m42s

Ztail is a service that wants to help you figure out, “what’s it worth?”. What’s what worth? Well, it could be an old camera, a vintage tennis racket, or a pair of skis. It’s described as the Kelly Blue Book for everything, and I think that’s a great description. There are a couple of ways you can use Ztail – you can add your own things to the Ztail community and have other members tell you what they think it’s worth and see similar items on eBay to get a better idea of how much you could get for it. You can also browse through items people are trying to get value on and give your own opinion. If you’re a vintage roller skate expert, you may find a lot of people on Ztail wondering how much their old pair of skates are worth. I think everyone has some sort knowledge that they could share on Ztail and if people start posting their opinions and their stuff, I could see this being a great place to go before placing an item up on ebay or even before pricing your “valuables” to sell at your next garage sale. Here’s a custom DemoGirl screencast of Ztail:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m27s

(Disclosure:  DemoGirl.com was paid to create these screencasts for use by the company.  We were not paid in any way to write these reviews, or any other review.)

There’s this person I know, I’ll just call her Mom for the sake of this post, who is notorious for checking into a hotel and then switching rooms over and over because something is just not right. I never really had a problem with this because we always ended up getting a great room and she had no problem paying for it – she just wanted the perfect place to relax. She’s been talking about making a trip up to San Francisco to check out my new digs, and I know it will be my job to scout out the perfect hotel and hotel room. This is how TripKick is going to save my you-know-what.

TripKick is all about room reviews. They provide you with details like noise, size, and views of specific rooms located in a hotel. Before I go any further I should add that TripKick is only available (right now) in Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, NYC, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., but they have plans to add a new major city every month. You can search for specific criteria such as pet friendly, romantic, or trendy and then TripKick will list the hotels with rooms that match your request. You’ll see a list of the best rooms and you can read and leave reviews and add photos. You don’t need to sign up either, just leave your name and email address with your review. TripKick also has a compare feature which will compare rooms by view, noise, size, location within the hotel, and bathroom notability. You can print all this info out and bring it with you when you check in so you’ll be more knowledgeable up front, and shouldn’t have to worry about switching rooms later. For my sake, let’s hope the reviews on TripKick are correct. Otherwise, I’m sicking my Mom on you. Here’s my screencast tour of TripKick:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m20s

Want this screencast on your site? Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via TechCrunch]

If you use public transportation on a daily basis or if you’re traveling somewhere in the future where public transit will be how you get around, you should definitely check out HopStop. Before you get all excited and start planning your trips, let me point out that it’s only available in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., and San Francisco (YES!). If you’re not in one of those areas, I apologize but for everyone else, please read on: HopStop allows you to get detailed itineraries using buses, subways, or your own two feet. The best part about HopStop is that you can have the directions sent to your mobile phone so you can view them as you’re traveling. If you create an account you can save frequently used addresses, view previous trips, and have access to HopStop mobile whenever you’re out and need to find out which bus or subway to take to get to your next destination.

I know that Google Transit is out there and it actually covers a lot more than HopStop. It doesn’t, however, cover a lot of major cities that HopStop does cover – including my beloved San Francisco. Since I’m selling my car right now and will be using public transportation a lot in the near future, HopStop is going to be a lifesaver for me. The fact that I can have my itinerary sent to my mobile phone is another huge plus. Here’s my screencast tour of HopStop:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m51s

Want this screencast on your site? Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

I come from a very large family.  Let me give you some stats:  4 brothers, 2 sisters, 8 nieces, 3 nephews, 1 Mom, 1 Dad.  Yes, I’m Irish.  The point is, that when we want to plan a weekend when we can all get together, it’s a complete mess of emails (we aren’t all that into the phone).  There are lots of event planning services out there but none of us want to create profiles and sign up for new services – we just don’t have the time.  A basic service that allows you to quickly see what weekend everyone is free and lets you do all of the actual planning is what we need.  Enter Which Weekend.

Which Weekend is the most simple tool I’ve come across for trying to find the best weekend for a group to get together.  You’ll notice that I didn’t say “planning” a weekend trip.  It’s used for one thing, figuring out which weekend everyone is free.  One person is the administrator and they send out the initial email to everyone with a date range to choose from.  The recipients just need to click on a link in their email and they’re automatically logged in.  From there, they just check off the dates they’re free and then they can get back to doing whatever they were doing.  The planning of the trip is up to the group but often the biggest hassle is finding a time when people can get together.   Here’s my screencast tour of Which Weekend:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m27s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!