Techcrunch reported today that Farecast is taking their service nation wide (US) today.
If you don't know Farecast, I really recommend having a look. Their idea is one of the most interesting I have seen in a awhile.
In their own words:
We use data-mining algorithms to search for patterns, in the accumulated airfare data, which are associated with significant price changes. These patterns are represented and stored in models, and the models are then rigorously trained. Once created and trained, we use these models to predict the future
Simply said, Farecast can tell you if you should buy the ticket in the current price or wait for it to go down.
I would love to have this kind of service in Europe. Buying an Easy Jet ticket in Europe is like playing the lottery. You never know if you should have bought it a week before or a week after. There are huge differences in price for tickets to the same flight.
But what I'm really interested in is finding out if you could take Farecast prediction engine and tweak it to work in other markets. Think about a tool that tells you how much you should pay in an online auction (eBay or any other vendor). Or trying to predict stock market changes... Now - this is one hell of a start up.
