Tnooz

Tripwolf, the Vienna-based online travel-guide provider, introduced a new version of its iPhone app, which provides some free content, but offers mobile users certain premium destination content for $5.99 or € 4,99.

Lastminute.com-owned car hire brand HolidayAutos is rolling out a new website this week ahead of other changes expected to take place in the coming weeks.

Destination activities and tours agency Viator is to open four new country sites in Nothern Europe as part of its ongoing expansion programme.

American Airlines in May will begin to charge coach passengers $8 for a pillow and blanket set, according to USA Today.

The debut Super Bowl ad for the US Super Bowl last night has won the praise of a marketing monitoring firm.

Google Maps broadened its features with the introduction of "Nearby places you might like," solidifying its role as a vehicle to plan your hotel stay, dining experience or activity.

GuestCentric Systems, finding that some prospective clients were unwilling to pay fixed monthly costs for its hotel-booking engine, implemented a new revenue-share pricing system.

Deals publisher Travelzoo is understandably showing off some data this week that illustrates its position at the top of a chart of travel firms who receive traffic from user emails.

Love is in the air at WAYN as it appears the travel social network is planning to unveil a dating service on St Valentine's Day.

All of the excitement leading up to tonight's Super Bowl has little to do with the gridiron and much to do with the advertisements. Thus, John Battelle's Searchblog reports that Google will break longstanding tradition and run a TV advertisement during tonight's Super Bowl.

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 31 January to Saturday 6 February 2010.

John Peters, CEO of under-pressure agent-lead service Tripology, has broken his silence after a difficult week for the New York-based company.

Priceline.com took a sampling of more than 30,000 Name-Your-Own Price bids and found that downtown New Orleans was the most-sought after destination for the upcoming long weekend, Feb. 12-15, which includes Valentine's Day Feb. 14 and Presidents' Day Feb. 15.

There is so much focus on Google and Apple in the mobile phone market that it may come as a surprise to hear that Yahoo is the tech firm knocking on the door of the patent office.

While much of the attention in JetBlue's cutover to the SabreSonic CSS as the airline's reservations system provider has focused on new functionalities, Navitaire, the company that JetBlue largely discarded after a decade-old relationship, feels there are misperception...s about its capabilities and believes that the "true winner" in the conversion likely will be Sabre -- and not necessarily JetBlue.

Travelzoo-owned Fly.com will launch a dedicated German site by the end of March 2010 but bigger developments are emerging with news that car hire and hotels are on the agenda.

Southwest Airlines chairman and CEO Gary Kelly, speaking at the Raymond James airline conference in New York today, outlined an ambitious schedule for new technology projects, including satellite-based Wi-Fi, website upgrades, changes to the Rapid Rewards frequent flyer program, and a new revenue management system.

Travelocity, the Web-travel retailer, ended its offline experiment in staffing box offices and kiosks in Vegas for show-ticket and attraction sales, and agreed to sell the business to Entertainment Benefits Group for an undisclosed amount.

A study into the popularity of travel-related Twitter accounts has revealed only two profiles beginning with the titles "Visit", "Travel", "Tourism" or "Discover" have more than 10,000 followers.

Significant win for Travelport as it looks to shore up some of its major accounts ahead of an IPO in the coming weeks - extending an exclusive deal to power Chinese airline ticketing.

PR agencies that promise "viral" media campaigns watch closely - sometimes the viral effect can backfire spectacularly.

Travel metasearch once was lean, mean and hungry, but now it seems that websites like Fly.com and Kayak may be getting a bit wimpy, and might be forsaking consumers' needs in deference to the sensitivities of online travel agencies and airlines.

Travelport, which is moving ahead with plans for its initial public offering, is getting all its ducks in a row by approving equity awards, cash bonuses and new employment contracts for top management.

Consumer-to-travel agent lead generator Tripology is frantically looking for new funding after a new financial partner pulled out after just a few weeks with the team.

Hot on the heels of research yesterday that indicated an apparent mass reluctance to make bookings on handsets is better news for the mobile travel sector - ticketing is booming.

Leading Shanghai-based online travel agency Ctrip.com revealed it intends to pay $88 million in cash to buy 90% of the shares of Wing On Travel, a leisure travel agency headquartered in Hong Kong.

There's much more to readying an advertisement for Sunday night's Super Bowl than striking the optimum creative and branding themes: HomeAway, apparently the lone travel dot-com advertiser this year, invested some $1 million in new hardware to handle an anticipated spike in website traffic, the company says.

An in-depth report into online fraud and how companies are dealing with such activity also claims 78% of consumers will never make a booking on their phone.

A Facebook poll to find which US state can get the most 'fans' might be interesting in the short term but over time it is probably - and unfortunately - utterly meaningless.

Amadeus and Concur, vendors of competing corporate self-booking tools, entered into a global strategic partnership which finds Amadeus lending a third-party -- in this case, a rival turned ally -- some of Amadeus' close-to-the vest distribution technology for the first time.