Corner for us is a dare.The first big thing we want to see if we can rethink the way people approach finding flights, but not for the sake of creating a fresh new UI (because that's not innovation). But actually to rethink each step of the search and booking process to make it really simple for people to quickly browse and get a view of what’s available. To make it is simple to pick a good flight (instead of looking through 1000’s of meaningless options) and then simply checking out in the app.
The second big thing was to show people that there are actually lots of places to go at any time for a variety of prices. We want to reverse the whole concept of having to book travel 6 months in advance. We think people are moving a such a fast pace that they can't think about where to go for Christmas in June. That's why Corner starts off by asking people about where they want to go, if they're sure great,if not, even better.
Travel services, in general, tend to over-blow what they do and how magnificent their features are, we just want to make it really easy for people and get out of the way. This is definitely a different approach to marketing but we hope enough people will see the benefits and start using Corner for all their trips.
Corner is custom built from the ground up, we have linked up directly with two of the biggest GDS systems to power our explore and search features and the actual flight booking is done by Expedia. You never leave or redirect from Corner.
We are not focusing on adding a lot of travel agents but will be adding direct integrations with airlines throughout this year.
We are eager to hear what people think and happy to answer any questions about the app or how we built it. And check out our intro video
@_jacksmith They both have pretty much the same awesome interface for showing how expensive your flight can be depending on location, departure, and arrival but Corner gives you more initial starting options/contexts. Like finding flights by weather. It also seems to do a better job of best match, taking into account delays, prices, layovers than hopper does. So far really impressed! I haven't booked anything through it yet so can't compare there.
@artom57: Two things I think would be sweet are:
1) In the initial onboarding example detect the users location rather than defaulting to Toronto (at least that's what mine was). I get maybe not wanting to ask for location privileges up front though if that was the reason for not doing this.
2) If you could have delays (or even potential delays based on weather) factor in to flight times that would be amazing. Especially for short notice flights.
@ekryski thanks for the comments.
1) Yes, we decided not to ask for location privileges initially because we found people get frustrated, when they get asked their location right after downloading the app. I think this frustration isn't really connected to Corner, but more to the fact that so many apps ask for location permission when they don't actually need it. We are thinking of adding it as an option during the onboarding, but not mandatory.
2) We've been exploring this, the hardest thing to do is to find a good data source. Do you know anyone good?
@ekryski I don't really care as much about weather. A key feature of hopper that I like is that it can monitor the price of tickets over time and send you a notification when the price drops. I'll check this out though
@swapnil_shinde Thanks! we've launch in the US with Expedia. Will be adding direct-connects with airlines mostly from here. And we will do local OTA's in other markets, where needed.
@swapnil_shinde traditionally for flight you have 2 models – CPC or CPA. We have come up with a new model where we do the search and booking and make money from the GDS systems and then payment is done via a travel agent. So basically we make money from the system where we get flight availability. Sorry, this is pretty hard to explain in a couple sentences:)
@artom57 haha. Yes kinda hard to decipher. So Expedia pays you an affiliate fee or something when someone wants to book a flight? Also can I complete a purchase using ur app and if so am I paying u or Expedia via ur app?
@axelk You can browse places to go from London and book a flight in euros or dollars but we haven't officially launched in the UK. Coming later this year, we need to start accepting British pounds and get more low-cost carriers
Report
@axelk@artom57 come on man; Brexit means pounds are really just the same as dollars. Launch in the UK now please :-)
Report
@artom57 congrats guys, this is impressive. Any plan to chase some cross sell opportunities? Hotels maybe? Btw how did you do for the city icons? You did that manually? Love it really
@pierrebecerril Good question, we think that cross sales work best when your core product starts to really fly and its natural to add things that can enhance that experience. However simply adding things like hotels and cars don't really work because there are market leaders in each category, so you really have to have a great idea. Regrading the images we us multiple sources and most popular cities a done manually.
Craft.do
Shredr
Craft.do
FeathersJS
Craft.do
Hustle X
FeathersJS
Craft.do
Hustle X
Tribe Games
Mezi
Craft.do
Mezi
Craft.do
Mezi
Craft.do
Craft.do
Craft.do