Expedia rumoured to be looking at Farecast for $75 million - NOPE - it was Microsoft and it was $115mm

Expedia is not slowing down on acquisition activity if rumours are to be believed. Picked up a rumour just now on HotelMarketing.com that fare search Web 2.0 player Farecast is the next company to being booking regular flights to Seattle and join the Expedia conglomerate. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the source of the story on HotelMarketing and is putting the valuation at US$75mm. Farecast Chief Executive Hugh Crean is saying nothing and there is similar silence from Expedia spokeswoman Katie Deines.

Meta-search seems a natural play for a company building up a content ad network and looking to rely more and more on ad revenue. I do not think it would set well with a company that is planning to sell itself to Google but there are few that think that the flight plans will move from Seattle to the San Jose (ie near Google's Mountain View HQ).

UPDATE - good rumour but wrong Seattle based party. Kevin over at Travolution has the story that Microsoft (former owner/creater of Expedia) is the new owner of Farecast for a cool $115mm.

Quicky on fare comparisons for FastCompany

With Red Herring and Business 2.0 near death we turn to Fast Company to try an keep us up to date with the business side of the new economy. Here is a quick snippet from them on the new trends in fare tracking. In this brief piece FC tries to sum up the differences and value propositions of Farecast.com, FareCompare.com and recently boosted by $2.3mm in funding Yapta. Interesting and quick read.