From Tnooz... http://www.tnooz.com/2012/03/13/news/heart-stopping-rumour-of-the-decade-that-might-make-sense-google-to-buy-tripadvisor/
Let's face it, at 4.1B it isn't going to make GOOG even skip a heartbeat.
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I doubt tripadvisor has much revenue. Been wrong before but the way they push the ads, i can assume they are not doing that well. google has yet to done much that makes money. They spend it pretty well on losing companies that are neat but they need to book some real winners sooner or later. I doubt this is the big target they are seeking.
Unlikely that Apple will buy Google or vice-versa. Google is currently worth 200B and if it is a hostile takeover usually you end up spending double. Apple is worth about 500B at the moment, not large enough to swallow Google. Microsoft is worth about 240B, so it's out of the picture as well. Now Yahoo at 17B.... there is a target, if it has anything worth buying. And AOL is worth under 2B at the moment, like eating a chicken bone! Tripadvisor is abotu 4B and HomeAway (ie BB.COM) is just 2B as well. For companies like GOOG, this isn't a big deal. And GOOG already has an airline pricing system they bought last year.
I'm sure they'll tie TA into all their other stuff so you have to utilize TA to the fullest to get the best Google advantage. Swirt and the SEO experts will have to follow this carefully to figure out how to work it.
What's next? Google buys Apple, or Apple buys Google.
What was that other company that used to be out doing this stuff? Micro-something, I think.
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