The heat is on among trip-planning websites gliider and TravelMuse as the two startups have taken their competition -- or might we say, confrontation -- to Twitter.
gliider started it all this morning with the following tweet:
And, TravelMuse, suffering from a West Coast time lag, replied a few hours later:
The spat revolves around the revamped TravelMuse, unveiled last week, in which the trip-planning website discarded its largely walled-garden approach in favor of a bookmarking tool that enables consumers to capture travel content throughout the Web and import it back into a TravelMuse trip folder.
gliider, the younger company which launched last year, has taken that approach since it was in diapers.
I've seen this kind of skirmish before when competitors were duking it out.
I recall all of those calls from Expedia about Travelocity (or was it the reverse?)
And, I have fielded a few calls over the years from Priceline about Hotwire (or was it Hotwire about Priceline?)
(Keep the calls coming -- I don't mind them.)
Still, gliider apparently feels that TravelMuse is stealing its thunder and could have done much more if it really wanted to differentiate itself from other trip-planning websites.
After all, plenty of trip-planning websites now have tools which enable users to bookmark and capture content from throughout the Web for trip-planning purposes.
gliider CEO Jordan Stolper wouldn't elaborate on his tweet, saying it speaks for itself.
In its defense, TravelMuse argues that its relaunched website offers much more than a bookmarking tool and that it has added a bunch of new functionality in its interactive maps, for instance.
TravelMuse director of marketing Fiona Ashley says TravelMuse studied gliider, other trip-planning websites and a bevy of sites outside of the travel industry as fodder for its relaunched trip-planning tools.
"We have more stuff going on on our site than them," Ashley says, referring to gliider.
And, in its tweet, TravelMuse takes a poke at the fact that gliider is available only as a download, a development that TravelMuse believes limits gliider's functionality.
TravelMuse CEO Russ Lemelin should know all about downloadable tools because he is the former interim CEO of SideStep, which originated as a client-based tool.
I have to believe that gliider is working on becoming a Web-based tool in the future.
Anyway, the two trip-planning websites are coming to virtual blows in social media -- which may generate some publicity for each.
And, there's nothing like raising the profile of trip-planning websites within the broader travel industry.