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Comment by noodle | Hacker News Reader

so, i built something almost exactly like this for myself to use, except it doesn't display itself on a google map. instead, it cross-references itself with a database of people.

i use it when i'm hiring sports officials, to find the ones that would be the cheapest to fly in. never really considered how useful it would be for others.

i feel dumb as hell, looking at this and seeing what i could've done :*-(

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don't feel dumb, just put it up, add user accounts/Facebook, and make it a group travel planning tool. I could've used something like that while helping plan a bachelor's party.

i probably will, but it just kind of takes the wind out of the sails to know you're half copying something. that spark of "i'm doing something neat" isn't quite there.

i dont know.. this is interesting for me, but it would be profoundly more useful with my (admittedly small) group of friends.

why more useful for your friends?

I think he means it would be useful when used for a geographically distributed group. You could find the cheapest place for a reunion based on total cost of airfares, and split the cost evenly.

noodle, this is a great idea, don't give this up just because there's another competitor in town.

Please ping me if you are interested in pursuing this further. I can link you up to startup that could definitely make use of this to compliment their trip planning service.

bowei [ a t ] cardmunch. c o m

i suppose the issue i was trying to convey is that i wasn't giving up, i was never aware that i had something to give up on. never thought of the thing as a useful tool for me and a few others, since everyone i showed it to thought it was neat, but i was the only one who ever actually used it.

Sure, just so long as it doesn't tell us all to vacation in Frankfurt airport;)

To put it another way: The results for this kind of query are often going to be the big travel hubs. These may not always be the kind of destination that your users want.

neat idea, anyway.

Once you have the basics in place, adding a filter to say you only want to go a place with nice beaches or close to ski slopes or whatever should be fairly trivial. And anyway I'm sure my friends and I could have an awesome vacation in Frankfurt.

You just need to take it to a personal level. Bring it down to Facebook, see what your friends like/shared and generate options saying "Friend A is thinking of Trip B in Timeframe C. Would you like to join in?" or something along those lines.

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