HotelTonight scores $23M • 10 worst ancillary fees • Hot travel rewards cards • Save on summer airfares • Google warns against hacks • Windows Phone spring thaw? • Smarterer job seekers ditch resumes & take quizzes • Google for all ad sales • Fred Wilson: Facebook value ok • Netflix CDN • Quadcopter jogging motivator
Travel
HotelTonight secured an impressive $23 million in venture capital, demonstrating investor confidence in the same day hotel bookings business model. The service is available through Android or iOS apps.
The Global Business Travel Association has ranked the 10 worst ancillary fees for business travel. One of the more irritating ones I have encountered is rental car fees for tolls. Consumer Reports notes a case in which a customer paid a 1,380% markup on the actual toll.
Travel rewards credit cards are hot right now, with deals as good as $500 towards your next trip just for signing up. More miles are awarded for credit card spending than for flying. Two articles offer tips.
How to save money on summer airfares: tips include shopping on Tuesdays, flying on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday and more.
Tech
“Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer.” Google to alert users, but keeping mum on details of how attacks are detected.
Windows Phone Marketplace just surpassed 100,000 apps submitted and U.S. Windows Phone sales recently surpassed Blackberry’s. Windows Phone has struggled in the marketplace, but with these milestones and a Windows Phone 8 announcement due on June 20th, Microsoft’s story is looking a little better.
In an interesting twist on the traditional employment website, startup Smarterer provides a platform where job seekers can prove their qualifications by taking online quizzes rather than posting resumes.
Google seeks to become the universal “Advertising Operating System” across all online channels.
Well known VC Fred Wilson opines on Facebook’s post-IPO valuation and says it’s not so bad. He says that disappointed speculators had ridiculous expectations.
Following YouTube, Netflix is establishing its own Content Delivery Network, and is open sourcing components of the hardware and software.
Just One More: Joggobot quadcopter acts as your personal jogging pacesetter to motivate you to run faster.
TravelTekker 