Otalo
Type of businessPrivate
Founded2009
Headquarters
Amherst, Massachusetts
,
USA
Key people
  • Baer Tierkel
  • (CEO, Co-Founder)
  • Mike Giles
  • (CTO, Co-Founder)
IndustryTravel, Internet
URLotalo.com (Error 404, inactive)

Otalo.com (pronounced ō·tal·ō)[1] was a fare aggregator and metasearch engine for vacation rentals, launched in 2009 by Bear Tierkel and Mike Giles in Amerherst, Massachusetts.[2] It enabled its users to search across different vacation rental advertising sites using a single search.[3]

History

Before conceiving Otalo in 2009, Giles was previously the founder of the social bookmarking site Furl (acquired by LookSmart in 2004).[4] Tierkel was previously the co-founder of the social citizenship site Localocracy (later sold to Huffington Post),[5] and former chief marketing officer of the enterprise software company PeopleSoft.[6]

They came up with the name of the site, Otalo, by combining the Zen symbol enzo ("O") with the Finnish word for house ("talo") after having found so many website names already taken.[7][8][9]

The site launched in 2009 with over 200,000 searchable vacation rental listings.[3] In February 2012, Otalo increased its search index to include 46 vacation rental websites, resulting in over 1.6 million vacation rental listings in 164 countries.[10][11][12]

References

  1. ↑ "Otalo.com - About".
  2. ↑ Arrington, Michael (January 6, 2009). "Use Otalo to Search for Vacation Rentals". TechCrunch.
  3. 1 2 Ostrow, Adam (February 19, 2009). "Otalo's Genius Way of Finding Vacation Rentals". Mashable.
  4. ↑ Arrington, Michael (June 19, 2005). "Profile of Furl". TechCrunch.
  5. ↑ Brown, Rodney (3 October 2011). "Localocracy bought by Huffington Post". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
  6. ↑ "Baer Tierkel". San Francisco Business Times. January 30, 2000.
  7. ↑ Staff Writer (January 10, 2010). "Travel Website Founded by Amherst Duo Going Strong". Daily Hampshire Gazette.
  8. ↑ Felton, Robert Todd (April 20, 2009). "Interview with Otalo - Vacation Rentals Search". Wandering Educators.
  9. ↑ "Use Otalo To Search For Vacation Rentals". TechCrunch. 7 January 2009. Retrieved 2019-12-26.
  10. ↑ Staff Writer (February 4, 2012). "Otalo Expands to 1.6 Million Vacation Rentals in 164 Countries". Dallas Morning News.
  11. ↑ Aamoth, Doug (July 11, 2012). "Otalo Corrals Vacation Home Rentals in One Place for Easy Browsing". Time.com.
  12. ↑ "Otalo Expands to 1.6 Million Vacation Rentals in 164 Countries". San Francisco Chronicle. February 4, 2009.
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