Next wave of travel websites feels like MySpace

But another TripAdvisor.com contributor, Shane Leslie, a production supervisor in Elwood, Iowa, says he and other posters have had their negative reviews removed from the site. (Ferencsik says reviews are never pulled simply because they are negative.) But that hasn't soured Mr. Leslie on the site. "I think being able to actually read and then ask [other travelers] questions is the biggest reason I will continue to use it regularly," he says via e-mail. "I think it gives people the feeling like 'Hey, it is really nice to help someone out' " by posting your own experiences.

While it's rare to find a business that sometimes advises a customer not to buy, another "Travel 2.0" site called Farecast.com is doing just that. Farecast, now in beta testing but open for business by the end of June, helps travelers decide when to buy an airline ticket by predicting the cost of future airline travel. It forecasts whether the cost of a flight will go up, go down, or stay the same over the next seven days, as well as provides a 90-day history of fares on the route. At first, Farecast will only track domestic flights that originate in Seattle or Boston, but the company hopes to have most major US airports covered by the end of this year.

For example, recently Farecast predicted that the cost of buying a ticket from Boston to Minneapolis for a flight in August will hold steady over the next seven days. But it forecast that a flight at the same time from Seattle to Albuquerque, N.M., would drop $17 over the same week and expressed "more than 80 percent confidence" in both predictions.

The forecasts are based on algorithms developed by computer scientists who study indicators of future prices, including the price history and demand.

Each prediction includes a "level of confidence" in the prediction that ranges from "less than 50 percent" to "more than 80 percent." On average, Farecast.com says it can predict with 70 percent to 75 percent confidence across the routes it monitors. And even when it predicts with low confidence, so far users seem to appreciate the company's honesty in making that admission, says CEO Hugh Crean.

Among other start-up travel sites are gusto.com ("We connect you with fellow travelers and relevant travel information based on your preferences and lifestyle," the site says), boardingate.com, triporama.com, and homeandabroad.com, Mr. Bray says. It's all about "tagging content and sharing it with others," he says. Many of these sites are just starting out, trying to attract users and refine their technologies and strategies. Eventually they would expect to make money by selling ads or earning fees when they pass customers along to a purchase site, such as an airline's own website.

Farecast, along with sites like FareCompare.com and FlySpy.com (still in testing), are using online "predictive technology" to try to change the world of airline-ticket buying, Bray says.

As people become more comfortable on the Web and get used to high-speed connections, they "want to do more complex travel planning," Bray says. "There's a new level of sophistication there that these tools are providing."

• Chris Gaylord contributed to this article.

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