• Expedia now offers name-your-price airline tickets and has filed to dismiss a patent infringement suit. A former business unit of Microsoft, the Expedia online travel service is still 87% Microsoft owned. To use the new “Flight Price Matcher” service, customers supply details about the flight they require, then offer a bid for an airline ticket; if Expedia can match the price, it issues a nonrefundable ticket. Name-your-price online services were popularized by Priceline, of Stamford, CN, which obtained a patent on the idea. Priceline sells cars, home loans, and groceries as well as airline tickets and hotel reservations by bids. When Expedia began offering hotel bookings on a similar basis last September, Priceline filed suit against both Microsoft and Expedia. Priceline faces its own lawsuits over the patent. In one suit, San Francisco-based Marketel claims that Priceline president Jay Walker directly stole the idea from a failed 1991 Marketel project that offered airline reservations via faxed bids. Citing the disputes over Priceline’s right to the patent, in December Expedia filed to have its case dismissed.

• Microsoft has launched a US$150 million ad campaign to build brand awareness for MSN. In addition to promoting the MSN portal, the campaign seeks to boost MSN Internet Access membership from its current 3 million users, a figure that badly lags AOL’s 20 million plus. The campaign theme is that easy-to-use MSN services-including Hotmail, eShop, and MSN Web communities-can help consumers cope with a variety of day-to-day tasks. Created by McCann Erickson/A&L, the campaign will be featured in top media outlets such as popular television shows and print publications, including Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The campaign also introduces a new logo for MSN, a multi-colored butterfly that shares the same yellow, orange, blue, and green color-scheme used for the Windows logo.

• HomeAdvisor has signed deals to provide credit reports and moving services. An exclusive agreement with San Francisco, CA–based QSpace.com, a provider of online credit reports, will allow consumers to obtain “real-time” credit reports for only US$4. This credit-check service is now available at the HomeAdvisor Credit Center, which also offers a more comprehensive credit check for US$30. Separately, an exclusive deal with MoveCentral.com, a Boston, MA–based Web company that offers moving and relocation advice, offers a variety of services to help consumers cope with a move, including an interactive “move calendar” that sends automatic reminder e-mails and an online change-of-address tool. Microsoft has identified online home sales and home-related services as an area with potential for major expansion.

The Microsoft Network (MSN) continues to expand distribution channels for MSN content and add new services, while lowering prices for Web hosting at its bCentral small business site. The moves are part of a concerted push to close the gap between MSN and Internet portal leaders AOL and Yahoo.

CAIS Internet Offers MSN to Hotel Visitors

A US$40 million investment in CAIS Internet (CAIS) will result in an MSN/CAIS co-branded portal accessible over a high-speed connection in more than 1.3 million hotel rooms across the United States. CAIS provides high-speed Internet access for hotels and multi-unit apartment complexes and has already contracted with several large hotel chains, including Bass Hotels, Cendant, and Hilton Hotels. The CAIS service uses proprietary networking technology to deliver high-speed Internet access to hotel visitors over existing hotel phone wires-without tying up the phone line-for a flat rate of US$9.95 per day. Hotel visitors with a laptop computer can simply connect the laptop’s Ethernet jack to a special CAIS port in a hotel room, accept the charge to their hotel bill, and begin surfing the Web. Many business travelers will prefer the new service over expensive and unreliable dial-up connections through a hotel’s PBX.