Google buys online travel agency Expedia

Judgment: While still within the realm of possibilities, the community correctly judged that Google would not acquire Expedia in the specified timeframe. This prediction has been paid out at S$0.

Original Prediction:

Reuters has reported that Expedia, the largest U.S. online travel agency, could be an acquistion target for Google.

According to the article, "[Expedia's] shares were up 9.46 percent at $23.96 in late afternoon trading on Nasdaq, but still down more than 30 percent from their peak in October last year."

Adam Ostrow at Mashable points out that, "...acquiring [Expedia] would represent only about 5% of Google’s total market capitalization – a relatively small acquisition, albeit the biggest that the company will have ever made. Add to the fact that online travel brokering is already extremely lucrative and Google can eliminate much of the search marketing costs, and Expedia suddenly sounds like a fairly astute deal."

This is a prediction that Google will attempt (or succeed) to acquire Expedia very soon. Bets will close on May 31st, and the prediction will be judged on June 6, 2008, unless Google makes an offer before the judgement date. An acquisition does not have to be successful, nor complete. Google need merely to make a public offer to attempt to buy Expedia in order for this prediction to be judged favorably.