Uptake is one of my favorite types of websites, a data aggregator (a site that compiles information from multiple sources into one place). If you take a look at their Hawaii activities section, for instance, you’ll see data pulled from Travelocity, Yahoo!, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Epinions and CitySearch as well as other information directly from Hawaii based websites such as HonoluluZoo.org. It’s pretty easy to see how a website like this can be useful, but how do they make money? A representative from Uptake told me that they worked on a CPC model. But if you look closely at their Hawaii romantic hotels or Hawaii family hotels sections, you’ll see a yellow button that says “Check Rates”. Clicking this button allows you search for hotel prices on TripAdvisor, Priceline and Expedia. So it appears that they are also working an affiliate angle.
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising. It also looks like they have some internal CPC going when they link out to other websites.
- Affiliate Model - They use multiple affiliate programs for at least hotels.
Uptakes use of information from multiple sources makes it a winner in my book. You can also see that with a lot of traffic, their CPC and Affiliate models could be very lucrative. After surpassing 1 million monthly visitors in less then a year after their launch in May 2008, they’re well on their way to becoming a profitable company. Read More