Having voted in the recent Webby Awards, I was excited to view the Webby’s Winners Gallery last week. I checked out the nominated companies that some friends are involved with, including Trullia, and Zannel, but I was naturally drawn to the travel section.

Congratulations to Farecast who won the Webby for Travel and to Kayak who won the people’s choice for Travel. (When I worked at SideStep, we were excited to be named as an Official Honoree a few times, so it was great to see the people’s vote go to Kayak—who recently acquired SideStep.)

Farecast predicts fare trends for air and hotel and Kayak is the leading provider of metasearch (the ability to simultaneously search many travel sites and suppliers to find the best flight, hotel, car or package option based on factors such as price, availability and schedule).

It was only two years ago that Expedia scooped up the Webby award for the Travel category. This year, none of the major online travel companies were even nominated. In this fast-changing world, Expedia and the major online travel agencies (OTAs) have become household names, reached maturity and now newer sites are lauded for their innovation.

So if metasearch comes after the OTAs, what comes after that?

Here at TravelMuse, we believe it’s the upstream research and planning process personalized to you that offers the next great opportunity. I’m excited to watch how the landscape changes over the next 12 months and to see what comes next after metasearch.