TripAdvisor 2012 Annual Report Download - page 20

Operations and Technology
We have assembled a team of highly skilled software engineers, computer scientists, data scientists, network
engineers, and systems engineers whose expertise spans a broad range of technical areas, including a wide
variety of open source operating systems, databases, languages, analytics, networking, scalable web architecture,
operations, and warehousing technologies. We make significant investments in product and feature development,
data management and personalization technologies, scalable infrastructures, networking, data warehousing, and
search engine technologies. The TripAdvisor branded websites are powered primarily using Java programming
language.
Our systems infrastructure, web and database servers for TripAdvisor branded websites are housed at two
geographically separate facilities and have multiple communication links as well as continuous monitoring and
engineering support. Each facility is fully self-sufficient and operational with its own hardware, networking,
software, and content, and is structured in an active/passive, fully redundant configuration. Substantially all of
our software components, data, and content are replicated in multiple datacenters and development centers, as
well as being backed up at offsite locations. Our systems are monitored and protected though multiple layers of
security. Several of our individual subsidiaries and businesses, including our subsidiaries in China, have their
own data infrastructure and technology teams.
Competition
We face competition for users, advertisers and travel reviews. Our primary competitors include large search
engines, such as Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo! and Baidu, and online travel agencies such as Expedia and
Priceline, and their respective subsidiaries. We also compete with a wide range of other companies, including,
among others, Facebook, Inc., Airbnb, Inc., Ctrip.com International, Ltd., HolidayCheck AG, HomeAway.com,
Inc., Kayak Software Corporation, Qunar.com Information Technology Co. Ltd., trivago GmbH and Yelp, Inc.
Certain of the companies we do business with, including some of our click-based advertising partners, are also
our competitors. The consolidation of our competitors and partners, including Expedia (through its investment in
trivago) and Priceline (through its announced acquisition of Kayak), may affect our competitiveness and partner
relationships. As the market evolves for online travel content and the technology supporting it, including new
platforms such as smartphone and tablet computing devices, we anticipate that the existing competitive landscape
will change and new competitors may emerge.
Competition for Content and Travel Reviews
We are the world’s largest global platform for travel-related reviews and opinions. We face competition in
the travel review space from online travel agencies, such as Expedia and Priceline and their respective
subsidiaries, which solicit reviews from travelers who book travel on their websites. Moreover, networks with
significant installed user bases such as Google (for example, via Google + Local and Google Hotel Finder) have
begun to, and other networks or platforms, like Facebook, could choose to, compete more directly with us by
attracting and accumulating user-generated travel reviews and opinions or may pursue the acquisition of travel-
related content directly from consumers.
Competition for Users
In the competition to attract users, we rely on our ability to acquire traffic through offline brand recognition
and brand-direct efforts such as email and online search, whether unpaid or paid. Unpaid search is sometimes
referred to as search engine optimization, or SEO, which is the practice of developing websites with relevant and
current content that rank well in “organic,” or unpaid, search engine results. SEO can be affected by a number of
factors including competitive site content, changes to our website architecture and page designs, changes to
search engine ranking algorithms, or changes to display ordering in search engine results such as preferred
placement for internal products offered by search engines. SEM is a form of Internet marketing that involves the
promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages through the use of paid
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