Vacation rentals are big business. HomeAway, which owns a dozen or so vacation home listing sites, just raised $250 million in a venture round that values the company at more than $1 billion. But listings are spread across lots of sites - what the industry needed was a good central search engine for all those vacation home rentals. It's also a pain to do lots of searches on different sites ...

Travel industry reports forecast a dark winter for the travel industry, but FlipKey.com, a leading vacation rental website, indicates this doesn't necessarily spell a down season for the whole ski industry.