An awful lot has been made of Metasearch by webbies and surf watchers. And rightly so. The technology that aggregates content from all corners of the web into an easy-to-use format is indeed extremely powerful stuff. The more technology can help us order and compare our world in clean and rational ways, the better.

But I have one main beef with travel metasearch - there usually is no beef.

Travel metasearch, in the version we are used to, seems purely directed at price comparison. The assumption? You know exactly where you need to go and when. And the only thing you really care about is price.

This to me is like always eating McDonalds for dinner. Or always skipping foreplay, and rushing to the main event. It's all a bit flat.

What about aggregating more of the actual travel content, the places you can go and the experiences you can have. What about using the amazing technology to bring together travel experiences - so that I can make a better decision about where to go, based on my unique needs and preferences.

Then when I key in words like "sun", "rum" and "jelly wrestling" (key components to all Naked Surfer holidays), a list of perfect holidays emerge to select from.

An example of good content aggregation in the music world is Metacritic.com.

Thinking of buying the new album by The Raconteurs, but unsure of the reviews? Metacritic collects a helpful set of links to all the reviews for the album, from the most respected music sources. Ingeniously, it also gives you a guide to the average rating for that album, based on all the ratings collected (The Raconteurs' new album gets 78/100). And it's not just music, but also movies, DVDs, games, books and TV shows.

The result of an hour reading Metacritic? I want to rush out and buy more. Because I get quick access to new information about my favourite artists - and can easily avoid the content that I like least.

As a surfer in a hurry to buy great stuff fast, I'd love many of my purchasing decisions to be 'meta-ed' for me. My news, my food, my travel. A meta me is just a better me.

Web developers out there, take note. Travel - at least the models I've seen so far - is missing out big time on helping people to pick-and-mix great experiences, rather than merely grabbing only those who've made up their mind. As a result, many people would rather buy music.

Peace,
Naked Surfer