MakeMyTrip.com backed, online travel meta search engine, ixigo has launched a new mobile app on Android to book bus tickets. The app is currently available for download from the Google Play Store and allows users to book AC, Volvo and sleeper buses from its app by just searching for destination and original location, number of seats, and date. One can filter tickets based on price range, departure time and boarding points, although they need to either slide the homescreen from right to left or click on the filter icon. Besides this, bus tickets can be booked from the search results. The app allows one to sort search results ascendingly and descendingly based on time, duration and price. The app also saves searches that one makes so that users do not have to make searches again, which appears on the app homescreen. It appears that the company aggregates inventory from couple of bus ticketing sites such as ticketgoose.com, Goibibo, Makymytrip, among others. What's interesting is that while routing the final searches to these sites, the app displays ads on its screen. The ads displayed on the routing page are not mobile screen optimized at all. It's not clear whether ixigo monetizes on each booking or through these ads. However, if it monetizes on each transaction why would the company want to display ads on its routing screen again (which by the way are not mobile optimized)? Apart from this bus ticketing app, ixigo has numerous dedicated apps for train booking, flights and hotel, and check PNR. In…
