Hipmunk

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Adam Goldstein was a whiz-kid MIT engineering student with an enviable network of tech contacts and a decade of industry experience. He also had a lofty dream: To reinvent Internet flight search.

So he called up his old friend, Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman, and embarked on a summer project. It culminated in this week's launch of Hipmunk, which drew instant acclaim for its new approach to an old but still daunting search challenge: matching travel shoppers with flights. Hipmunk arranges flights on a colorful, user-friendly grid, letting browsers evaluate their options in a blink.

Just days old, the site is already winning rave reviews. "When you see the results you'll never want to see flight results in any other format," TechCrunch gushed. "It's one of those 'that's so obvious why didn't I think of that' moments."

Lifehacker calls the site "fantastic" and praised its visual innovation.

"We spent a disproportionate amount of time on building that interface," says Goldstein, who graduated from MIT this spring. "Helping users find the right flight in the least amount of time is what informs every decision."

Hipmunk cuts the clutter, displaying all flight options on one screen. Prices show on the grid's vertical axis, with departure times on the horizontal axis. Airlines are color-coded -- JetBlue (JBLU) flights in blue, Delta (DAL, Fortune 500) in orange, and so on -- allowing searchers to zoom straight in on their favorites.

From there, browsers can sort by factors including price, flight length, and the number of stops. The aptly named "agony" button is a one-click combination of all three. Users can search in multiple tabs, filter out flights that depart too early or late, and share links to their searches with friends.