|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
February 2005More Background on Become.comMore background on Become.com at SiliconBeat.
More Background on Become.com
Shopping Search Interview QuestionsIf anyone would like to suggest a general big-picture question about the shopping search industry, one that could apply to any/all future interviews, let me know. Also, if anyone has a burning question for a specific company, let me know, too. No guarantees, but I'll see what I can do. Thanks. p.s. - contrary to a prior post, name = optional
Shopping Search Interview Questions
Shopping Search En EspañolSEW Forums has a thread from the end of last year that touches on shopping search for the U.S. Hispanic Market and Latin America.
Shopping Search En Español
Fifty Ways to Pitch a BloggerAs a business blogger, I see my fair share of product pitches. Some are good, some are not so good. Here is one thing that can make it or break it: No need to be coy, Roy If you are pitching, stand behind your site. No need to have a "second shooter" fire off anonymous recommendations from a grassy knoll. "Anonymous" has sent me one too many ho-hum recommendations over the years, so think twice before associating yourself with him or her. Real people, on the other hand, have a much better track record...
Fifty Ways to Pitch a Blogger
MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco Interviews Become.com CEO Michael YangBecome.com became less mysterious after this six-minute interview, but no less impressive. You can find a summary and a link to the video clip in the February 23rd edition of Net Stocks. Highlight: Become.com also plans to add a comparison shopping service. Implications for the consumer... vs. comparison shopping engines, Become.com could try to cover more stages of the buying cycle, especially the under-served early stages. vs. Yahoo/Yahoo Shopping and Froogle/Google, Become.com could try to offer more compelling integration of the earlier and later stages. Implications for their business... * They can pick the low-hanging arbitrage fruit like everyone else for a base of revenue. * They could also exploit the weakness of other shopping comparison partner programs. * Plus, they still have plenty of upside potential for the organic, repeat (free) visitors. Net Stocks has additional details related to funding.
MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco Interviews Become.com CEO Michael Yang
MSN Shopping BetaPssst... wanna see the hot new beta at MSN? beta.shopping.msn.com
If this is the first you heard of the MSN Shopping beta, you are not alone... February 1st - it all starts with an oh-by-the-way mention at Matthew@MSN. Live Site vs. Beta Site It looks like Microsoft has decided to make MSN Shopping more than just another banner farm. The MSN Shopping beta has a clean layout that hints at real honest-to-goodness functionality.
The Good (+) Basic Usability Drop-Down Menu Breadcrumb Trail Ratings & Reviews Price Range & Free Shipping The Bad ( - ) Feature Finding Left-Side Refine Results No-Range Refine Results Compare Checked Items Summary MSN Shopping beta is full of potential, but is this a upgrade or an overhaul? Is Microsoft aiming to build the best comparison shopping resource? If so, have they done the necessary benchmarking? (I hear the Organized Shopping project is a good starting point.) Will they stop at the current features of Windows Marketplace, or will they keep adding features for the 2005 holiday shopping season? And will I finally make good contact with someone at MSN Shopping?
MSN Shopping Beta
The Future of Shopping ComparisonI posted some thoughts on the future of shopping comparison at the Search Engine Watch Forums.
The Future of Shopping Comparison
New Comparison Shopping Site from ValueClick in Q2A quote from ValueClick CEO Jim Zarley via the always-current Internet Stock Blog: "We anticipate a US launch for comparison shopping during the second quarter of this year. We've assembled the US team and they're currently building out the site today."
New Comparison Shopping Site from ValueClick in Q2
FatLens get Fat Funding (IM2 gets VC)IM2 Inc. closed first-round funding of $8 million. (TheDeal.com) Im2 uses its FatLens shopping search technology to aggregate results from around the Web. You can sneak a peek at how they apply this technology to the event-ticketing industry at www.fatlens.com. article via: Search Engine Watch
FatLens get Fat Funding (IM2 gets VC)
Social Networking for Yahoo Shopping?Lately, I've been thinking a lot about different ways the general shopping comparison sites could ease people towards more advanced product-finding, instead of making the user do all the dirty work. Could this turn out to be a step in that direction? Rob Solomon, vice president for Yahoo shopping, said that his company is also working on social networking for its shopping area. source: sfgate.com
Social Networking for Yahoo Shopping?
The End Is Near For Froogle Beta?John Battelle has an interesting tidbit from Marissa Mayer of Google: "She responded that Google was getting close to lifting beta from on a number of key products - Froogle and News were two she mentioned." source: Searchblog According to the WSJ, Page says the beta tag means Google engineers still anticipate making significant improvements to the service. Specifically, according to this write-up at BlogCritics: "For our engineers, it's in beta if you'd be proud to show it to your mom once you have made one or two major changes." source: BlogCritics So... one or two major changes to Froogle in the near future? I would be thrilled if they would do more to cluster same-product listings. for example: U2 ipod special edition In this example, they have done a good job of clustering the reviews. Why not do the same thing for product prices and merchant ratings?
The End Is Near For Froogle Beta?
Online Travel: Just The Facts, Ma'amITFacts.biz - quick facts, cool site! 02/14/04 - 79.3% of those who shop online buy travel online (BURST!) 11/15/04 - 23% of all travel sold online in 2004 (JupiterResearch) 11/06/04 - Travel agents get 16% of online traffic, travel search engines - only 0.42% (Forrester Research) see also: E-commerce
Online Travel: Just The Facts, Ma'am
Shopping.com in 2005 - More Countries, More CategoriesIntegration, integration, integration. The recent trend for search engines (news, images, local, etc.) is also spreading to shopping engines. Shopping.com plans to expand into France in the first half of 2005, and Germany in the second half of 2005. They are looking at ways to integrate new product categories with their existing categories. "Cross-selling is part of the reason to do this," Ciporin says, adding: "We’re looking into other markets also, including travel, autos, tickets—we’re looking at all of them." source: Internet Retailer
Shopping.com in 2005 - More Countries, More Categories
Study: Pricing Advantages Linked to Customer ServiceThe conventional wisdom about the Internet continues to be re-written. "Gruca contends that the Internet is a convenience channel for consumers, rather than a price channel where items can be bought at the lowest price." source What would you rather use (or own, or work for, or invest in): a price-comparison engine or a shopping-convenience engine? I don't mind saving a few bucks, but even that has to be convenient. It is with that frame of mind that I do my research for Price Comparison Week: "real-world price comparison made easy" or something like that... it is much more than who has the lowest price.
Study: Pricing Advantages Linked to Customer Service
Shopping Comparison Partner ProgramsAsk any smart affiliate manager and they will tell you that "no-name" affiliate partners are capable of pushing more volume than many of their big-name bizdev counterparts. eBay knows this. They offer innovative tools to turn smaller partners into million-dollar producers (see: March 31st, 2004). In contrast, many shopping sites seem content to reward a select group of bizdev partners with run-of-the-mill co-branding. So, with no shopping comparison site currently breaking away from the pack, who will be first to introduce an eBay-like partner program to try and break the game wide open?
Shopping Comparison Partner Programs
Merchant's Guide to UK Shopping DirectoriesCiao AG has archived (PDF) an article from Internet Works entitled "Your Complete Guide to Online Shopping Directories" (UK Shopping Directories). They identify 15 shopping sites of interest to UK merchants and explain how they work from a merchant's point of view.
Merchant's Guide to UK Shopping Directories
Farhad Mohit talks to Chris Pirillo at CESI just stumbled across a brief interview with Farhad Mohit, Co-Founder of Shopzilla. It is mostly a "hi, who are you" affair... except for a little comment about a billion dollars in gross merchandise sales. As a point of reference, for the first nine months of FY04, eBay reported $16.7b in Gross Merchandise Volume (source: Form 10-Q, Page 30). Yet there is only one eBay, and several leading shopping comparison engines. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money flowing through the comparison shopping engines.
Farhad Mohit talks to Chris Pirillo at CES
Alexa Rank: Shopping.com vs. NexTag.com vs BizRate.com vs. PriceGrabber.comNot that Alexa is the most scientic source of traffic measurement, but it is interesting to see how the leading engines have converged.
Alexa Rank: Shopping.com vs. NexTag.com vs BizRate.com vs. PriceGrabber.com
Alexa Rank: BizRate.com vs. Shopzilla.comShopzilla.com went from a parked domain to the Alexa Top 2000 in no time flat, but it has a long "last mile" ahead to catch BizRate.com, according to Alexa.com.
Alexa Rank: BizRate.com vs. Shopzilla.com
Alexa Rank: Shopping.com vs. Epinions.com vs. DealTime.com vs. DealTime.co.ukThe Shopping.com domain came on strong last year to surge ahead of Epinions and gain a slight lead over Dealtime, according to Alexa.com.
Alexa Rank: Shopping.com vs. Epinions.com vs. DealTime.com vs. DealTime.co.uk
Become.com Bug Fix UpdateThe bug I found yesterday was fixed sometime today. Nice!
Become.com Bug Fix Update
Become.com - First LookFirst Impression, Pre-Search Become.com reminds me of a yellow Froogle. Lean, mean, clean... all about the search results. I (heart) minimalism, but I'm also hoping to find at least a hint of new features. The Authority On Authority? Michael Yang claims that "Google basic approach... was highly limiting" and the new Become.com ranking algorithm overcomes "many of the short comings" of the PageRank algorithm. He might be right. I was not expecting a beta search engine to have such a good grasp of authority on Day One. The "usual suspects" are not always in the top spot, but they are usually in the top ten. (Compare it to the early MSN Search beta, which had problems ranking ebay.com in the Top 100 for the generic "auctions" keyword.) This is all the more impressive considering Become.com does not have the resources of a Microsoft. What can they do with a flood of eyeballs and a slick feedback system? Then again, the latest Google update might have overcome some of the shortcomings of PageRank, too. Even the new MSN Search is starting to look more authoritative, maybe even turning some knobs a bit too far. No matter. A diversity of authority algorithms is good for searchers. What I like about Become.com, based on my limited testing, is they have a interesting blend of authority sites within many search results. It is like the BecomeBot is saying, "instead of showing you ten uber-authority sites that are all the same, I'm going to show you several different kinds of authority sites." Then again, it is now past midnight, maybe I am reading to much into this. I would not want to put words in the BecomeBot's mouth based on less than fifty searches. I need more searches. I need more sleep. more later... To-Be-Fixed-Soon? Clustering - it does not look like they are grouping multiple results from the same domain. I initially thought this had to do with sub-domains (i.e. About.com), a common dilemma for search engines, but I've since found multiple deep links from the same site, even the same folder within the same site, all appearing for the same keyword. Don't get me wrong, it is not bad. To-Be-Fixed-Soon! I did find one true bug, a real doozy, and quickly reported it via the feedback form. No sense airing the dirty laundry here, we've all made those kinds of mistakes. My hope is someone is monitoring the feedback form, and they fix this glitch before anyone else sees it. Final Thoughts, Post-Search The beta is solid and I'm sure Michael and Yeogirl had several tricks up their sleeves when they chose to build a shopping search engine instead of another shopping comparison site. Congrats to the team, and best of luck.
Become.com - First Look
Blogging the Become.com BetaJust a reminder that Jason Dowdell is covering the Become.com launch from sunny Cali-for-ni-ay. "I got some good info from a source that must remain anonymous until after the prelaunch even this evening." This is one of those rare instances when Bloglines is not fast enough to feed my need for new posts. Refresh, refresh, refresh.
Blogging the Become.com Beta
Become.com Beta Goes LiveIt is official! Michael Yang has announced the official beta launch of Become.com. Shopping information from 2.2 billion web pages from 22 million sites. Beta testers must limit activity to 50 queries per day, must be able to accept cookies, and must refrain from using any automated systems to send queries to Become.com or scrape the Become.com site.
Become.com Beta Goes Live
Froogle - Can't Get No Respect?* Focus - according to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, "Big G" allocates 20% of their resources to projects that extend the core search, including Froogle and Google News. No telling how many projects fall under that category, or if Froogle gets a fair share of the pie. * Usage - according to Marissa Mayer, Product Manager at Google, the recently-publicized Google Local had already been getting more traffic than Froogle. Sure enough, Google does not even show up as one of the top half-dozen destinations for Google at Alexa.com.
Froogle - Can't Get No Respect?
Kayak.com Officially Launches: The HighlightsKayak.com removed the "beta" from their logo and officially launched their travel search site on February 7th. Highlights: * partners: 100+ online travel sites provide access to 550+ airlines and 85,000+ hotels. USATODAY.com is the newest distribution partner, which will feature a co-branded travel price comparison tool. * personalization: uses can create profiles that automatically filter travel options by personal preferences, including number of stops and travelers, preferred airlines, airports and home airport. * promotion: all during February, users who register on Kayak.com will be entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a Winter Getaway to The Bahamas. * pay-per-click: Kayak.com launched an bidding tool for hotel marketers who want to appear higher in the search results. * plans: "Today we have [25,000] to 30,000 unique visitors a day," said Paul English, cofounder and CTO of Kayak. "Our goal is to take that number to well over 10 million visitors a month."
Kayak.com Officially Launches: The Highlights
Flexible-Date Travel: Airfare = Yay! Hotels = Nay?Here is a real-world travel search problem in need of an elegant solution: I recently won a little poker tournament that included a trip to Las Vegas. Now, if you have won any of these types of trips, you are familiar with the old saying, "what the big print giveth, the fine print taketh away." Specifically, the big print said, WIN A TRIP TO LAS VEGAS! Meanwhile, the fine print said something about no travel on weekends or "really fun days" (my words) and a voucher for up to $400. Technically, $400 is not a trip to Vegas. For two people flying from St. Louis, it is only a fraction of a trip. Unless, of course, I want my lady's first memory of sin city to be a stay at Circus Circus. But she is not fond of clowns. They are a little creepy, come to think of it. But I digress. The point here is that I can travel virtually any week in the next eight months. I've got a free frequent-flyer ticket that we can use, so $400 starts to look a little more do-able, or at least within the realm of possiblity. If I can find a sweet spot on the calendar when the price is right, maybe we can get lucky and upgrade from the outhouse to the penthouse. So... with all the travel search engines thumping their chests and proclaiming to be The Greatest, who is going to provide the complete solution to my situation? I'll try to make things easier by limited the search to one month, February. Flexible-Date Airfare = Yay! Several sites provide airfare-search options for flexible-date travel. It is a good thing, too, because even among the lowest daily fares, 3-day roundtrip airfare to Vegas in February ranged from $203 to $358, depending on the departure date (see chart below). Note: I don't remember the exact date of these searches, it was sometime late last month when I had planned to post this piece, probably January 22nd-ish. Expedia.com: Flexible-Date Flights Orbitz.com: Flexible-Stays: Options #3 Flexible-Date Hotels = Nay? Now for the bad news. I could not find a similar tool for search hotel deals. The closest thing was doing a 30-day search on Hotels.com and scanning their detailed results layout for large price dips. This might be the best method for now, but it leaves much to be desired. First, there is no way to scan the page as quickly or as accurately as a computer could do. Also, hotels which do not have availability for all days are excluded, so while you will find the best rate on some hotels, you might miss the best rate on other hotels. Here is the data from researching this post:
Wishful Thinking, Part I - with so many new travel search engines, it would be swell if they all aspired to do more than simply aggregate a bunch of prices. Every time I need to fire up a spreadsheet for comparison shopping, someone is missing an opportunity to make their e-com site an indispensable destination. Does any travel site want to scoop up this very targetted traffic? It sure beats having to compete with the big boys on the generic searches. Heck, you can still register flexibledatetravel.com. Wishful Thinking, Part II - for now, it would be helpful if Hotels.com had an option to highlight every result that was less than "x" amount of dollars. Even better would be if the "Find" bar at the bottom of Firefox had an option to evaluate numerically. Instead of simply matching text strings, you could highlight values on a page that were great than or less than than a certain number. Optionally, you could specify a currency to restrict the numeric search as currency-only. It might look something like this:
Flexible-Date Travel: Airfare = Yay! Hotels = Nay?
Price-Comparison Research: Online Retail Price Range is IncreasingThe New York Times has an article, Price-Comparison Sites Do the Legwork (free registration required), that details a reporter's experiences with price-comparison shopping, but the real meat of the article is the reference to Michael R. Baye, a business professor at Indiana University (plus collegues John Morgan of Berkley and Patrick Scholten of Bentley). Professor Baye studied 20 million(!) online price quotes on ~10,000 consumer-electronic products from various price-comparison sites. He says that over the last five years, the gap between the lowest prices and the highest prices has actually increased from 35% to 45%. You can find more information (and cool interactive charts) at Nash-Equilibrium.com.
Price-Comparison Research: Online Retail Price Range is Increasing
re: Slow WeekPosting might be a little sporadic for the next week or so while I help take care of our injured beagle. She gets out of the doggie hospital tonight, and I'm here to tell you that beagle-proofing a home is not easy!
re: Slow Week
|
(0)
digital cameras
(2)
