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April 2005Slow Month...announcement for people who do not use RSS... With any luck, May will be a slow month at this blog. There will still be scattered flurries of posts, but I want to get refresh and recharge before we enter the busy half of the yar. I also want to roll out the first piece of a niche shopping-site network. Mid-month, I'll be visiting a developer/partner in Orlando for a work-vacation. Later, "sweet pea" and I will tour Chicago for a vacation-vacation. Yay! On a shopping-related note, I'm liking the integrated approach of Yahoo Travel...
Slow Month...
Amazon.com RedesignSearchViews comments on the new Amazon.com redesign.
Amazon.com Redesign
Overstock Auctions Integrates with Shopzillasee: Overstock Auctions Integrates with Shopzilla (Auction Bytes) I have not seen this in action, but it sounds like a logical development.
Overstock Auctions Integrates with Shopzilla
Shopping.com Reports Results For Q1 2005Shopping.com reports results for Q1 2005:
Shopping.com Reports Results For Q1 2005
Shopping Jobs Snapshot - Q2 2005An archive of job openings at the shopping engines as of 4/22/2005. Summary: see below for the list of all job titles
note: jobs that were created -and- filled during the time between 1/15 and 4/22 are not included in the job lists or job totals. Become.com Jobs (4) Google Jobs (2) MSN Shopping Jobs (12) NexTag Jobs (38) Shopzilla/BizRate.com Jobs (18)
Shopping Jobs Snapshot - Q2 2005
re: Brilliant ShopperAbout a month ago, I was asked to cover a new shopping company called Brilliant Shopper. It sounded promising, but it also sounded similar to my new hobby of shopping interface design. I alerted them to a post on the subject and we agreed to wait and talk when they were near launch. They might end up doing what I want to do before I am able to do it, but that won't stop me from giving them a chance to tell their story. Anything that helps people to become better shoppers makes things more interesting for everyone in this space. And if they perfect this concept, I'll have more time to work on Projects B, C, D through X, Y, Z. :-) Anyone who wants to play with the beta site can find it @ http://www.brilliantshopper.com
re: Brilliant Shopper
Politeness Tag for RSS?off-topic Perhaps there should be a "politeness" revisit tag for RSS? For example, if I have feeds that are set to update every night at midnight, there is no reason for people to request it every hour. Needless requests are a burden on bandwidth and server response time. Eventually, what is bad for the provider will be bad for the reader, in the form of services that are scaled back are removed altogether. This might not apply to blogs like this one, where (1) there is one feed, or few feeds (2) a new entry could happen at any time. I am thinking of services with thousands of specialty feeds, or an unlimited number of custom feeds. Now, I know the META Revisit-After tag is not used in any meaningful way, but I think that is because the relationship between content publishers and search engines is often distant and adversarial. In contrast, the relationship between RSS publishers and RSS readers is direct and cooperative. Why not have more tools to better manage this relationship? Or is there already something like this? the ideal scenario: * Publisher has the option to set a frequency cap on feed requsts. * Reader software sees the tag and respects the frequency cap. Of course, they are free to request the feeds less often. * Abuse, defined as requests in excess of the frequency cap, is no longer ambigous. Hopefully, this leads to less unintentional abuse. * Considering the sluggish response time of services like Bloglines, they might appreciate a more efficient distribution of resources, too. Comments?
Politeness Tag for RSS?
SEW Awards '05 - Best Shopping Search EngineBest US Shopping Search Engine Froogle won with the most reader votes, 32 percent, and Yahoo Shopping had the second-most votes, 19 percent, tied with Shopping.com. While both Froogle and Yahoo Shopping made strides in the last year, as a general rule, I think the companies with their own web search engines are lagging when it comes to shopping comparison engines. Unlike the independent shopping engines, Froogle and Yahoo Shopping can rely on the relationship with their parent engines for plenty of traffic and, apparently, awards like Best Shopping Search Engine. Hmmm... I might need to come up with a multi-category Shopping Comparison Engine Awards later this year to shine a light on the real work that is being done in this area.
SEW Awards '05 - Best Shopping Search Engine
Froogle vs. FrooglesNewsday.com has plenty of details in the escalating legal dispute between Google and the owner of Froogles.com. Google fights for its oogle (newsday.com)
Froogle vs. Froogles
Name Your Own Price Travel? No, Thanks.My comment on Toughts on Kayak's New PPC Tool @ SearchViews is either in a pre-moderation deep freeze, or it went where naughty comments go to die. I don't remember my exact rebuttal, but it was along these lines: Surely there is a limit to the % of customers and situations that warrant the "opaque" travel offers of Priceline, et all? With all this talk of "opaque" offers and brand equity, what about the desire of customers for "transparency" and control?
Name Your Own Price Travel? No, Thanks.
Shopzilla in FranceWow, is this really as bad as it looks, or is the French version's traffic all on partner sites that do not count towards Shopzilla.fr?
Shopzilla in France
Shopping.com Powering AOL France Shopping ChannelShopping.com Selected to Power AOL Shopping Channel in France. "more than 3.5 million AOL French visitors will have access to Shopping.com's global product catalog through the AOL service in France and www.aol.fr" specifically, http://shopping.aol.fr
Shopping.com Powering AOL France Shopping Channel
Become vs. Google - Refrigerator KeywordIn my chat with Michael Yang, he mentioned several examples of what he thought were good search results on Become.com. The first of these, refrigerator, was a shocker. Maybe he cherry-picked the worst search result in all of Google. I don't know. But it is certainly a wake-up call for people who think all search engines are interchangeable. Here are the top results of both sites for the "refrigerator" keyword: To be fair, Google found mostly relevant sites on a search for the "refrigerators" keyword. Then again, their #1 result on the plural version is a site called Women in Refrigerators... p.s. - if any googlers would like to provide a counter-example, I am open to suggestions.
Become vs. Google - Refrigerator Keyword
Become.com Goes Live With 3.2 Billion PagesBecome.com goes live and removes their registration requirement. SearchEngineWatch.com provides an overview of Become.com.
Become.com Goes Live With 3.2 Billion Pages
Interview With Michael Yang of Become.com
Starting To "Click" People have asked me, "what do you see in Become.com?" That, plus reactions ranging from "huh?" to "hmm..." from friends, reminded me to guard against any irrational exuberance here. I asked Michael Yang, Co-Founder and CEO of Become.com, how they plan to convert people who are unconvinced by the beta site. "Time will take care of that," Michael responded, "when people use it for their own shopping." He proceeded to illustrate this point with a recent Become.com success story. A frustrated shopper was trying to find product information and online retailers for a boat part. She spent over an hour searching Google and visiting their top results without success. Enter Become and their shopping-flavored search results. Within five minutes, her search was satisfied. That is all well and good, but what about people who do not look deeper than design? What if these people equate no new interface with no new functionality, and they do not dig in and discover the differences? To address these questions, Michael said they will roll out a "seamless integration of search and shopping" in the middle of this year. Favorite Searches In an interview at ZDNet.com, Michael mentioned the keyword "television" as a example of how Become.com was different than other search engines. For me, this example hit home better than any technical explanation, so I asked for more of his favorite search keywords, and he rattled off refrigerator, lcd projectors, hdtv, and laptop/notebook computers. I have linked these searches below for ease of comparison:
International Expansion Non-U.S. comparison shopping has been a hot topic this year. All of the established U.S. players have sites in the U.K., and many of them are launching or planning a pan-European expansion. However, at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference, none of the companies in attendance said they had plans to expand into Asia. I found this topic interesting considering how soon Yeogirl Yun's WiseNut expanded from English to Korean and Japanese. Would this company be on the same fast track to international expansion? And could they take a different path than the other shopping engines that originated in the U.S.? Although he said it was too early to talk about specific countries, Michael was able to supply the following information: (1) they would like to expand internationally as soon as they are firmly established in the U.S. (2) this expansion would include both the research side and the comparison shopping side (3) they are evaluating both Europe and Asia. Sean's Thoughts I think Become.com could be one of the most interesting combinations of opportunity, technology and philosophy since Google at Stanford... this coming from one of the biggest cheerleaders of early Google. But don't take my word for it. Try some searches. Research the shopping landscape. You might come to a different conclusion. If so, let me hear about it. For my part, I'll try to overhaul my opinions and start fresh when Become.com introduces comparison shopping. + + + see also:
Interview With Michael Yang of Become.com
Yahoo Shopping RSS FeedsYahoo Shopping has launched RSS feeds for several popular categories - music, movies, electronics and computers. http://shopping.yahoo.com/rss/ No need to get too excited. These feeds are very basic. Still, it is nice to hear something from Yahoo Shopping, who has been too quiet lately. via ResearchBuzz
Yahoo Shopping RSS Feeds
Still Searching... For All-In-One Travel ShoppingBusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy finds out the hard way that there is no perfect travel search site. Not news, but I love to see specific examples of breakdowns in the shopping-search process.
Still Searching... For All-In-One Travel Shopping
NexTag Article at MercuryNews.comSurviving, Thriving (mercurynews.com) (free subscription required) Plenty of good stuff on the history and philosophy of NexTag. Also... "There's word in venture capital circles that NexTag is in shape to go public soon -- even if Ojha rules out any such plans for now." source In other news, I have started hearing radio commercials for the refinancing services of NexTag.
NexTag Article at MercuryNews.com
Ciporon Speaks. Analysts Speak, Too.In an interview with Haaretz, Dan Ciporin talks about resigning as CEO of Shopping.com. Also, David Jackson has collected analyst reactions at The Internet Stock Blog.
Ciporon Speaks. Analysts Speak, Too.
Week OverFor the sake of everyone who reads this blog, myself included, I am using the rest of the week for extensive reading at Poynter Online, including Fifty Writing Tools.
Week Over
Dan Ciporin Steps Down From Shopping.com"Shopping.com Ltd. (Nasdaq: SHOP), a leading online comparison shopping service, today announced that Dan Ciporin will be stepping down as CEO and will continue to guide the company as Chairman of the Shopping.com board of directors. Lorrie Norrington, a member of the Shopping.com board of directors, will replace Mr. Ciporin as president and CEO, effective June 1, 2005."
Dan Ciporin Steps Down From Shopping.com
Yahoo FareChase Hotel Beta - First GlanceYahoo! FareChase Launches Beta for Hotels I do not have time to dig into this shootout-style, but the new FareChase hotel search looks as satisfying as the old FareChase hotel search was frustrating. Also, I think the forward-moving design of FareChase is clearly superior to the back-tracking design of AOL's PinPoint Travel. http://farechase.yahoo.com/hotelsearch/ The only funny part is the ads on the right side. On the left, you have tools to go far beyond the limits of keyword search. In the center, a wealth of structured shopping information that can be as detailed as you want it to be. Then, on the right, a long list of keyword-based advertisements that are blissfully unaware of additional pre-qualification activity. Hmmm...
Yahoo FareChase Hotel Beta - First Glance
About SeanNow that we have the April Fool's post, it is time to get back to business and take care of an item on my "To Do" list. After 100+ posts, more background information about myself is long overdue. Especially after I was referred to as "guy" by John Battelle, which turned into "a guy" and "the guy" and who knows what else. I'd better nip this nameless, faceless meme in the bud! I have included an About Sean page that answers the questions most-asked by people in the industry. www.organizedshopping.com/about/sean/ Hopefully, my background will not sound too much like an April Fool's joke. Ah well... it is what is is... Have a great weekend, I'll see y'all on Monday.
About Sean
Sean Quits This Blog To Become A Full-Time Poker Player
"Before blogging, I rolled out of bed whenever the inspiration hit me," he said. "Then I start this blog, and next thing you know, I find myself getting up before 7:00 AM to serve the East Coast. And yesterday, I realized the lag-time between making a new post and getting it picked up by My Yahoo was very long. It seemed like several hours or more. Needless to say, I was disillusioned." "What," he continued, "I am supposed to get up at 4 AM for a head start on the distribution of RSS? I thought bloggers were supposed to be slackers. At four o'clock Before leaving, Sean said not to worry, that given the high ratio of low-limit tables in St. Louis, his pocket aces will surely be busted by "suited trash" in time for a speedy return to work on Monday. + + + Note: this page was posted for April Fool's Day 2005. (more)
Sean Quits This Blog To Become A Full-Time Poker Player
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Sean O'Rourke, publisher of the Organized Shopping Blog, has quit this blog to become a full-time poker player, effective immediately.
