ComparisonEngines

Blogs are finally getting some respect…

At the Google Dance this year (during SES), I asked a product manager for Google News why my blog was continually rejected as a source. I was told that while some blogs are legitimate, there are too many which should not be listed along side major media sources.

While Google is sticking by this script, I’m very pleased to see Yahoo! incorporating blogs into Yahoo! News Search:

“Today we’ve begun the integration of blogs in Yahoo! News Search. Now when you search on Yahoo! News you will see blog results as well as content from thousands of trusted news sites. The experiences and opinions published on blogs make a great addition to the mainstream news people read everyday. And major world events are further fueling the growth of blogs as platforms for anyone who wants to have a public voice. At times, even everyday bloggers beat the mainstream media to a story.” – from the Yahoo! Search Blog

The other big news of the week was AOL’s purchace of Jason Calacanis’s Weblogs Inc.

Douglas Sherrets of Minority Rapport, a blog about social networking/user generated content – think FaceBook, MySpace, MyYearBook, Jambo, etc. – e-mailed me the following question: How much value do you think is added to the user experience of shopping engines when you are logged in versus not logged in?

Here’s what I had to say:

Depending on the shopping engine, there is a value to registering/logging in. Almost all engines have basic features for registered/logged in users such as the ability to save shopping lists, get special updates/announcements, and leave reviews. In addition to these basic features, some of the engines have ‘advanced’ features:

Froogle – There is a feature called ‘Wish List‘ wish enables you to share your shopping list with friends and family – esentially a very basic gift registry. If you’ve registered, logged in, and created a wish list, anyone who searches for your email adress on Froogle can see your list.

PriceGrabber – There are two features here which I find interesting. First, ‘Price Alerts’ allows you to set a target price and be notified when a product is available below your target price. Not as elegant a solution as an RSS feed, but good enough. Second, ‘BottomLine Price’ allows you to see if it’s better to buy a set of products from a single merchant or multiple merchants.

Yahoo! Shopping – Similar to PriceGrabber, Y! has a lowest total price feature. Like all engines Y! offers the ability to save products/create a wish list, but Y! gives enables users to add notes about saved products and easily email the products to a friend.

As you can see, nothing groundbreaking, but definitely some useful features.

eBay recently launched Reviews and Guides and as usual, the eBay community jumped at the opportunity to contribute. I hate to see companies re-create the wheel, so I hope that eBay integrates Epinions into its Reviews, but with the amount of traffic that eBay gets and it’s extremely active community, I have a feeling that this might not be that necessary.

Looking for recommendations on a new notebook. Need an ultraportable (light) machine with long battery life and great cutstomer service. I currently have an IBM Thinkpad T30, but after 2.5yrs, it’s starting to die. Willing to spend aprx. $2000.

According to Dontbuyjunk, I should be considering the following:
Toshiba Portege R200
Sony VAIO VGN-T350p/l
IBM Thinkpad X41
Dell Latitude X1
Fujitsu Lifebook P7010D

Anyone have experience with Toshiba or Sony?

Thanks
-b

A week ago I wrote about the start up fees of some of the shopping comparison engines. In that post, I stated that Shopping.com’s (SDC) minimum initial deposit (which goes towards clicks – there is no setup fee) is $100. This is incorrect. The actual initial deposit is only $25 (down from $500). I was charged $100 because I ran across a small bug that SDC is working to fix (and could have already fixed by the time of this post). If you signed up with SDC within the last couple weeks and were charged $100, you should send an email to customer service.

Discovering this minor bug gave me the opportunity to talk briefly with Trent Scoffield, Director US Sales & Operations…
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In a couple weeks, the ghouls and goblins will be out in full force. Actually, we’ll probably see more superheroes than forces of evil, but you get the picture. Halloween is here. And according to Shopping.com’s Consumer Demand Index (CDI), searches for ‘costumes’ showed an increase of 140% last week (Sept. 19 – Oct. 2) compared to the previous week. As a kid, my mother dressed me up as a smurf one year and a stick of gum the next…not an auspicious start. In an attempt to pick out a more appropriate halloween costume in addition to some halloween decorations and candy, I figure it’s time to check out how the shopping comparison engines are handling Halloween.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I have an alternative motive…the Holiday Season is almost here. I think the Halloween sections of the comparison shopping enignes might give us a bit of insight into what we might expect to see around the corner…
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In case you missed it, here’s some general comparison engine news from this week:

PriceGrabber launched a comparison shopping section for Cell Phones, Plans, and Accessories in conjunction with InPhonic (a great company out of DC…ok, I’m biased, I worked withInPhonic’s CIO at VarsityBooks.com years ago.)

eyefortravel conducted an interview with Keith Melnick, VP BizDev Kayak.com. This guy seems damn cocky…nice to see some attitude.

Become.com moves into Japan through a partnership with Transcosmos. If you read this blog, you knew this announcement was coming. I think Become.com is onto something big, but the company needs a lot of help with messaging. I’ve started to refer to Become as the Consumer Reports of the 21st Century…while I’m not sure this will stick, it starts to explain Become’s model.

SideStep signs deal with Hilton Hotels Corp. Travel providers love the travel comparison engine (travel search) model as they get to own the customer. While there will always be a place for online travel agents (OTAs) like Travelocity or Expedia, I love the model that SideStep, Kayak, and Mobissimo have adopted.

You can always check our recent industry news here

Someone should start an adult shopping comparison engine. Seriously. Almost all the comparison engines list adult products (under ‘Personal Care, Mature, Massagers, etc.), we all know the adult industry is huge, and Amazon even quietly started to push adult toys. I’m sure someone will do it.

Ok, that was just to wake you up. Now, the next generation shopping comparison engine? I think someone could start up a successful comparison engine based on a pay per sale (ala Bill Gross’ Snap) model. What got me thinking of this? A couple things…

First, Snap’s announcement that it was working with Smarter.com for comparison shopping. While some people erroneously thought this implied Smarter.com would work on a pay per sale basis, the idea definitely has merit. Snap offers it’s advertisers two pay per sale options:
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