Next Generation Shopping

I came across a couple posts that pose the questioning the state of the e-commerce mashup industry. One post at WebApiTracker.com and another by Charles Hudson on his blog post Where are all the E-Commerce Mashups?

Charles states:

But what I have been wondering for awhile now is why all of the energy focused on creating content or mapping mashups hasn’t spilled over to e-commerce.

It is good to see people interested in this field and that they see its potential as well. Hopefully, I’ll get some quality feedback and ideas to integrate into SecretPrices.com.

Technorati Tags: E-Commerce, Web 2.0, Mashups

Attending Affiliate Summit last month I got to hear Jeff Barr speak about Amazon’s newest web service technologies. One that was particularly interesting was the Mechanical Turk web service. Mechanical Turk is “artificial artificial intelligence”… It allows users to complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. For example, identifying objects in pictures, translating text, or even answering simple questions.

A recent post to the AWS Blog tells about a new web site that offers the service of asking questions.

Have you ever needed to get an answer to a question in a hurry, perhaps something that you can’t find in your favorite search engine? If so, you may want to tap into the internet-scale Mechanical Turk workforce using the new question asking system at Ask For Cents.

The premise is you pay people pennies, nickels or dimes to answer any questions you have. The issue is the quality of the answers you get back. Currently, the site is in Alpha testing and submitting questions is free… So try it out.

I had talked to Jeff Barr briefly at the Affiliate Summit about a similiar idea and he mentioned he thought someone was working on it. I assume he meant this. So I tested it out from a shopping perspective. I asked three questions, each receiving two answers from the site. The results were very quick (within 5-10 minutes). The first two questions were pricing based questions and the third question was more of a research question.

Question #1 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 06:59:01 +0200
Which online web site has the Kenneth Cole KC3500 Wrist Watch for the cheapest price?

Answer 1 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 07:03:01 +0200
Ashford.com Link

Answer 2 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 07:03:21 +0200
amazon has 2 sellers

WorldofWatches
Diamond.com
both are 131.00

Critique
These answers are both good, but could be better. The real answer is Ashford.com, which was Answer #1. But they also have a coupon right now for 20% off or a different coupon for 10% off and free shipping.

Question #2 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:19:05 +0200
What web site has the lowest price on the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card for a notebook computer? Is there any coupon or rebate for it?

Answer 1 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:22:15 +0200
SuperWarehouse.com Link
$30 rebate

Answer 2 received Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:29:04 +0200
http://www.directron.com/audigy2zsnb.html

Directron has it for $85.99 with a $30 mail in rebate. The rebate form
is at the bottom of the site listed above

Critique
Good answers, but again not the best. This was actually a deal posted on xpBargains.com from Radioshack for $90 - $40 rebate is $50 shipped. The Directron is cheaper, but before shipping costs.

Question #3 sent Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:42:55 +0200
Where can I buy a remote shutter for panansonic lumix fz30?

Answer 1 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:45:18 +0200
PartStore.com Link

Answer 2 recieved Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:48:59 +0200
Try here:
Bhphotovideo.com Link

Critique
Both answers were incorrect! Didn’t match what the question was. I took the question from a Yahoo! Answers post which was currently waiting for answers. The research question yieled the worst results… fitting it was the most complex question.

My initial thoughts for using mechanical turk was finding some way to integrate it into shopping or shopping comparison sites. Maybe let users ask questions and rather than waiting for a shopping community to respond, receive answers quickly.

Or how about from a mobile device? Asking a product question while in the store and receiving an answer back in 5 minutes… Hmm. Contact me with business proposals

Technorati Tags: mechanical turk, amazon, web services, social shopping, answers

Shelron Group which owns ActiveShopper recently released a press release which stated:

During Q1 of 2005 both parties have signed a letter of intent to enter into a licensing agreement, where the agreement will give Shelron worldwide rights to use and license NeoMedia’s PaperClick® technology and patents in an ActiveShopper(TM) Mobile Edition for cell phones and PDAs.

I finally got a chance to look at the NeoMedia technology, PaperClick. From the PaperClick.com web site:

PaperClick can read alphanumeric or numeric characters, this allows for any grouping of letters or numbers that could be “turned on” or “linked” to a Web page (URL). From consumer products to license plates to posters, anything can be a direct link to a web page (URL).

So imagine essentially scanning a product in a retail store and comparing prices online, on your cell phone or PDA. A very interesting idea… But I wonder how store owns would feel about it. Maybe you can get a bargain out if it

But I believe Amazon filed a patent on barcode price comparison back in September 2005, found some information at this blog post.

Anyways, the Shelron Group stock (SHRN.OB) went up a couple pennies so I sold some shares.

I talked to a Y! Affiliate Program Representative and she informed me that Yahoo would be integrating the Y! Shopping into their affiliate program sometime during 2006.  This would work in conjunction with their Shopping API.  I assume it essentially will be a revenue share of the revenue generated from merchant sites, probably on a per-click basis based on their CPC rate card.  This could be a great opportunity for niche webmasters to monetize their web site.  Specifically for mashup sites, like BaeBo (and others), that utilize the Y! Shopping API.  Also, deal and coupon sites could point to Y! to earn revenue from merchant sites they may not be affiliated with directly.  Great potential.  I’ll post updates when I have them.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo! Shopping, API, Price Comparison, Online Shopping, Revenue Share, CPC, Affiliate

I have recently been in touch with Francis Shanahan, the creator of BaeBo (uses many Web Services). He has revamped the UI, and I think it looks 10x better and is a much more useful Shopping mashup now. It is broken down into Shop, Browse, Research, Feeds.
It also seems to work fine on IE (except for hovering over the Pic which seems to constantly flicker). And it is all .Net, which is great to see. Great work, keep it up! Read his blog entry or See the BaeBo site here.

Technorati Tags: BaeBo, .Net