Next Generation Shopping

Many affilitate marketing guys have been effected by the recent Google Quality Score change. Most have suffered from it. I see the point Google is trying to make. It is logical. But the ones being hurt are the little guys.
Recently I Googled “Circuit City”. Only two sponsored links appeared. One was directly to the Circuit City website. The other was labeled “Circuit City - The Top 6 Websites on Circuit City”. The link lead here to a Circuit City landing page on Digg4It.com. What was it? A page filled with Google Adwords. See below:

So while the little guys with niche sites are being hurt, it is “just wonderful” (sarcasm) to see spammy, Adsense-filled arbitrage sites are still thriving. It appears in the case of Digg4It they have enough content to fool AdWords Quality Score. And by quality I mean scraping search engine results, and parsing out the links so just the content stays. The only way out of that page is “Back” button or through an Adsense Advertisment.

Next I tried advertising a page with actual relevant Circuit City content on Google Adwords for the term “Circuit City”. A page that I would find useful for Circuit City information. It came back as “Inactive For Search”, telling me to increase my bid to $10.00.

Google, wtf?

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Quality, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Spam, Affiliate, Affiliates, Marketing

A new product was recently released by Amazon to its Associates network. The product allows less technical associates to easily create an entire online store using the extensive Amazon catalog. Amazon claims that “No programming is necessary” for usage of this new utility. It comes built in with a shopping cart, and the users are only taken to Amazon for final checkout.

From the Amazon Associates area:

“aStore by Amazon is a new Associates product that gives you the power to create a professional online store, in minutes and without the need for programming skills, that can be embedded within or linked to from your website.”

Some of the capabilities include: Ability to Feature Certain Amazon Products and Ability to Show Product Details, Reviews, and Pricing Information. Associates can find more information and read the full details next time they login to the Amazon Associate Area.  Although tons of Amazon Associate sites already exist, this should be ideal for niche sites featuring specific products.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Amazon.com, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Associates, aStore, E-Commerce

Yup, Facebook launched an API to the public yesterday. You can see more information and a list of calls to their database on their documentation page. TechCrunch and ProgrammableWeb both have coverage on it. There is already a Mashup created that was put together in 2 hours by the developer. It is called Facebook Friend Mapper, and guess what, you can see your friends as they are geographically located on Google Maps.

I tried it out quickly, and it is pretty interesting. As you can see from the screenshot below, most of my Facebook friends originate from the East Coast.

We’ll soon see what other developers come up with.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook API, Facebook mashup, mashups, web 2.0

This month’s Wordpress meetup is coming up this Saturday. Topics will include WP Plugins and WP Themes. All Wordpress users or enthusiasts are welcome.

When:

Saturday, August 19, 2006, 4:00 PM

Where:

Starbucks
600 8th Avenue
New York , NY 10018
(212) 997-7337

See here for Signup and more information. Hope to see some new faces there.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blogging, meetup, nyc, new york city

The CSK development team recently announced that CSK beta 3 is out. And I must say, their Commerce platform, the CSK community, and their website itself looks like it is coming along quite well. I love seeing quality, open-source ASP.NET web applications. CSK is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (1.1).

They recently highlighted an e-commerce website built on CSK (1.0.2) called TieSource.com, as pictured below.

Personally I think the site looks really nice.

To followup with my previous CSK post, Dave had answered my question as I spoke with him about it briefly about CSK at Mashup Camp 2. To reiterate, my question was “Is there an easy way to calculate tax and shipping charges?”

The answer was that there is Yes, through StrikeIron web services. I believe depending on how much information you require, and how often you need to call the service it is eithier free or a charge per call. But I’ll have to double-check with him.

Technorati Tags: Commerce Starter Kit, StrikeIron, PayPal, ASP.NET

A new mashup on ProgrammableWeb called SecretPrices.com Deals via Phone caught my eye today. I know I haven’t been sleeping much lately, but I didn’t recall making that new mashup. And I know we haven’t released our own API (yet). So I was intrigued as to what it was. As it ends up, it looks like the guys at 411 Sync took our deals RSS feed and made it available via any mobile device.

I was quick to try it out, and it worked!  Here is how you can try it:

1. Write a new text message or email on your phone with “secretprices” as the body.
2. Send it to 415-676-8397 OR sms@411sync.com
3. Wait a few seconds
4. Recieve the latest deals list on your phone.

You can find details here or see the results on the web here.

Pretty cool.  The mashup was submitted by Manish Lachwani, so thanks Manish!

Technorati Tags: 411Sync, SecretPrices, mashup, 411 Sync

I have been keeping a close eye on mashup progression over time. Back in April 2006 (about 4 months ago) I had predicted that the total mashup count (on ProgrammableWeb) would break 1,000 mashups by the end of Summer 2006. The forecast was largely based on the current daily rate of mashups x my own estimation of acceleration due to new technologies and API releases. At the time of the prediction there were just under 600 mashups (about 580).

Recently John Musser reported 900 Mashups listed in his ProgrammableWeb database. As of today there are 907 mashups listed, with an average rate of 2.74 mashups per day. Back in April the rate hovered around the same amount (~ 2.73).

My estimation was that Mashups/Day would hit between 2.75/day over time. The date was April 11th, and it is now August 12th. So for roughly four months my estimation is as follows…

4 months x 30 days x 2.75 mash/day = 330 new mashups

580 existing mashups (April) + 330 estimated = ~910 total

This is about where we are at (907 actual). Summer ends roughly 40 days from now.

40 days x 2.75 mash/day = 110

910 + 110 = 1,020 mashups by end of Summer

At the current rate today, the number of mashups should indeed break 1,000. Unless of course all the mashup developers take an extended vacation. While my estimates are very close to target, the acceleration of mashup development is a tad bit lower than I originally anticipated. So I’m surprised that the aggregate average rate of Mashups/Day has not increased a bit more.

Well if you followed all that this far, I’ll tell you something that is actually relevant to the shopping industry… Shopping mashups are still holding a 7% stake of all mashups!

Technorati Tags: mashups, mashup, mashup growth, mashup development, programmable web, web 2.0, web2.0, Internet, The Internet, mashup industry

On August 2nd SecretPrices.com was featured on Mashups.com as the Mashup of the day.

“August 2nd 2006 : secretprices.com. Here’s a full-blown mashup that you’ll find interesting and, if you buy onlione, could save you a lot of money. It uses APIs from Amazon, A9, Shopping.Com and many others to find the best prices for just about anything, but more than that, it also offers any extra special discounts and coupons for you. And it’s completely advertising free!”

Thanks for the kind words Robin.

Technorati Tags: mashup, mashups, api

It is again a dreamy period of time for web entrepreneurs. As technology continues to improve, with information becoming ever more standardized and easily accessible, related costs continue to diminish the barriers to entry for new web startups to extreme minimal levels. It takes only certain knowledge and a few bucks to get started with a web business. These low barriers to entry are great for startups. Seeking out further capital can come later. But good investors know that this also means any startup with such low barriers is an easy target for competition. Furthermore, once the business is established, protecting it from competitors and newer innovations continues to grow harder.

“It’s a Good Idea” Syndrome
You have a “good idea” and you just want to do it. And in today’s world you CAN do it without huge investments. Hobbies continue to transform into legitimate businesses at an alarming rate. The bad part is the business model is now often being left behind. If you have a good idea, then by all means proceed with it. Just remember to establish what you want out of it. Is it an additional revenue stream, a quick addition to your resume, or something you see becoming your full time job? At least determine your goals before diving into something new.

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