Vote for this to be a session held at the next affiliate summit (East) by following the link below: http://affiliatesummit.slinkset.com/items/Using_APIs_to_Maximize_Affiliate_Opportunities

Even if you aren’t sure if you are going to attend Affiliate Summit you can still quickly and easily vote! Simply register (only username / password required), and click the up arrow on the left hand side.

Also be sure to check out all the other great panel proposals for Affiliate Summit East 2010 located here: http://affiliatesummit.slinkset.com/

“Shoppers who are not at a computer can call 1-888-DO-FRUCALL (888-378-7467) and type in or read the product’s barcode. Frucall will search the product on both Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon, and will give users the three best advertised prices. Shoppers use a voice menu to “bookmark” items, leave themselves voice notes for later reference, listen to customer ratings, and soon purchase the product from an online vendor. Shoppers can register at http://www.frucall.com to personalize their Frucall experience and access more valuable features.”

I knew that it was only a matter of time before a service like this was established. It is a great usage of the data and web services from by Amazon and Yahoo! Shopping. Only time will tell if phsyical retail shoppers adapt to it. I have yet to test this service, so a followup will come shortly. In the meantime, read the full article here.

[tags]amazon api, yahoo shopping, frucall, m-commerce, mobile shopping[/tags]

“ShopWiki, the complete shopping search engine and buying guide, today announced the launch of its mobile service, available on Web-enabled mobile devices at http://m.shopwiki.com/. ShopWiki Mobile Search (beta) allows shoppers to quickly compare online product pricing or research product information before making an in-store purchase.”

This continues with the trend of online e-commerce engines realizing the potential needs of in-store shoppers. As a side note, I couldn’t get the site to load on my new Razor phone… Not sure if it was my phone or the site, oh well!

Look at that… The majority of search is coming from India. Other cities have much less search volume, and no US city is even in the top 10. I then recalled reading somewhere recently about the importance of mobile commerce in India… Oh yes, eBay just launched eBay.in Affiliate Program, now I remember. Directly from their May 2006 newsletter:

“As internet entrepreneurs, India and the eBay.in Affiliate Program represents an attractive global opportunity to website publishers. India, with a population of approximately 1.1 billion, and with just over 39% internet penetration, represents a large opportunity for affiliates. eCommerce is exploding in this English-speaking, technologically sophisticated market. One thing to consider: mobile applications and SMS are vital components of internet usage in India.”

My first time reading it I was thinking yeah, yeah. Now I’m thinking up how to get in the game!

Final Note: While the trend data from Google appears to be very useful, although my experience with it has been short to this point, it is also important to note the discrepancies between similiar keywords such as “price comparison” and “comparison shopping”. It can give you a good idea of what different regions and cultures refer to similiar terms as, which may be important in your SEO or SEM campaign. Using it in conjunction with the Overture keyword tool, and WordTracker could become a very powerful combination.
[tags]mobile shopping, mobile commerce, eBay India, google trends, SEO[/tags]

Earlier I reported that some people noticed Googlebot was found to be working in conjunction with Google Ads (mediabot). But does it go further than that? An interesting post entitled Are we being penalised by Google? from the guys at TicTap, a mobile shopping service, questions the relation to Google’s indexing methods and web sites serving Google Ads. Now it may seem a bit far fetched, but who knows… Let’s say, hypothetically, Google gives a little boost to sites using Google AdSense. Multiply the amount Google would be making exponentially, and wow, no wonder Google stock is selling for $400+ a share…

Now hold on a second, I am not jumping to any conclusions, but business-wise it would make some “Sense“. Of course, ethically it’s a different story… And also it would imply that they are “evil”, which they promised not to be!