A look at Priceheat
Priceheat is a nifty bookmarklet that lets you compare prices. The usage is somewhat limited as it only works while you are on Amazon.com. While I tend to shop around for the best price, I can see this service being very useful for regular Amazon shoppers. Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb author, reviewed it back in April. He appreciates the ease of a bookmarklet, as it is quick to install.
“it literally took me 10 seconds to install and I can see myself using it a lot. To install all I needed to do was drag a link from their website onto my Firefox toolbar.”
One of the points I found most interesting reported by MacManus was the answers from Priceheat on their business model:
1 - Make fast, simple, easy to learn tools.
2 - Get them out to users as beta, get real feedback, and tweak.
3 - Sell the product when mature to a partner with marketing muscle.
The interesting part was #3, to sell the product when it becomes mature to a partner. I feel that this may become a popular trend with mashups.
The site uses price comparison web services provided by price-compare.net. Its one of the few examples I have seen using these web services. The services provide information from only a small number of merchants, mainly Buy.com, J&R, and a few others. It seems to work through affiliate programs on major affiliate networks such as CJ and LinkShare.
Also, a bit more information found at the Things that make you go hmm… blog.
Technorati Tags: priceheat, price comparison, web services, mashup, business model, Amazon
Related Entries:
It’s interesting how the price comparison tendencies differ from country to country, and how the market in South Africa is so considerably different.