August 10, 2009

Yahoo! Shopping Launches Deals Site

Yahoo! Shopping has launched a new site featuring deals and online coupons from around the web. It's called....wait for it....Yahoo! Deals. Find it at http://deals.yahoo.com.

Online couponing has been on the rise for awhile, but the momentum increased when the economy went south. A Yahoo! survey shows that 43% of participants are using coupons more than they did a year ago. It also showed that if online coupons were easier to find, 76% of women would be motivated to use them more.

Even more, 59% reported feeling good when they use coupons. When people feel good about buying your product, that's a huge association.

Here's what you can expect to find on Yahoo! Deals:

• Grocery coupons for all kinds of kitchen staples, provided by Coupons.com
• Offers for local chain and neighborhood restaurants, retailers and service providers provided by Valpak
• Exclusive deals from new partners including Visa and Next Jump; Ecobunga! and Greenzer (for eco-friendly products); TechBargains.com and LogicBUY (for computers and electronics); plus coupons and deals on a variety of products from CouponAlbum, CouponMountain, BradsDeals.com and Dealnews
• Video stories on consumer shopping trends and savings tips provided by Inside Edition
• The gas finder module that helps users find the cheapest gas by zip code
• Improved search function to help users quickly find deals from across the site
• New social features that allow savvy shoppers to share deals with friends via email and popular social networks, and to save deals for later use
• A new community feature that lets users post or read comments on each deal

"Frugality is the new 'cool,'" said Greg Hintz, head of Yahoo! Shopping. "We now know that couponing and bargain hunting are losing their stigma and are now a regular habit for many people. Our goal at Yahoo! is to be the center of people's online lives and we're making Yahoo! the easiest place for consumers to find and manage the coupons and deals that are relevant to their lives."

Yahoo! Deals also has a Twitter account set up for easier deal-tracking. Follow @yahoo_deals.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 13, 2008

Yahoo! Shopping Launches Deal Finder

Yahoo! Shopping has launched a deal finding portal called Yahoo! Deals. You can access the portal at deals.yahoo.com.

It culls sales on various products across the web from sites such as Woot!, Amazon, and Deal News. It also finds coupons and storewide savings from a plethora of online retailers.

Yesterday, we talked about how women are looking to cut back on their holiday shopping. This is a great tool to help them maximize their shopping dollars.

Here's a screenshot. Check out the site and come back and tell us about your first impressions in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 12, 2006

Trovetopia - Yahoo Shopping Test Bed Site

Gary Price at ResourceShelf noticed that Yahoo registered two trademarks: "Trovetopia" and "THE N9NE," with Trovetopia also being the name of an active Yahoo shopping site.

I'm not sure about THE N9NE, but according to Chris Saito [thanks for the quick response!] Trovetopia turns out to be a "test bed for [Yahoo!] APIs – it’s built entirely using the web services available on the Yahoo! Developer Network.

It's cool to see Yahoo playing around with its own APIs. Yahoo Tech is another place to see the power of the APIs. Considering that I get an email each week about people interested in using a shopping comparison engine API, it's smart to put these services on display.

Posted by Brian Smith at 9:48 AM | Permalink

June 8, 2006

New Search Patents: June 8, 2006 - Stanford updates Pagerank Patent

The patent for pagerank has been updated, Hewlett-Packard introduces advanced searching options for searchers, IBM patents a query translation server to help search engines provide search results in more languages than English, Microsoft uncovers a way to learn more about the people who are clicking upon ads, and Yahoo integrates external sites into its shopping portal.

Stanford University

The original pagerank patents were:

Method for node ranking in a linked database (Filed January 9, 1998 and granted September 4, 2001)

Method for scoring documents in a linked database (Filed July 6, 2001, and granted September 28, 2004)

In many ways, this new version of the first patent looks like an effort to combine some of the aspects of the two documents, while correcting some typos and errors within them. The main difference between the two older patent filings and the new one is an expanded "summary of the invention" section. The file date is actually a few days before the second pagerank patent to be granted, and that may present a clue as to why this update was filed to begin with - which appears to be to make it fit better with the second patent, on "scoring documents in a linked database."

Method for node ranking in a linked database Invented by Lawrence Page Assigned to The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University US Patent 7,058,628 Granted June 6, 2006 Filed July 2, 2001

Abstract:

A method assigns importance ranks to nodes in a linked database, such as any database of documents containing citations, the world wide web or any other hypermedia database. The rank assigned to a document is calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. In addition, the rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document. The method is particularly useful in enhancing the performance of search engine results for hypermedia databases, such as the world wide web, whose documents have a large variation in quality.

Hewlett-Packard

Introduces sliding scales for searchers, to choose which factors are most important to them in results returned by a search engine, including things such as inbound links to a page, readability, differently prioritized keywords, age of document, language of document, and others.

System and method for optimizing search results Invented by Graham S. Masters Assigned to Hewlett-Packard US Patent 7,058,624 Granted June 6, 2006 Filed June 20, 2001

Abstract

A system and method for searching for documents identified in a database, wherein the method comprises the steps of establishing a first search criterion associated with a keyword match between a keyword entry and the identified documents, establishing at least one additional search criterion based on a document attribute of the identified documents, determining a criterion matching score for identified documents for each of the established search criteria, associating a scaling factor with each of the established search criteria, calculating an overall matching score for a selection of the identified documents from the criterion matching scores and scaling factors associated therewith, and ordering the selection of identified documents based upon the calculated overall matching scores.

IBM

Method and system for providing native language query service Invented by Yue Pan, Li Ping Yang, and Lindon Robertson Assigned to IBM US Patent 7,058,626 Granted June 6, 2006 Filed July 28, 2000

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and system for providing native language query service for Internet users by using a plurality of search engines. The method of the present invention includes the steps of: (a) receiving at a site an original query request from one user; (b) selecting a suitable search engine; (c) translating said query words of native language into query words of dedicated language of said selected search engine; (d) constructing a new query request directing to said search engine; (e) sending said new query request and receiving a returned query result; (f) sending said query result back to said user as a query result in relation to said original query request.

Microsoft

This next patent doesn't transmit personal information to advertisers about those click through ads to their sites, but it might tell them more about the sites the ads were on when the click happened. For instance, If an ad was mostly displayed on sports and international news pages, that information would be shared with the advertiser so that they can tailor their landing pages for those types of customers.

Transmission of information during ad click-through Invented by David E. Heckerman, D. Maxwell Chickering, and Daniel Rosen Assigned to Microsoft US Patent 7,058,592 Granted June 6, 2006 Filed November 29, 1999

Abstract

The transmission of information during ad click-through is disclosed. In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method selects an ad to be displayed on a web page, as one of a plurality of ads within a current cluster in which each of the ad has a probability to be selected. The method displays the ad on the web page, and then detects activation--for example, click-through--of the displayed ad. The method transmits information to an entity associated with the ad, such as an advertiser, upon detecting click-through or other activation of the ad. In one embodiment, the information transmitted includes information regarding the current cluster.

Yahoo

Ecommerce through a site like Yahoo Shopping may work with other sites that are online elsewhere, but also use Yahoo Shopping as a proxy. This invention helps make that possible by making that integration transparent.

System and methods for implementing code translations that enable persistent client-server communication via a proxy Invented by Greg I. Chiou, Lev Stesin, Arup Mukherjee Assigned to Yahoo! Inc. US Patent 7,058,699 Granted June 6, 2006 Filed August 29, 2000

Abstract

Systems and methods for extending or modifying the behavior of mobile (downloadable) software, such as JavaScript, HTML, and/or data that can be downloaded to a client device. One or more morphing agents are provided for translating and modifying code and data from a software source, such as a remote server. Each morphing agent translates and modifies one or more particular types of code. For example, one morphing agent may be provided for processing JavaScript code and another may be provided for processing HTML code and data. Each morphing agent typically includes a tokenizer module, a parser module and a translation module, each of which follows specific rule sets. Original software content is first tokenized according to a set of tokenizer rules, and subsequently parsed according to a set of parser rules. The parsed code is then translated according to the set of translator rules to produce the desired modified software content. An exception handler module is also provided for implementing exception rules when an exception occurs.

My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)

There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 1:04 PM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Yahoo! Shopping Launches Blog

Chris Saito announced the launch of the Yahoo! Shopping Blog at Internet Retailer 2006 yesterday.

While I wasn't at the conference, Chris filled me in, saying the blog is a great way to merchandise products, drive engagement (subscribe through RSS, build loyalty, etc.), and drive transactions. The blog will get more promotion on Yahoo! Shopping over time. There will be 4-5 people contributing (David Beach and Joe Lazarus have each contributed thus far).

In the inaugural post, Beach explained ?The Yahoo! Shopping Blog does not allow advertisers or sponsors to influence editorial decisions in the creation of blog posts. We just like to find good things so you can find them too.? Today's find? The Skyrail Marble Roller Coaster.

Last week I wrote about the opportunity for shopping comparison engines to blog, highlighting smart, informative, and irreverant blogs like Ice.com's Sparkle Like The Stars, Glam's What's Haute, and EvoGear's Mugatu Says.

Email newsletters are great marketing tools, but there are many benefits to blogs. Nathan Decker, EvoGear's Director of Ecommerce explained "the company's blogs allow us to communicate the flavor of our company (anti-notfunny & authenticity / credibility), feed qualified traffic to Evogear, and give various solid team members a side project to leverage creativity and talent.

Other shopping comparison engine blogs include Become's Pocket Change, mySimon's Shopping Picks, and ShoptoIt.ca's Off The Rack.

Posted by Brian Smith at 10:59 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2006

Getting Relisted In The Shopping Search Engines Too Easy?

Thomas Hawk has been following an online retailer named PriceRitePhoto that has been allegedly ripping off its customers. Thomas reports that even though PriceRitePhoto has been delisted after its abusive bait and switch tactics, it has been re-listed at both Yahoo Shopping, PriceGrabber and MSN Shopping. Thomas is upset with these shopping search engines for not screening past fraudulent retailers more closely. He notes that he has received a response from Yahoo that they will remove this retailer once again for being in "violation of Yahoo's Terms of Service." He has not heard from PriceGrabber or MSN as of yet.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

November 15, 2005

Yahoo Debuts the Shoposphere

Traditionally, shopping search has revolved around providing product information and expert reviews, occasionally supplemented by reviews from customers that are often of dubious value. Yahoo is extending shopping search today by adding a number of new community-oriented tools that allow users to search for other user's product recommendations, as well as comment on them and rate them, adding a new layer of information to the mix. It's an interesting approach, and one that's likely to be quite popular in the shopping search arena. More in today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Personalizes Shopping, Adds Community Features.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 31, 2005

Looking at the Upcoming Holiday Shopping Season at Yahoo Shopping

In his non-stop series of interviews with influential people in the shopping search biz, Brian Smith from ComparisonEngines.com has posted a recent chat with Rob Solomon & Chris Saito from Yahoo Shopping that looks at Y's plans for the holiday shopping season including talk of Yahoo's new mobile shopping tool (launched in September) and their Shopping Gift Finder that became available in the Spring.

From the interview: Q. How do you expect most people to shop ? browse or search?

Rob: ?People are still doing both, but search is a much bigger driver; people end up on the site through search queries, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine marketing (SEM). More people start in a search destination and then get into search and browse. Probably 65-70% of people are searching,?

Chris: ?Certain categories lend themselves to browsing ? like apparel. Browse is driven by category.?

Rob: ?We view vertical search as one of the most important things that we?re doing. Browsing is a big

Btw, on an somewhat unrelated note, I taught a class today and Yahoo Shopping SmartSort (now two years old) continues to "wow" them when demonstrated. It's also great to see that Yahoo continues to update the reviews that the service uses. Yahoo Mindset from Yahoo Research, released in May, uses the same type of interface and intent-driven technology.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:14 PM | Permalink

September 13, 2005

Yahoo Shopping Goes Mobile

Yahoo has just released a mobile version of Yahoo Shopping. Details and instructions here. The mobile version of Yahoo Shopping will work on mobile phones/devices with a WAP 2.0 enabled browser that has access to one of the following networks: Cingular–Orange, Cingular–Blue (formerly AT&T Wireless), Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, and T–Mobile.

Along with the new (beta) mobile version Yahoo Shopping, the folks in Sunnyvale have also added a feature to the web version of Yahoo Shopping that allows the searcher to send product info directly to their phone (via SMS, text message). Look for the "Send to Phone" link on "product pages." Yahoo also offers the send-to-phone feature for Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Local.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:50 PM | Permalink

August 2, 2005

Yahoo Shopping API Now Available

News from the Yahoo Developer Network today that they've just released an API for Yahoo Shopping. Details and documentation are posted here.

With the Product Search API, developers can search by keyword (product names); limit the search to a specific merchant, price range or product category, and filter merchants according to their Yahoo! User ratings. The Price Comparison Grid API gives developers access to millions of products offered by multiple merchants, returning base price, tax and shipping info and total price (based on zip code).

Posted by Gary Price at 1:16 PM | Permalink

July 19, 2005

A Chat with Rob Solomon from Yahoo Shopping

Brian Smith over at Comparison Engines has published a Q&A interview with Rob Solomon, Yahoo Shopping V.P.

From the interview:

Q: What Makes Yahoo! Shopping Different than the other Shopping Comparison Engines? ?Comprehensiveness in terms of the number of product offerings on Yahoo! Shopping and the number of merchants listed on Yahoo! Shopping. Over time there will be a decent gap that Yahoo and Google will create [with their shopping search engines] because of advanced crawling and search capabilities.?

A: ?Looking forward, there will be more focus on personalization and community. Yahoo has 350m users globally and 150m registered users. We?re making a big bet on community with services like Yahoo! 360. We?ll spend the next 2-4 yrs building out community features and it will factor into the shopping experience. Epinions was good. Ratings are pretty good. The next generation [shopping search] has to do with community features and more robust ratings and review. We will focus on bringing more content into the experience. In the past it?s been over-hyped and ended up scaring people, but there will be more and more personalization and customization within Yahoo Shopping!?

Posted by Gary Price at 3:32 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Japan: Mobile Version of Yahoo Shopping Now Available and Searching With Your Cameraphone

The InfoWorld news brief: Yahoo launches cell phone shopping in Japan lets us know that the service has just gone live.

Presently, the Yahoo Mobile service here in the U.S. doesn't offer an interface to Yahoo's shopping database. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see shopping added to this mobile platform in the future.

We've posted about a couple of SMS-based (text messaging) shopping services that are currently available in the U.S. They include:

• UpSnap

See the SearchDay article: New Mobile Phone Search Service

• Smarter.com

• Froogle.

One of the most interesting mobile shopping tools that I learned about in 2004 comes from Amazon.com Japan. They're offering a service that allows the user to access comparison pricing info by simply pointing their mobile phone's camera at a UPC symbol.

This story also points out that if you have a Nokia 3650, you can use the camera to do some comparison pricing for books.

Boston-based Mobot, is also doing work in visual search via mobile phone cameras. Very cool!!! A demo is also available.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:47 PM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

Searching for that Perfect Gift

Shopping search engines are great for finding just the right gift for special occasions—if you know what you're looking for. If you're still clueless about what to get Mom for her special day next Sunday, consider turning to a "gift recommendation engine," such as Yahoo's newly introduced Gift Finder.

Today's SearchDay article, Searching for a Mother's Day Gift, describes the new service, which is easy to use and returns some interesting gift ideas that you may not come up with on your own.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:17 AM | Permalink

April 15, 2005

Yahoo Shopping Gains RSS Feeds

Spotted via Tara at ReseachBuzz, Yahoo Shopping has gained RSS feeds. A full list is here, allowing you to monitor products in various categories. But sadly, there doesn't appear to be a way to set up a feed that will monitor a keyword-based query of your choice, in the way feeds at Yahoo News allow.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:24 AM | Permalink

December 9, 2004

Yahoo Adds Shopping Tab on UK Site

A new tab/link for shopping has been added to the Yahoo UK interface at uk.search.yahoo.com. A Yahoo Shopping search here runs on the Kelkoo database.

Six tab/links are now visible on the uk.search.yahoo.com interface: + Web + Images + Directory + Shopping + Business Finder + News

Posted by Gary Price at 2:46 PM | Permalink

December 1, 2004

Shopping Search Tips For Advertisers & Merchants

Chris has blogged earlier about articles appearing this week as part of SearchDay's Shopping Search Week 2004. In addition, he's also drafted up a special sidebar article for our Search Engine Watch members. Shopping Search Services for Advertisers and Merchants provides links and more information about various programs offered by shopping search engines that give you more control over what's indexed or better visibility in product listing pages.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:53 AM | Permalink

What's New at NexTag, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com and Yahoo Shopping

Shopping search isn't just about finding the lowest price on products any more. The major shopping and product comparison services have significantly beefed up over the past year, now offering a full spectrum of resources including research tools, reviews from users and professionals, price alerts, shopping lists and other features. In short, they've finally become true one stop portals for just about all kinds of shopping activity.

And it's not just about products any more. NexTag has added tools for shopping for mortgages, travel, real estate and online education courses, with more services to come.

Today's SearchDay article, Shopping Search Update 2004, Part 2, describes all of these new enhancements, and more. It's the third installment of Shopping Search Week 2004!, our annual roundup of what's new and improved at the major shopping search engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:25 AM | Permalink

November 5, 2004

New Options at Yahoo Shopping

This InternetNews.com story: Yahoo Launches Precision Browsing discusses some new refinement/narrowing options at Yahoo Shopping for some (not all) products.

Yahoo Shopping was also enhanced with new technology going live on Thursday. The improvements help users narrow their searches by clicking on a list of product attributes returned with results, a strategy that combines old-styled browsing with search. Yahoo calls this "precision browsing."

A Yahoo Shopping search for shoes allows you to quickly narrow/refine your results by: + Price + Store + Type It also mentions that more narrowing options are coming soon.

A search for dvd player allows the searcher to refine: + By Latest Price + By Manufacturer + By Disc Capacity + Dolby Digital Decoder + Other Media Supported + Progressive Scan

You're also to combine refinements. For example, show only DVD players with a price between $130 - $229 and manufactured by Sony.

Useful? Absolutely!

However, this new feature from Yahoo Shopping is not a new idea in the shopping search space.

Other shopping engines also allow the searcher to refine their results using criteria developed for specific product categories. Here are a couple of examples.

The recently launched Snap.com offers several refinement options based on product type. For example, here's a search for laptop computers. You'll see the refinements listed at the top of the page.

This is also the case at AOL's Pinpoint Shopping and Shopping.com.

Yahoo also offers "SmartSort" which allows the searcher the ability to interact with product reviews for consumer electronic products by manipulating "sliders."

Posted by Gary Price at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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