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Filed under: Business, Fun, Web services

Wize search for product rankings

wize product searchSearching for electronics usually tends to be somewhat tedious. Researching and trying to gauge the feel for a new product can totally turn you off of even considering said product. You scour the internet looking for the best prices and what users and owners experiences are with the product. With lots of research areas out there, one that I tend to rank highly when making a decision is CNet.com. With video overviews of electronics put together by professionals and users in the field, I always know the information is top. Add to that the comments dropped by owners of the products.

But Wize.com has launched a search engine that ranks consumer electronics, focusing on research. Similar companies in the same sector include Become, Retrevo, Shopping, Nextag, and Pricegrabber. Wize does their ranking by putting their "Wize" ranking formula into effect. Venture Beat compares this to Google's Page Rank, a proprietary formula that is of course, not going to be published for public eyes. How does the search fare? When searching for information and rankings on Canon's SD700 digital camera, I was able to see a Wize ranking of 84, see pricing through a long list of online suppliers and ratings, and save my research for viewing later. Wize was very convenient, fast, and a nice companion to my usual CNet ratings. In all, it's another weapon to add to your arsenal when on the lookout for your next consumer electronic purchase. Look out for some growth at Wize as they have just secured some funding that could push their offering out even more.

Filed under: Business, Web services, Google

Froogle successor uncovered?

Froogle 2?
ZDNet's Garett Rogers says he's discovered Google's secret-until-now replacement for Froogle. Back in September Google announced that it would roll out a new product search engine by the holiday season, but it has yet to materialize--or has it? Doing a little poking around, Rogers uncovered this site in the same area of Google's web site as Google Base. It's a product search engine that lets you refine your search in a variety of ways--type, brand, price--and lets you see the results in three formats: List, Grid, and Map. The List view looks a bit like a standard Google results page, Grid view looks a bit like Google Images, and Map view looks like Google Maps.

The site is clearly in beta, or maybe alpha, as its results are sometimes nonsensical. As Rogers points out, a search for "iPod" is next to useless if you want to buy one, as it turns up more MySpace and Friendster pages than actual stores. Interestingly, the site seems intended to do more than just product search: A search for "athletic" gives you options like Age, Gender, Marital Status, and Sign, a search for "ranch" gives you real estate-related options, and a search for "sedan" gives you car-shopping options.

So, is this the new Froogle? I'm not sure. It must be something--Google wouldn't give it a URL and make it publicly accessible if it wasn't part of a product that will eventually be launched. However, with results that are often confusing and occasionally useless, what's available today (and it may or may not be available tomorrow) clearly isn't a finished product.

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