Comparison shopping: who's next?

After eBay acquired Shopping.com for $620m, now EW Scripps buys Shopzilla for $525m.

So who's next?

Google has Froogle, Yahoo! has Kelkoo (in Europe), CNet has mySimon, Ask Jeeves probably doesn't need it (it has Smart Product Search) and AOL has Pinpointshopping.

So that leaves on the buyer side:
MSN, LookSmart
And on the list of candidates:
Become.com, NexTag, BizRate, SideStep, PriceGrabber, Smarter, Priceflo, ...

Audible: lose one, win one

Shares of Audible.com, provider of audio books, took a plunge Friday when partner Amazon.com decided to enter the market on its own.
Today the Wall Street Journal (subscription) and Paidcontent.org report an upcoming deal with XM Satellite Radio:

• Audible content on a dedicated XM channel (podcasting of sorts)
• XM programming available on Audible.com
• XM to introduce a new radio with expanded storage

TIM's Holy Grails

There is some confusion about what the Holy Grail really is, but over here there are actually three:

Telecoms: multi-domain roaming.
Voice (or data) calls seamlessly handed-over when the user moves from the reach of one cell (e.g. WiFi) to that of another (e.g. cellular). It is what will enable BT's Bluephone. A sure killer app, that will however drive down revenues of cellular providers, as WiFi calls (essentially VoIP, or wVoIP) are free.

Internet: fully personalized search.
Algorithmic search is getting better. See Yahoo! Mindset, that distinguishes between commercial and research queries. However, any search will normally produce thousands if not hundreds of thousands of results. Users usually concentrate on just the first page. A better understanding of context (see my previous post), user preferences (Google Personalized is an attempt) and the text of a querie will deliver more targeted results.

Media: single-source measurement.
Combination of full media exposure (advertising on radio, TV, print, billboards, internet, theater) and purchasing behavior. Project Apollo (combining VNU's ACNielsen and Nielsen Media Research with Arbitron's Personal People Meter technology, and possibly RFID or smart dust on magazine pages) wants to be the first step.

Yahoo!: how intelligent are they really?

Looking at a CNN Money story on Viacom (whose chairman is called Sumner Redstone, mind you), I was struck by the 4 advertiser links provided by Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture Services).

(If you follow the above link and see different ad links, simply refresh a few times.)

All the links are paid for by companies named Redstone, which have nothing to do with good ol' Sumner. I clicked on some of them, making them pay Yahoo! a fee (which will be split with CNN parent Time Warner).

So much for the numerous PhD's who built Yahoo! search and its contextual matching algorithms.

Disclosure

I just registered for 59Bloggers.com - The Movie. I am number 105.

See you in a theater near you.

Akimbo is quick to respond

Responding to yesterday's New York Times review, Akimbo promises a faster OS before yearend.

My June diary entries

I'm on the look-out for these things during June:

• Introduction of new, free AOL.com site (June)
• Webby Awards (June 6)
• Club Internet's plans for investments in France (Deutsche Telekom, June 7)
• Start trial Toys'R'Us vs. Amazon.com (June 13)
• FindWhat.com rebrands as MIVA (June 13)
• Movie release 'Batman Begins' (Warner, June 15)
• Court ruling on MGM vs. Grokster (mid June)
• BT intros Bluephone (mid June)
• Ofcom responds to BT's plans to avoid a company break-up
• VNU Analyst Day (June 17)
• eBay Live! (June 23-25)
• Auction of Turk Telecom (deadline for bids June 24)
• Alliance between Versatel, Belgacom and Talpa in the Benelux (late June)
• Talpa presenting plans for its new broadcast station in the Netherlands (June 27)
• France Telecom's new growth strategy (June 29)
• Movie release 'War of the Worlds' (Paramount/DreamWorks, June 29)
• AT&T's AGM, approval of acquisition by SBC (June 30)
• Viacom split-up plan (late June)
• Supreme Court ruling on NCTA vs. Brand X and FCC vs. Brand X (late June)
• Announcement of winners of TiVo's Home Media Engine Developer Challenge (late June)

Comparing Orb and Akimbo for VoD

Place-shifted video-on-demand provider Orb Networks (see e.g. my March 10 post) is among those innovations receiving IDG's '2005 World Class Awards'. Among the others are:

• email programs Gmail and Mozilla Thunderbird
• IM providers Trillian 3.1, QNext, VeriChat (PDAapps, for mobile) and SightSpeed (video)
• blogging tool TypePad
• search engines Google and A9.com (Amazon)
• desktop search from Google and Copernic
• Apple's Tiger OS, the Firefox browser (Mozilla)
• the OnlyMyEmail and SafetyBar (Cloudmark) spam filters and anti-spyware Counterspy (Sunbelt Software)
• VoIP providers Skype and Vonage
• the Wikipedia, the nytimes.com and archive.com web sites, the iTunes Music Store (Apple)

Competitor Akimbo Systems (see my November 8 post) is highlighted by David Pogue in the New York Times. "... a tantalizing idea". However, "the Akimbo library is so puny and overpriced that the enterprise is interesting only as a 'what not to do' case study". No prize for Akimbo, perhaps "High-Tech Turkey of the Year". "If Akimbo can fix the problems (...) maybe there's hope".

Orb seems to be the winner, so far, having chosen a new business model (my March 30 post) and steering for partners (April 26, May 4).

SBC promos DSL at a low rate (or do they?)

SBC promos the SBC Yahoo! DSL offerings for those who order online and subscribe for a minimum of 12 months. 1.5 Mbps for 15 dollars, 3 Mbps for 25 dollars.

Sounds rather nice - or does it?

• in Korea and Japan slightly more is paid for a 20-40 Mbps service
• in France 8 Mbps costs 15 euros
• other charges apply
• at the end of the term then-current rates apply (better make a diary entry)

Still, the telcos keep pushing for lower rates, hurting both themselves and the cable companies, who may at some point need to follow suit.

Truphone versus Bluephone

According to this article on The Inquirer SCN will sooner than BT introduce voice calling over Bluetooth. At the same time The Register reports that BT's Bluephone, planned for 'spring 2005', will be announced mid June.

Of course there are differences:

• BT: handset by Motorola (chip: Broadcom). Late 2005 calling over WiFi must also be enabled.
• SCN (Software Cellular Network): software solution, developed for the Nokia 6630 (for all Series 60 handsets at a later date). A beta-version is available via email at info@scn.com.

What both offer:

• Seamless handover to cellular networks when Bluetooth is out of range.
• A converged fixed/wireless solution for voice calling.
• Convergence of cellular and other wireless technologies.
• The use of VoIP, i.c. wVoIP.