BlogAllAlong » shopping http://blogallalong.com News and articles about technology, computers, internet, search engines, books, video games, movies and documentaries Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:28:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Amazon Kindle for $189 http://blogallalong.com/2010/06/23/amazon-kindle-for-189/ http://blogallalong.com/2010/06/23/amazon-kindle-for-189/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:07:03 +0000 Bashar http://blogallalong.com/2010/06/23/amazon-kindle-for-189/ Kindle for

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]]> http://blogallalong.com/2010/06/23/amazon-kindle-for-189/feed/ 0 Innovation http://blogallalong.com/2007/03/02/innovation/ http://blogallalong.com/2007/03/02/innovation/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:01:16 +0000 Bashar http://blogallalong.com/2007/03/02/innovation/ Affiliating with Amazon, this site did not follow the normal path, and rather this is what BrowseGoods made. A visual presentation of the available categories, and as the site name says, you browse the category you want. Zoom in and out of it. For example, you could click on Toys, you will get the subcategories of Toys. It’s a similar concept to Google Earth, except that you are browsing Amazon store. The problem is, once you keep zooming in, picture quality starts to decrease. [correction] image is updated every time you zoom in, but the slow connection caused delay that I assumed this is the final unclear image. You need to wait a little if you are on my same side of the world [end correction]. It is still limited in terms of categories , it’s just starting. But the concept have been appraised by Amazon Associates Blog. Enjoy your shopping.

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]]> http://blogallalong.com/2007/03/02/innovation/feed/ 2 Google Checkout vs PayPal http://blogallalong.com/2007/01/24/google-checkout-vs-paypal/ http://blogallalong.com/2007/01/24/google-checkout-vs-paypal/#comments Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:08:50 +0000 Bashar http://blogallalong.com/2007/01/24/google-checkout-vs-paypal/ Last year, Google got into a new market which is the online payment with Google Checkout. Google is a well known famous brand that people tend to trust. But so far, Google hasn’t got into such sensitive area. End of 2006 Google ran a free checkout and $10 discounts campaigns which brought more customers to the service. A survey made by JPMorgan on 1,100 online shoppers showed %6 used Google Checkout, compared to %42 for their PayPal rival.

While this percentage is not bad at all for a start, the other part of the survey shows only %19 of the customers are satisfied with Google Checkout service, when PayPal has %44 satisfaction rate. There are thousands of online stores offering the same items online for different prices, but the reason I always order from Amazon is that whenever I try a different site, I miss the quality of the service. InformationWeek has more on this.

I have not yet tried Google Checkout. I wanted to try it from the very beginning, I signed up and registered my card. After that I tried to checkout from one shop and I started getting a general error message. I tried again and again from different shops but all attempts failed. Contacting Google Checkout Support they told me the service is still only inside US. From that moment, I had a feeling the service is not taken care of properly. Otherwise, there should be a mention of country restriction, and I should not have the option to register with my country, which is not supported, and fill in my card details and only after that I know my destination is not supported. Ofcourse the service now is available for various countries, but I don’t feel encouraged to use it, although the concept is great, and PayPal is not usable in Kuwait, you have to have foreign account.

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]]> http://blogallalong.com/2007/01/24/google-checkout-vs-paypal/feed/ 0 Like.com: Search for likeness of items http://blogallalong.com/2006/12/02/likecom-search-for-likeness-of-items/ http://blogallalong.com/2006/12/02/likecom-search-for-likeness-of-items/#comments Sat, 02 Dec 2006 12:35:08 +0000 Bashar http://blogallalong.com/?p=8 To be successful in business, they say, you either do different things, or do the same things differently. Like.com is an excellent example of the latter. An image recognition powered search engine, where you specify the portion of the image you are looking for, say celebrity shoes, and then search for similar items. Your search can be based on both color and shape, with an adjustable meter for color, shape, and pattern relevancy importance. You can also specify the color you want, and price range. The site will automatically reorder the items based on your criteria.

While there are many shopping and price comparison sites, this one (still in alpha) is going into a different approach to deliver a unique service. Image recognition is a hot field that’s been under going researches for years, and this so far is the best real application of the technology I’ve came across. What could be more interesting is if the site allows users to upload their own images and search for likeness inside. Right now you can only do this search for images and products that are already provided by sellers. Imagine how wonderful it would be, although costly for the husband, if the wife can photo the necklace she likes and search for it in Like.com for similar items. I am just talking technically here and wouldn’t really enjoy the price of it so much!

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]]> http://blogallalong.com/2006/12/02/likecom-search-for-likeness-of-items/feed/ 0 Amazon launches aStore for associates http://blogallalong.com/2006/12/01/amazon-launches-astore-for-associates/ http://blogallalong.com/2006/12/01/amazon-launches-astore-for-associates/#comments Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:31:49 +0000 Bashar http://blogallalong.com/?p=7 Another new service that keeps putting Amazon upfront all other associate networks is the aStore. An easy way to create a professional online Amazon store in minutes, that you can embed as an inner FRAME inside your site, or point your customers to it and start making money.

I haven’t wasted much time and have given it a try already. You can feel free to browse my Amazon store here. If you like it, and you are a site owner, you can become an Amazon associate and create one yourself.

Having tested it however, the product is still new and in some occasions not so flexible. For example, I have to either pick every item I want to show, or provide keywords for a specific category. You cannot have the two, which is really a shame. You would normally want to post your favorite 10 items, and expect 10 more to come as recommendation from Amazon itself. aStore does provide a section for similar items, but its limited size only and does not fulfill the above situation. The store administration side response time and usability also have a great area for improvement, with some proper AJAX implementation in place. Creating my store took so much idle time waiting for server response and refresh pages. This whole waiting time could get eliminated by applying AJAX to add items and delete them dynamically without requiring any refreshes.

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