ResearchBuzz

I like tag clouds. I like eBay. So when I find out about a site that lets you look at eBay as a tag cloud, I like that too. Auction Cloud is available at http://www.auctioncloud.com/ .

The front page shows a tag cloud for a single category (I think the category is random.) Click on a tag to get a list of auctions for that keyword. You can also browse the entire list of categories and subcategories.

I must confess I was kinda surprised at what some of these clouds looked like. For example, I looked at the video game category cloud, expected to see a giant wii tag. Nope, the giant tags were psp and xbox. So maybe it’s just the systems auctions, I thought, and looked up the systems category. Nope, that one has psp and xbox 360 as the hot tags.

Looking at the about page I see that the clouds are not actually for the listings, but for searches performed on eBay. That’s interesting too. What would be really interesting would be some kind of way to do on-the-fly comparisons between the popularity of a certain keyword as a search term and as a keyword in auctions. So you might find that Wii has x percent prevalence as a search term, and y number of listings associated with it.

Meanwhile you might find that another keyword has extensive prevalence as a search term, but almost no listings — a demand gap that you could rush to fill, you wily ol’ entrepreneur you. (By the way, what’s it called when you build a cloud based on both keyword frequency and comparison with another data point? Intersect Cloud? Quant Cloud? Something else?)

Quick loading and it’s fun to browse through the categories. If you’re interested in eBay this is worth a look.

You knew this technology would first be used for shopping. Oh yes you did. Riya has launched a visual search engine that allows you to shop visually instead of by keyword. This is a meta-search, with items available from Amazon, Zappos, Lands’ End, and several other merchants. The new search engine is called Like ( http://www.like.com .) It’s in alpha.

The front page has several categories through which you may browse (handbags, shoes, watches) as well as several celebrity pictures. You can click on specially-marked places on the celebrity pictures to find accessories that match what they’re wearing/carrying. You know, if you have an extra couple thousand dollars in your couch cushions.

Start by browsing a category (or clicking a celebrity.) From there you’ll get a grid of items and their pictures. If you see something that looks interesting, you can click on the Likeness Search button beneath the item and get another set of search results based on the appearance of the item you chose.

Sliders at the top of the results screen allow you to specify what’s most important to you: color, shape, or pattern. (An additional slider on the left side of the page allows you to specify by price range.) You can also draw a box around specific parts of an item and rerun a search based just on that area, or click on a color array to specify what color you want.

I did a little experimenting. The sliders seem to work well, as does the general likeness search. The drawing a box around a specific part of the item and getting results based on that was pretty iffy. Drawing a box around specific parts of the item and doing a search based just on shape or color (not both) worked better in the experiments I ran.

Like is currently adding inventory at the rate over 30,000 items daily an plans to add additional shopping categories in the future (including clothing and home decor.) Personally I would like to try this technology with clothing — the handbag, jewelry, etc. search didn’t do much for me. A good idea that worked well for the most part — just needs more categories.

With gas prices at about fifty billion dollars a gallon, you might be feeling the pinch. You might find some ideas for saving money at CouponCabin at http://www.couponcabin.com/ , which has a huge coupon search engine.

Coupons are listed a couple of ways: by store (from #1 Inkjet to Zazzle; there’s a number that indicates how many coupons are available and an icon to indicate if there’s an active “coupon code” that’ll give you instant savings) or by category (I didn’t like this as much; there weren’t that many categories. Categories included apparel, electronics, books and magazines, etc.)

What the coupons are varies a lot. Some of them are codes (click here for 10% off your order), some of them are more like specials (free UPS shipping this week) and some of them are more like actual coupons (save 15% off your order of window blinds.) What I like about the listings is that clear expiration dates are given, and there’s a note as to when the coupon was added as well as last tested.

In addition to viewing coupons en masse, you can also look at only printable coupons, coupons expiring soon, stores in retail malls, free shipping offers, etc. There were some nice ones in the printable coupon section, including a Borders coupon for 15% off one item (hmmm…) I am focusing on the coupons here but CouponCabin does offer other tools for the savvy consumer, including a price comparison tool, forums, a “Favorite Deals” page, and a list of the top 50 most popular coupons.

I’m not usually fond of coupon/comparison sites as usually they just seem like big affiliate plays. But I like the way CouponCabin was organized, there were a lot of tools and coupons available, and it seemed like much effort is being expended to keep to coupons/specials listings fresh. Worth a look.