ShopWiki Launches Next-Generation Shopping Search Engine
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, former CEO and CTO of DoubleClick, have announced the launch of ShopWiki (http://www.shopwiki.com), a complete shopping search engine and buying guide. Unlike most shopping search providers, who rely on data feeds from retailers, ShopWiki uses advanced Web crawling and extraction technologies to index products from more than 120,000 stores.
ShopWiki features more than 1,000 buying guides, one of the most complete collections of buying information on the Web. Each ShopWiki user is able — and encouraged — to post and edit buying guides, in the wiki model of open collaboration made popular by Wikipedia. Buying guides include topics as diverse as Toasters, Graphics Cards, Bicycle Derailleurs and Anniversary Gifts for Husbands.
“ShopWiki puts shoppers first,” said Kevin Ryan, ShopWiki Co-Founder and CEO. “We found that consumers wanted three things from the next generation of shopping search engines: more coverage, better search, and complete shopping information. ShopWiki delivers. We want to index every product on the Web, and complement that with the best search and the most complete buying guides.”
ShopWiki’s natural language search technology satisfies complex queries that most other providers ignore. Searches may contain price ranges and product features (such as megapixels, carats, watts, and gigabytes) written in plain English. Searches as simple as “digital camera $400” and “4 inch heels,” and as layered as “Compact Flash Memory 2GB less than $200” and “400-600 watt amplifier,” yield accurate results on ShopWiki, but not on any other shopping search engine.
“ShopWiki crawls more than 120,000 US stores, and is able to accurately extract data from any online merchant,” added Co-Founder and Chairman Dwight Merriman. “We offer consumers the widest coverage of stores on the Web.”
ShopWiki plans to expand globally beginning in Fall 2006.