TheFind Blog

TheFind.com's Blog Goes Divine...

There’s a great place where real voices rule, where women can write and publish stories about anything that matters to them. It’s called DivineCaroline.com and it’s full of words and wisdom just the way women like them – dripping with honesty. We’re talking about Style, Relationships, Body & Soul, Home & Food, Travel and much more.

You can find stories from TheFind.com just like what you get here at DivineCaroline plus a whole host of other stories and topics from other members as well! Hope to see you soon at DivineCaroline.com.

Happy Reading/Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Interactive Shopping -- New!

New, from TheFind.com...introducing miniShopper! What is miniShopper, you ask? It's a great interactive widget that allows you to keep a running list of items you'd like to buy and who or what (reason) you'd like to buy them for. In addition, when you hover the mouse over the product name on the shopping list (left side), you'll see a great preview of the search results. When you click on the product name, you'll be taken to the full-blown search results!

To date, miniShopper can be found at MyAOL, Net Vibes, and iGoogle. Just in case you don't know already, you can set up really cool "homepages" for your browser at each of the sites listed. Load up your "homepage" with cool widgets like ours and you're all set.

miniShopper Features:
- create shopping list
- create corresponding notes for each shopping list item
- preview shopping list items by mousing over each link
- view full search results by clicking shopping list item
- check the box to the left of shopping list items to gray out text (purchased)
- delete shopping list and corresponding note (click the "x" icon)
- edit shopping list item and corresponding note (click the pencil icon)
- change the order of items by dragging and dropping from the notes section
- add new items to list by clicking "add another item"
- scroll through the list of items using the scroll bar on the right (must have more than 5 items listed)
- search for any product in the search bar -- doing this will not add the item to your list
- change the background color by clicking the color icon (top right)
- check out cool gift ideas by clicking the "cool gift ideas" link (bottom right)

Try miniShopper today and let us know what you think by commenting on this post. We'd love to hear your feedback so we can incorporate it in future upgrades.

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Check Out TheFind.com's New Home Page!

TheFind.com is taking you Back to School with a brand new home page with a fresh new look. For your convenience, we've restructured our "hot searches," created a nice space for announcements, and integrated "MyFinds" nicely into the bottom of the page.

In addition, we have some fun Back to School guides! "Get Back to School Ready" with this really helpful guide created just for TheFind.com by ConnectingMoms. Also, check out TheFind.com's Trends Report -- This is a weekly snapshot of what Back to School shoppers are searching for on our site. Here you'll find the most popular brands, stores, styles and colors as a result of what hundreds of thousands of people just like you are shopping for this week. Be sure to check back every week to see how the trends change. If you'd like to see any products added to the report, please leave a comment and we'll add it for you.

What are you shopping for? What can we find for you?

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Good Times at BlogHer 2007

We had a great time at BlogHer 2007! It was really cool to meet so many bloggers at one venue. What a treat! We had some really great conversations and gave away 100s of TheFind.com branded pens, shopping lists and t-shirts. It's too bad there wasn't enough time to meet everyone who attended the conference! We collected business cards from many of the bloggers who came by our table, but I know we missed a whole lot more than we collected. I've posted a link back to all those that we know came by our table. If you came by and want your link included, please comment below and I'll add you to the list.

Thanks for stopping by! We hope to see you again next year!!!

In the meantime, happy blogging/searching/shopping,
Payton

A Baby Boomer Woman's Countdown to 50
A Mommy Story
Aggro Queen
Ask Patty
Associated Content
Autism Vox
Barefoot Books Maine
Broader Perspective
Build Peace
BusyMom.net
Care.com
Career and Kids
Caribbean Free Radio
Cirque du Mommy
CookThink
Crib Ceiling
Embrace Pet Insurance
Fat Free Vegan
Funny Business
Gen Between
Global Voices
Kalyn's Kitchen
Magpie Girl
Midwestern Mommy
MomFinds
Mommy Bloggers
Mommy Needs Coffee
Mommy's Must Haves
MomReady
Mums the Word
My Life as an Avatar
Pajama Mom
Parentopia
Patia Stephens
Pay Per Post
PhoTrade
PixelSoup
PPD Survivor
Rocks in My Dryer
ScrapBlog
Simply Hired
Steeping Beauty
True Bride Confessions
True Dad Confessions
True Mom Confessions
True Office Confessions
Wired PR Works by Barbara Rozgonyi
Work It, Mom!

Add Comprehensive Product Search (Widgets) to Your Blog

Have you heard about TheFind.com's widgets yet? They provide an easy way to add shopping to your blog, whether you want to add content or something as simple as text links within your posts. Check out this press release for more information.

Using our widgets enhances your blog readers' experience and enables you to earn revenue without doing much more than you already do to publish your blog!

You say: This sounds great! How do I sign up?
We say: Click here and fill out the form. It only takes a few seconds to sign up. We will notify you directly with an URL to log into so you can add comprehensive shopping search to your blog.

If you have any issues or questions, please leave a comment here or email blog(AT)thefind(DOT)com.

Happy Blogging/Searching/Shopping,
Payton

TheFind.com Launches Specialized Widgets Enabling Bloggers to Easily Add Comprehensive Product Search Content

Mountain View, CA - July 26, 2007 – TheFind, Inc., a leading, comprehensive and unbiased discovery shopping engine that has become an online shopping destination for lifestyle goods, today officially launched four new widgets that provide direct access to its comprehensive index of over 170 million products consolidated from over half a million online stores. Bloggers now have multiple easy-to-use options to immediately monetize their existing editorial content and provide more value to their readers by linking posts about products directly to comprehensive and unbiased product search results on TheFind.com.

TheFind.com’s new widget offerings include:

1)    Shoplinks - a real estate-neutral tool that enables bloggers to easily monetize all posts about products by linking directly to TheFind.com’s product search results.

2)    Search Widget – a shopping search box that sits on a blogger’s site, and allows readers to directly search for products on TheFind.com.

3)    FindIt Widget – a pre-populated search link that can be added by the blogger to posts, and is especially useful alongside product images.

4)    Marketplace Widget – an instant marketplace of category-specific product search links, which the bloggers themselves can customize.

All four widgets provide unique methods to quickly add “drop and go” shopping search functionality to any site. Revenue from advertising placements on TheFind.com is shared with blog publishers, based upon the number of page views and click-outs driven from the blogger’s site. 
“TheFind.com widgets provide bloggers with content-targeted, comprehensive shopping search tools for their blogs, and open a whole new way of connecting actionable shopping to blog readers discovering new and innovative things,” said Siva Kumar, CEO of TheFind.com. “Because our search index is extremely comprehensive and our unbiased relevance ranking determines the best results, we believe that we are an ideal partner for bloggers wishing to maintain a reader-friendly, editorially unbiased and informative atmosphere. We are excited to offer a revenue earning opportunity that is much more fun, flexible and versatile than traditional banners or text advertisements and in fact, our widgets coexist with existing revenue options adding to the money that can be earned by the bloggers”
TheFind.com will introduce the new widgets at the BlogHer Conference, held at Chicago's Navy Pier on July 27th and 28th, 2007.

                                                      
About TheFind.com
TheFind.com debuted in October 2006 as a discovery shopping engine that delivers a comprehensive, unbiased and visually compelling shopping search experience optimized for lifestyle goods. From the most popular e-commerce sites to the most unique brands, TheFind.com crawls the entire Web to find over 170 million products from over 500,000 stores.  By using its patent-pending “product ranking” technology, TheFind.com displays the best-selling products, styles, brands and stores for any shopping search right on the first page of results – saving you time and money.  TheFind.com, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is backed by the leading investors Bain Capital Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.thefind.com.

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For more information contact:
Hillary Houser, Sparkpr for TheFind.com
415-321-1877
hillary@sparkpr.com

The Power of USB

Back in November, I blogged some "hot" USB toys. The USB port(s) on your computer provide power for a number of fun toys and cool gadgets that can enhance your computer experience.

I'm a sucker for fun/silly toys, so I'd have to say that the USB Missile Launcher is at the top of my list of fun things to buy. I haven't actually tried one of these yet, but how fun would it be to fire foam missiles at people who enter your cubicle or office. I think it would be especially effective for the times when you can't afford to be disturbed.

Another thing that I enjoy doing is celebrating people's birthdays. Here at TheFind, I decorate everyone's cubicle or office for their birthday and anniversary with the company. I just found this really cute USB Birthday Decoration Kit and thought it would be a fun addition to the decorating scheme. The best part are the USB powered birthday lights -- fun!

The real winner for USB gadgets, in my opinion is USBCell which are batteries that plug into your USB port to recharge. Right now, they only come in AA size, but AAA, C, D, 9V, and phone/device batteries are on the way! Toys and gadgets are great fun, but anything that contributes to the health of our environment scores BIG in my book. You may already know this, but I'll tell you anyway...we're no longer allowed to throw away alkaline batteries. And no, they're NOT recyclable! Aaaak!!! Consult your garbage/recycling service for information on their Household Hazardous Waste Program, as their are special ways to dispose of most standard household batteries. I'll jump down off my "green" box now.

I'd love to hear if anyone has used any of these products. I think they're all pretty awesome!

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

TheFind gets nominated -- You can help!

We awoke to some great news this morning – TheFind.com has been nominated for a Webby Award! The Webby’s are often referred to as the Oscars of the Internet – everyone here is very excited! We also got news late last week that TheFind was selected as a Red Herring 100 Finalist, a selection of the 100 private companies based in North America that play a leading role in innovation and technology. So, the hunt for the perfect award ceremony outfit has officially begun.

Seriously, though – start-ups are a lot of hard work and full of many unexpected ups and downs. If you're lucky, you build a site that stands the test of time and becomes a part of everyday life. In the meantime, we celebrate all our victories - big and small.

We are working hard to provide a shopping site that really gets the job done. We want you to find what you're looking for - and find it fast!

So what do you think?  Want to show us some love?

We'd appreciate it if you would vote for us in the Webby Awards. There's a quick registration process, navigate to the "Website" icon,  then scroll down to  "Marketplace" and you'll find us  within the "Retail" sub-category. Cast your vote and leave a comment if you'd like.

Thanks for your support!
TheFind

If TheFind.com Had a Catalog...

We've received a couple of inquiries recently from people who were wondering if TheFind has a catalog. Our first reaction was, "Of course we do, it's all online!". But, obviously that's not what these nice folks are looking for. We did some quick calculations to speculate how large a physical paper catalog would be if we made one for TheFind. Keep in mind, TheFind does not sell anything. TheFind is a discovery shopping engine that crawls through thousands of websites everyday to create amazing search results for people who shop with our search engine. With that in mind, take a moment to think about what a catalog would look like that showcased over 150 million products. That's what we bring to the table folks. For fun, let's break it down:

150,000,000 products divided by

12 products per page (currently, almost 9 products fit on an 8 1/2" x 11" paper -- we'll shrink 'em down)

= 12,500,000 pages

We're all familiar with phone books, right? Let's say the average phone book has 1,000 pages. If TheFind created a catalog, it would equal more than 12,500 phone books! That's quite an overwhelming catalog, don't you think?

Shall we take a step further? For the sake of argument, we'll say that each phone book is 2 inches thick. The Empire State Building (New York) is 1,250 feet tall or 15,000 inches tall. And our catalog would be 25,000 inches tall. Therefore, if we printed a physical paper catalog it would almost be the height of 2 Empire State Buildings! And, that my friends is the biggest reason why we don't produce a physical paper catalog here at TheFind. So, if you want to find it at TheFind, you'll have to navigate to www.thefind.com to seek our what you're shopping for.

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

TheFind's Unbiased and Comprehensive Shopping Search

Today, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat posted a story questioning TheFind's unbiased and comprehensive business model. As you might imagine, we want to address some of these comments directly. To clarify a few things:

* Our revenue model is like Google's - unbiased and natural listings are surrounded by clearly marked advertising spots.  Ads carry a prominent "sponsored" sign - for example:  chandelier earrings, yoga pants, prom dresses.  The unbiased/natural results cannot be bought or sold - you have to earn these through our algorithm which determines ranking.

* In order to populate the unbiased/natural results, we do 2 things:

1) take feeds

2) crawl the web

* Because some of these feeds are affiliate feeds, we do generate some revenue from them (albeit very little). Our algorithm does not bias any listings based on whether or not they are affiliate feeds.  We decided to err on the side of getting the products, and lots of merchants don't provide feeds except via affiliate programs.  As crazy as it may sound, we are actively talking to merchants to get their feeds directly, so they don't have to pay us via rev-share. If you are a merchant and would like to provide us a direct feed, please email us at stores@thefind.com.

It is great that shoppers are being educated about shopping search results, and our mission remains unchanged: to provide an excellent and unbiased shopping experience. We are glad to see that this model is resonating with consumers who are spending an above-average amount of time at TheFind.

Siva

TheFind.com is the Fastest-Growing Next-Generation Shopping Search Engine

TheFind.com is the Fastest-Growing Next-Generation Shopping Search Engine
Company emerges as market-leader in monthly page-views and user interaction rates

Mountain View, Calif. – March 28, 2007 – TheFind.com announced today that since launch it has experienced significant traffic growth and is the number one next-generation shopping site in terms of traffic and consumer interaction metrics. In addition, the company’s newly-added strategic partnerships and monetization features will continue to grow traffic and revenue in the coming months.

Since TheFind.com launched on October 31, 2006, unique visits to the site have grown by 540 percent, from 141,625 visits in November to a run rate of over 900,000 in March 2007. Based on this run rate, TheFind.com will easily surpass the milestone of one million monthly visitors during the month of April, just six months after the company launched. Additionally, TheFind.com is already experiencing more than five million page views per month, indicating consumers are highly engaged with the site and integrating it into their everyday shopping routines.

“Consumers are obviously finding value in TheFind.com as a preferred shopping search engine,” said Siva Kumar, co-founder and CEO of TheFind.com. “TheFind.com is emerging as the clear next-generation leader in shopping search. We set out to develop the most comprehensive and efficient discovery shopping engine, enabling consumers to find anything for sale online, especially lifestyle products. With the largest product index among all shopping search engines and the leading traffic and engagement numbers among new entrants, we are proud of what we have accomplished since October. We are thrilled at the early response that has put us in this leadership position.”

Additional traffic highlights since launch include:

• According to Hitwise, the weekly average session duration on TheFind.com is over six minutes.
• Visitors to TheFind.com are highly engaged with the site, averaging five page views per session.
• Traffic to TheFind.com has grown by 100 percent since the month of January; in March traffic to TheFind.com was 2.6 times that of December—the most important online shopping month of the year.
• TheFind.com has averaged a monthly traffic growth rate of over 35 percent so far in 2007.

TheFind.com has also announced new content distribution partnerships with the Glam Publishers Network and PopGadget.net, among others, and has added sponsored CPC (cost-per-click) ads that are clearly marked and placed within its search results. The company has introduced key features that improve the product discovery experience such as “Find Similar Items,” “Shop by Color,” “Related Searches” and “Hot Searches.”

About TheFind.com
TheFind.com debuted in October 2006 as a discovery shopping search engine that delivers a comprehensive, relevant and visually compelling shopping experience optimized for lifestyle products. Unlike traditional comparison shopping sites, TheFind.com provides the largest product selection emphasizing leading styles, brands and stores and the ability to browse and search for similar items. TheFind.com crawls the entire Web, using its “Product Ranking Engine” technology to rank more than 150 million products from more 500,000 stores based on market supply and demand indicators. The result is that any search will return custom-catalog results where consumers can search-to-browse and intelligently navigate the web’s massive product offerings. TheFind.com, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is backed by the leading venture capital firms Redpoint Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. For more information, visit http://www.thefind.com.

###

For more information contact:
Hillary Houser
Sparkpr for TheFind.com
415-321-1877
hillary@sparkpr.com

Love TheFind -- Talk to Us!

At the risk of being boastful, I thought I would tell you that we receive a lot of love in the marketplace. We often get overwhelming responses from people and it makes us feel great! I'd like to share some of the love that we've received through talk@thefind.com.

If you have something to share with us, please "talk" to us anytime! We've told you several times that when you talk, we listen. And we do. You input (and love) doesn't just go into a black hole, it goes to real people. And the real people (those of us at TheFind) actually talk back (in a nice way, of course).

Following are REAL emails that we've received (minus names and email addresses):

Your website is GREAT. It is straight to the point and very easy to use unlike many others. I like that it is not crowded with other things. I will spread the word about this website "thefind.com" Keep up the great work.

 

This website is absolutely wonderful. A friend told me about it, and I've been using it since. It is at the top of my FAVORITES list. Thank you--Thank you--Thank you.

 

Wow your site is awesome!!! I just happened accross it and I am impressed. I will be doing a lot of holiday shopping from thefind.com

 

This site is pretty much all I need! I will use it exclusively from now on. Very, very nice!

 

This site is unbelievable. Everything from being organized to being fast. I'll help spread the word that this site should be the #1 place to shop and search.

 

Your site is simply GREAT!

 

First, I like the site - most of the results are 'true', and I find that I can find things I can't find otherwise.

 

Awesome website...Waoh!!! I love the layout...   

 

This site is off to a GREAT start!

 

Your site is asthetically very appealing.

 

I love your website. Does your company have any plans to go public?

 

This is amazing ! i'd love to work with your company somehow! you really have something great started!

 

I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as we did! If you'd like to contribute your thoughts, please add a comment or email us at talk@thefind.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton
 

You spoke, we listened – new feature at TheFind.com

Based on the feedback we have received from many of TheFind.com faithful, we have introduced a new feature today! TheFind’s goal is to give shoppers access to all of the web’s products and stores, and to organize those results in a ranked order so they can get instant insight into top brands, stores, styles and products for their searches.

Today’s new feature lets you find similar items to ones that you already like, without having to perform multiple searches and devise creative ways to describe the products you already found.

Simply search for something on our site – “women’s pumps” for example, and find one you like. Hover over the product image, then click on the “find similar items button” that appears in the product pop-up, and we will show you all of the products that are similar to the one you have selected. It’s that easy! If you like the platform peep-toe pump, you can now see all of the platform peep-toe pumps that are similar to the one you already found, by just clicking on the button. No need to keep typing and re-typing creative search queries.

We constantly aim to simplify your shopping search experience online, and we love hearing your feedback. New features are inspired by you - our audience - and what you ask of us. Keep emailing us at talk@thefind.com with your thoughts/comments, or feel free to comment here.

Not sure where to start? Here are some suggestions of what to search for, to try out our new feature:
womens shoes, mens messenger bags, diamond earrings, hoop earrings, dog sweater

Click here to see the press release on this new feature.

-Larisa

Yesterday's SDForum Shopping Search Panel

I had the pleasure of being invited by Brian Smith of ComparisonEngines.com
to speak on a panel about shopping search at the SDForum Search SIG meeting. 
Others on the panel were David Weinrot from ShopZilla, Chris
Saito from Yahoo! Shopping, and Neil Mayle from Dotted Pair.  Thank you
Brian for having us on the panel! Yahoo! sponsored the event with pizza,
cookies and a big room for all of us to sit in! 

From the nodding heads and eager questions, it seemed like packed audience
definitely got the picture that shopping search is going through a pretty
big transition. The technology that worked (works) well for computers and
electronics allowing consumers to compare features and prices - comparison
shopping - was well represented by two of the larger proponents of this
genre, Yahoo! Shopping and Shopzilla. The demos of Shopzilla and Yahoo!
Shopping helped show the emphasis these sites place on efficiency for these
two categories.

However, the fast growing and now the larger e-commerce categories are
clothing, accessories, home and garden, health and beauty, jewelry, kids and
family and sports and outdoor. In fact, 2006 marked the first time that
apparel and accessories eclipsed computer products as the largest e-commerce
segment. These "soft goods" categories require a substantially different
user experience for shopping search and lot of new and different technology
to execute this search well. The comparison shopping experience and
technology is not well suited to make this transition.

TheFind, on the other hand, is all about making the "soft goods shopping
search experience compelling. Our demo showed the audience how using TheFind
helps consumers have fun (and get their tasks accomplished) using a shopping
search engine that helps discover based on styles, trends, brands, and
visual appeal and browse "soft goods"!

I'd say the biggest differences between TheFind.com and the others, is our
focus on delivering comprehensiveness, ranked relevance for searches, and
wrapping this in a very visual and engaging shopping experience for the
"soft goods" categories. Certainly for completeness, we also handle
computers and electronics that traditional comparison shopping way. 

It was a fun event, and we hope to participate in many more of these to
come.   We love being a part of a new wave of companies, who are shaking up
shopping search!

Siva

TheFind in the Top 100

If you're a fan of "top" lists, then you've probably read that TheFind has been named in the Charles Knight, SEO list of "Top 100 Alternate Search Engines." Mr. Knight's list has been posted, re-posted, and posted again and again and again! If you "Google" it you will find that the list lives in a variety of places online. Exposure is key!

In his study, Mr. Knight categorized the various search engines and then compared them to various tools that Google produces. To quote Charles Knight's article, "And so it goes, feature after feature after feature. TheFind is a better shopping experience than Google's Froogle, IMHO."

There are some fascinating sites on the list. Check it out, you're sure to find some new favorites!

Happy Searching,
Payton

Philip Nelson - Advisory Chief Technical Officer at TheFind

As Siva mentioned, we founded Impresse together many years ago.  I'm glad to be working with him again on TheFind's technology.  My wife loves the service, and is a demanding shopper, so I have my work cut out for me.  I really wanted to work for a site that has the power to become a well known destination, and not just a site that has to buy its traffic.  This is a great technology to be a part of.

Phil

Zoran Dukic - VP, Engineering at TheFind

I've long held an affinity for search technology.  I started working in search back in 1996, where I was the principal architect and developer of a web-based real estate search guide.  My time at AltaVista and PremierGuide solidified my love of this field.  I am also addicted to the start-up life - being a part of a young company with big dreams is a big responsibility, and a lot of fun.  The engineers I have met here at TheFind are an amazing group, and I cannot wait to show off some of the new features we are working on, very soon.

Zoran

Adding to our technology team leadership

Yesterday we announced that two veteran search technologists have joined our company.

I've known Phil Nelson for over nine years.  We co-founded a company, Impresse, several years ago, and after that experience I always envisioned us working together again.   Phil was an early pioneer in search technology, having co-founded Verity Corporation   back in 1988.  He has a detailed understanding of the complexity of search, and as he tells it, is excited to put that knowledge to use at a site that his wife loves to use everyday :-)  With his recent experience as the CTO of Spark Networks (JDate , American Singles) he brings a wealth of knowledge about running successful consumer Internet sites. Anyone who knows Phil also know that he loves to keep himself totally immersed in all sorts of complex problems and right now, Phil is also taking some of his time to help on the software aspects of a DNA sequencing project.  He is a guy who sleeps very little! He always has a smile on his face and terrific solutions to tough problems.  Phil has been advising our company since last May and after a few months he decided that it was about time we made it official.  Welcome to the team, Phil!   

I am also excited to announce Zoran Dukic as our Vice President of Engineering.  As you can imagine, this is a critical role at TheFind.  Our technology is complex, and requires someone who can understand both the intricacies of our algorithms and the vast amounts of data we crawl and collect (we started off with 150 million products along with all the corresponding images, descriptions, brands, titles, prices, colors, styles,.well, you get the idea :-)).  Zoran, like Phil, brings specific search engine expertise, having led development at AltaVista/Overture/Yahoo, PremierGuide (local search) and Zip2.  Most recently, he was the second employee at Turn where he led projects that utilized both search and machine learning for building a next generation advertising network.  Zoran is an awesome technology manager; great at helping teams deliver to their maximum potential, with a winning personality to boot. Great to have you on board Zoran!

These two are already hard at work with our talented team - look for some cool developments out of TheFind.com real soon.

Siva

The World Belongs to "i(insert word here)"

It seems that everytime I turn around there's a new "i(something)" on the market or coming soon. The most exciting, of course is the much anticipated iPhone! My knee jerk reaction is that the iPhone will take over the (cellular) world. The pessimist in me says that there will be some or perhaps a lot of resistence.

Sight unseen, my biggest resistence is that they'll only be offering a 4GB and 8GB for $499 and $599 respectively. My iPod Video has 30GB and I'm pretty happy about that! Movies take up a lot of space! I couldn't imagine running the phone, contacts, surfing the internet, listening to music, watching movies, etc all with only 4 or 8GB. That just doesn't sound adequate. For that reason alone, I'll wait until they expand. Because, you know they will.

If I weren't already a Cingular Wireless subscriber, then I would definitely complain about the fact that Cingular has an exclusive on the phone. I realize that many cell phone manufacturers do exclusive deals, but this is Apple folks. Huh, as I type that I realize how stupid that statement is. Oh well, I'd still have issue with it if I weren't with Cingular. But, since I'm already in the "right cellular family," I'll stop complaining about the issue that doesn't affect me.

I definitely think it's pretty to look at with the sexy screen and all. I'd be willing to bet that some people won't like the touch screen, but I think I could get used to it even though I've been using a real QWERTY keyboard for about 5 years now.

I don't know, I think it's cool, but like I said I'll wait for more memory before I make the jump and dump my Treo (which I love)!  Speaking of, I wonder what the calendar feature will be like. I haven't seen any specifics on it. I've found that no other platform can really touch Palm's calendar. If it's not up to snuff, then I'll definitely keep my Treo.

What do you think? Will this be the next phone for you???

Happy Gadgeting,
Payton

Game On, Ladies!

I'm sure by now that we're all familiar with Fantasy Football, right? It happens in just about any office you work in or perhaps your significant other plays or whatever. It's really popular, especially with men. Well, now it's our turn ladies...have you heard about Fantasy Fashion League (FFL)? Fantasy Fashion is similar to Fantasy Football, except you draft a team of fashion designers and celebrities instead of football players. Sound fun? Read on!

Basically, you draft a team of designers and celebs who are in the "lime light." These are folks that  will be talked about in fashion mags, those who will show up to awards shows wearing specific designer fashions, etc. You can read all the rules and point values on your own. You can play in either the public league or in a private league. If you go the public route, you play against everyone else, but if you go private, you play against your friends/peers or whomever makes up your league. Regardless of how you play, it sounds like fun!

The next game starts Sunday, Jan. 14th and ends Tuesday, Feb. 27th. The Golden Globes and the Oscars will occur within this time frame, hence the name "FFL Award Show Season" (cute, huh?). There's a $10 fee to play, but they offer a complimentary fashion mag subscription for this season, so it's a win-win, regardless. There are some fun prizes as well (see rules above).

I've opted to join the SVMoms.com private league. Thanks to Sarah G & Beth B, I learned about the FFL. I'm looking forward to playing! SVMoms is looking for more people to participate, so feel free to join their league or start your own. You'll have to act fast though since the Award Show Season starts THIS Sunday!

Happy Play Time,

Payton

Oh My! iPod

There are more iPod accessories and gadgets than I can keep track of. Honestly, I LOVE my iPod, but this cool toy has spawned a larger sub-market than anything I've ever seen! I remember when they first came out...I thought, "Eh, who needs it. I have CDs." I resisted for a really long time and then the iPod Video was born and I caved. Now I think, "How did I ever live without this amazing invention?" I appreciate CDs, but only so I can rip them to my iPod. Remember those large vinyl disks that scratched and skipped like crazy? Ha! Pardon me, I've digressed. Did I mention that I LOVE my iPod?!? Okay, good. Let's move on to the iPod toys, shall we?

Run out and buy a iCrib Sound System for anyone you know who owns an iPod and has recently had a new baby. They will will love you (more) for this great find! Plus, it's  under $50.

Do you know someone who sings in the shower or who'd like to listen to their favorite tunes while snorkling? The H2O Audio for iPod Video is made for them. Be sure to purchase the Waterproof Headphones as well.

Wake up next to a halo encasing your iPod because really, your iPod can do no wrong. The JBL OnTime will set you back a couple hundred bucks, but you can hit the snooze button and forget about it.

You're probably thinking that this image looks out of place, right? But, it's where it belongs. This is a Burton Audex Beanie will keep your head and ears warm while serving up the earbuds (and tunes) from your iPod.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here with this great sampling. My appreciation goes out to CNET for compiling these great gift ideas and so much more in their Holiday Gift Guide 2006. These particular items came from Stocking Stuffer section. This is one of the best gift guides I've seen. Kudos to CNET!

What's your favorite gift guide? Are there any accessories that you'd like to get for your iPod this Christmas? Enquiring minds want to know.

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton
 

Unbiased/natural shopping results – your voices are being heard!

Hi all – This is Larisa, VP Marketing at TheFind.com. During the last eight months since I joined the company, I have spent a lot of time talking to online shoppers to find out how they shop today - and how they would like to shop tomorrow. By combining that feedback with research statistics, we found that the vast majority of people start their online shopping at search engines like Google. As they click on those search results links, they often end up at traditional comparison shopping sites like ShopZilla, Shopping.com and PriceGrabber.

It is not commonly known that these traditional comparison engines only show listings by stores that pay them, and rank products based on who pays them the most money. When we were talking to folks during our initial research phase, we asked them for their thoughts about this paid ranking method. They clearly voiced a preference for unbiased listings that are based on other factors – not by who pays the most to be there.

This knowledge is becoming more mainstream, and shoppers are being heard!

Check out this 2-part article from PCWorld Magazine that details specifics about paid listings and how they affect what you see. We are excited to be on the leading edge of this trend, and giving shoppers the unbiased listings they want…

“The Truth About Shopping Engines Part 1: How They Work”

“The Truth About Shopping Engines Part 2: A Shell Game?”

Techy Gadgets for Under $50

There are only 26 shopping days left until Christmas. I figure I'll do what I can to help guide your shopping decisions until the very last day. Have you started shopping yet? Have you devised your gift giving plans yet? I admit, I'm behind the curve on this, but I plan on doing all my shopping online. I have been shopping around and planning though. Have you tried "My Finds" yet? You can easily save a product that you're interested in buying by clicking the "Save In My Finds" link located directly under the product. My list is getting long! How 'bout yours?

On to the subject at hand...I enjoy giving cool techy gadgets to people. It's fun to watch someone's face light up when they a) figure out what the gift is or does and/or b) realize it's something they really need and/or always wanted. That brings me great joy! For today's picks, I refer to New York Holiday Guide

I found the Gifts Under $50 to be pretty valuable. My top picks (mostly because they're techy and affordable) are as follows:

1. CellStik

2. Smartball

3. Nike + iPod Sport Kit

***Chime in and share your favorite techy gifts for under $50. I'd love to hear about them!***

Happy Searching/Shopping,
Payton

Welcome to TheFind.com

Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by TheFind! Our first blog post is being written by me - Siva Kumar, co-founder and CEO. I and many of our team members are looking forward to posting here.

We’re excited to launch this blog to personally speak with each and every one of you, TheFind users, about our favorite topic, online shopping. We hope to cover a gamut of topics - from industry trends, to specific thoughts on favorite products, to debates and polls on the latest buzz in retail, to how we plan to improve the search for shopping experience – all aimed at helping you efficiently shop online; oh – and have loads of fun while doing it!

We launched our beta on October 31^st, and have eagerly been reading all of your feedback. Please keep it coming! Based on your comments, we are busily adding new features and fixing current bugs (admittedly, we aren’t ready to come out of beta yet…but we are diligently working on getting there).

Since day one, TheFind.com was built with real-life shoppers in mind. We spent a lot of time talking to people like yourself, conducting focus groups, soliciting input from avid online shoppers and reading research about online shopping and searching habits - and have synthesized all of this knowledge into the design of the technology and the site itself.

Why did we build TheFind.com?

Comprehensive Shopping Search

Consumers told us most of them start their online shopping at a search engine. We sat some folks down and asked them – why? The most common answer was that they felt that till now, the only sites they could trust to find anything for sale online was at Google or Yahoo!.

So we knew that being able to reliably find just about anything for sale online is very important to you.

That’s why we are striving hard to search each and every online store for all of the products being sold. Today, we already search over 500,000 stores and find over 150 Million products (and counting!) – more than any other shopping search site!

Unbiased and Relevant Results

Research also told us that shoppers who start at Google or Yahoo! often end up at shopping comparison engines like Shopping.com or Shopzilla. We asked people – did you know that these comparison engines only work with merchants that pay them, and they rank products in the order of who pays them the most money? How do you feel about that?

The most common answer was that they were not aware that they were simply looking at a list of advertising. They all said that they would feel much better about relevant listings that were ranked on true market popularity, not by how much merchants paid.

So we knew that unbiased & market-based relevant results are important to you.

That’s why our patent-pending Product Ranking Engine ranks the top brands, products and stores for your search right on the first page, based on our algorithms that use market demand and supply – not based on paid advertising - making us your trusted shopping ally.

Simple and Easy

Again consumers were very vocal in telling us that shopping search needs to be simple and easy to use. User feedback told us that an efficient user experience is key – we showed them various designs and they loved this minimalist approach that you now see on our site.

We learned that the products should be the stars of the show, and that you should be able to easily save and share your favorite products!

We want to continue to ask for your help in making TheFind.com the very best shopping search engine for you. So, we will never stop asking for input, and we hope you will never stop telling us how to make this site the best one for you! Email us at talk@thefind.com anytime to give us your feedback.

Many of TheFind.com team members will be posting their thoughts/questions here. Thanks for checking us out and stay tuned for more…Happy Holidays & Happy Shopping!

Siva