Searches World`s Largest Index of Stores Without Accepting Feeds from Retailers; Features More than 1,000 Wiki Buying Guides
NEW YORK, NY – April 19, 2006 – Kevin Ryan and Dwight Merriman, former CEO and CTO of DoubleClick, announced today the launch of ShopWiki (http://www.shopwiki.com), the 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 also 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 Fondue Pots, 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. Examples include searches that 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 U.S. stores, not including affiliate sites, which are weeded out to avoid repeats, and is able to accurately extract data from any online merchant,” added Co-Founder and Chairman Dwight Merriman. “We can offer consumers the widest coverage of stores of any site on the Web because we don`t rely on merchant-submitted data feeds and we don`t charge merchants for inclusion.”
ShopWiki plans to expand globally beginning in Fall 2006.
For more information, or to try the Web`s most complete shopping search engine, visit http://www.shopwiki.com.
About ShopWiki
ShopWiki is the complete shopping search engine, combining breakthrough search and Web crawling technologies with consumer-driven wiki technology to help shoppers make the most informed buying decisions. Established in 2005 by DoubleClick Co-founder and former CTO Dwight Merriman and former CEO Kevin Ryan, ShopWiki actively crawls the Internet to find and index products from more than 120,000 retail stores, offering consumers the widest selection on the Web. The site does not accept data feeds or charge for inclusion. ShopWiki is privately held and based in New York.