Vergelijk.nl launches impressive Euro 2008 poule

Vergelijk.nl just launched a very impressive Euro 2008 poule. Participants can compare teams (yep, Vergelijk.nl means ‘Compare’), win fantastic prices, invite friends for separate subpouls, etc. I know that I am biased, but if you love soccer and you like the excitement of participating in a soccer poule for Euro 2008 then this is the one to choose! So go and enter the competition, it is entirely free (but in Dutch…)!!

You can enter the Euro 2008 competition here!

New release Google Product Search

Yesterday I mentioned that Microsoft had made some changes in their Live product search. It now seems that Google is also testing a new version of its Product Search with actual CSE features. This includes the aggregation of merchant offers by product, compare functionalities, technical specifications of products and reviews for products. This new version was first seen in December ‘07 by eCommerceOptimization. The changes are only visible on Google.com. On local sites of Google in Europe nothing has changed (yet).

It will be likely that Google will start promoting this service in their regular search results. Currently they still use the ’shopping bag’ icon, but according to SearchEngineland Google is also testing with displaying the product image.

Microsoft reviving Live Search for products?

According to Liveside.net Microsoft has just launched a brand new page for product search. Microsoft hasn’t improved product search for quite some time, so this might be a sign that they are taking this more seriously. In a previous post I mentioned that Steve Balmer acknowledged the importance of comparison shopping. He also said that they should be able to generate 25% in advertising.

Currently the Live Search for Products doesn’t work, which is pretty silly. Every search results in the following message:

Sorry, we did not find any product results for this search.

If Live Search for Products actually works then it would look like the image below. You are now able to refine the search results by user opinions, brands, category, and price range. Liveside.net concluded that in comparison to the old product search, search results have improved dramatically. Other improvements, although available before as part of the Shopping Search vertical already, include the ability to compare prices and view user ratings and reviews.

The new look of Product Search:

Let’s see if Microsoft will integrate other features soon. I still expect some kind of integration of Jellyfish in their Product Search.

Atomico to invest 300 million in Europe

Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have a big appetite for success. When they sold Skype to eBay they cashed several hundred millions, but they invested quite a substantial part in their investment vehicle Atomico.

Currently they are planning to open a new fund, but now entitely focused on European startups. The fund will have a size of 300 million euros. Atomico’s first fund consists of a lot of well-known names like LastFM, Powerreviews, Technorati, Joost and Wunderloop. Of these, LastFM was recently sold to CBS for around 280 million dollars. It seems that everything Niklas and Janus touch turns into gold. They also were involved in the file sharing program Kazaa. So, if you are a startup and need funding to make the next step I would go for Atomico. Hopefully they will like your business too

High activity in The Netherlands

It’s difficult to keep track of all merger and acquisition activity in The Netherlands. There is no common underlying trigger for the frenzy. For some it has to do with (re)focussing on their core activity, others just want to expand and others are acquired by even larger retailers. Below a short summary of all recent activity:

- The Phone House takes over Typhone, Femmefone en ICTango
- Venture Capitalist Ende & Deitmers buys 30% of Centralpoint
- Takeitnow has been bought by Aces Direct
- First Europa is up for sale
- Venture Capitalist Ende & Deitmers invests in Hyves

I will keep you all updated on any new acitivity!

Is ‘green’ a hype or there to stay?

In October last year I already wrote about CSE’s launching theme pages focused on the ‘green trend‘.

More and more comparison engines are leveraging their (costly) software to add new ‘niche’ or theme sites, like Shopgreen (from Pricegrabber) and TheFindGreen (from TheFind) [......] I expect many more of these theme sites to pop-up, but with Al Gore pushing for a better climate, for now the green trend will be the most prevailing one.

Well, it didn’t take long. The first real green and environmental conscious CSE is out, Greenzer. At the closing of Earth day Greenzer.com lauchned their public beta. Greenzer highlights some of the key green attributes for products to make the search easier and more informative. They also provide a score for a certain brand/product.

The Greenzer score is built up out of 4 elements:

• A Climate Counts score
• A Greenpeace score
• EPEAT score
• Energy Star certification

In the case of the Toshiba Tecra notebook this leads to a score of 8.6. See the image below!

Greenzer.com has a nice look-and-feel. I also believe that the ‘green’ element will attract quite a few visitors. However, they will also have to provide an excellent selection of shops. I am curious if they will also only admit ‘green’ shops. That is something that I did not see yet. Maybe something for the next release!

TakeitNow sold to Aces Direct

TakeitNow, one of the older webshops in The Netherlands, has been sold for several million euro to Aces Direct. The webshop has been up for sale for over a year as the current owner of TakeitNow (iMerge) did not see it as its core business anymore. Imerge can now fully focus their attention on internationalizing Icecat. Icecat offers an open catalogue for product information. The product data is used by shops and price comparison engines.

Microsoft acquires Farecast?

Rumors are that Microsoft has acquired Farecast for approximately $115 million. Insiders say that Farecast had multiple offers to choose from. It is unclear what Microsoft wants to do with Farecast, currently the two companies already work together on MSN Travel.

What does Farecast actually do?

Farecast offers a unique service by providing its users with intelligent airfare predictions. Founded in 2003, Farecast has since gained very healthy funding from several venture funds totaling $20.6 million. Unlike other travel companies, Farecast predicts when a user should buy a ticket based upon 175 billion points of previous airfare data. Its engine can currently predict whether airfare goes up or down up to a week into the future with a claimed success rate of 70-75%. While Farecast has a lot of competition, they claim it is the only company which can predict future prices.
The site has recently expanded to providing the best deals on hotel room as well. Results from travel search sites like ReserveTravel, Orbitz, and CheapTicket, are shown on a map with prices and other hotel information. Farecase gives deal finders an idea if a specific hotel is overpriced or a good deal by marking overpriced hotels blue and attractively-priced hotels red.

Seattle based Farecast now also says to provide predictions in Europe. I have tried to find some predictions, but I couldn’t get it to work for European destination.

Below is a graph of a trip from Las Vegas to San Fransisco:

New blidget for my blog!

It is now possible to integrate news from Eye on European E-commerce on your own website or blog, we have a blidget (yeah sorry for the slang, it’s a widget for a blog) now!

Founders Pricerunner launch TestFreaks.com

Kristofer Arwin, Magnus Wiberg and Martin Alexanderson (who previously founded the price comparison engine PriceRunner in 1999) recently founded TestFreaks.com. According to them they do the following:

TestFreaks is about aggregating all information about your favorite products. User reviews, professional reviews, prices, blog posts, forum threads, news, rumors, manufacturers descriptions and specifications, manuals, videos and more. We want you to have the best possible information about the product you are looking for. It should be fun and easy to find the best products for you. TestFreaks isn’t only about finding new products it will also be an owner’s community were you can share your experiences about your products and help others maximize the utility of the products.

TestFreaks.com is similar to what Alatest and HetBesteProduct (only in The Netherlands and currently partner of the Compare Group) are already doing. Alatest is most aggresively pushing into new territories. I personally believe most in the score of HetBesteProduct.