Become.com, a product comparison shopping engine and shopping research site since 2004, is a one-stop-shop for shoppers looking for great product search, relevant results, good product information, multiple product views, shopping news, ‘no surprise’ pricing, local results and social shopping aspects like the ability to save products you like for later review. Become.com features thousands of merchants who offer millions of products. They also power other shopping services such as the recently announced launch of Washingtonpost.com’s new shopping section.

Become is also sporting a new look and appears to have a new logo, my guess is it won’t be long until they also leap more into the social aspects of shopping and product comparisons. They are already featuring top users, recommendation lists and consumer reviews on the front page and individual product pages. Some of the social features and UGC on Become include reviews, buying guides, discussion forums, search suggestions and other product information or details.

We are working to provide comprehensive, relevant, and unbiased research information to help you choose the right product. We also provide a comparison shopping service to help you get the best deal. Finding the right product at the best price to save you time and money –that is our goal. We are meeting this goal by developing innovative new technologies and search services.

Announcing Google Product Search Partner Program

Google recently added a new page and a new partner program to their services menu. The program is meant for data feed companies who allow online sellers to easily integrate with Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) and Google Base. So far, three companies have been named official Google Product Search Partners. ChannelAdvisor, Channel Intelligence and SingleFeed all made the inaugural list and now appear alongside the bullet points outlined on the new partner page.

TheFind.com is one of the most popular comparison shopping engines in existence. It rivals even the biggest product marketplaces including Amazon, eBay, Google Product Search and Yahoo! Shopping. TheFind is one of my personal favorites and I always find myself going back because of the great shopping experiences I have had there. TheFind shopping search engine uses their “Product Ranking Engine” to deliver comprehensive lists of products and their corresponding images, ranked by the leading products, brands, stores and styles on the very first page of results. Their comparison engine displays products across several categories including apparel, shoes, accessories and seasonal items.

We have posted several times about TheFind.com in the past including their Back-to-School shopping promo with PayPal, their shopping widgets and even covered their acquisition of Glimpse.com, a high fashion site they acquired back in August.

Like.com is the first true visual comparison shopping engine, where the contents of photos are used to search and retrieve similar products or items. Like.com utilizes their patented Likeness Technology to create a digital signature that describes any photo’s contents and enables a more accurate query for similar looking products. Initially, Like.com focused on handbags, jewelry, shoes, and watches, now they feature mens and womens apparel, kids clothing and even holiday costumes. Shoppers have the ability to search for a number of items and purchase them from over 2000 leading brand names. Like.com continues to add other aesthetically oriented product categories into their visual comparison engine.

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing Autumn Looijen about StreetPrices, a comparison shopping engine that is featured on our Product Listing Guide. During that interview, Autumn mentioned that StreetPrices was working on several new upgrades including a brand new site design and features to provide shoppers with better product information and a more organized shopping experience.

Well, today is the day that StreetPrices launches their new features and site design. The differences include a wider range of product information, links to manufacturers sites, product reviews/articles, price comparison charts from one page, improved wishlist feature, pawprints for favorite products and even sticky notes that can be placed on any product and searched for at a later time. Oh, and they also changed their favicon from the puppy one to a blue “SP” icon. StreetPrices hopes these new changes will help separate them from other CSE’s in the space and that it will allow for a better shopping experience all around for consumers.

StreetPrices is a comparison shopping engine and bargain/deal shopping finder site that focuses on consumer electronics products, but also covers products that range from computer equipment to office products, including PC components. StreetPrices has been in existence since about 1997 and lists both new and used products within their shopping engine. Their price search engine scours the Net for the lowest priced items and displays them to shoppers who are using their interface.

Just when you thought Online shopping couldn’t get any better, Yahoo Shopping rolls out a few new features and shows us just how to make comparison shopping easier and more usable. Last week, Yahoo Shopping announced a brand new feature into their comparison shopping engine, Shop-by-Color. the new shop-by-color feature allows Yahoo Shopping users to browse for clothing and other items based on 56 different popular colors.

Yahoo! Shopping Overview:

Yahoo! Shopping, a comparison shopping engine powered by Yahoo!, acts as a destination marketplace for thousands of merchants and millions of products. The shopping interface features easy to use price, brand, item type and other refinement features designed to help shoppers find the items they desire in a quick and efficient way. The merchant tools help sellers list, manage and track their products or items within the shopping portal. Shoppers can buy directly from merchants once they have found what it is they were shopping for.

This news is definitely worth reporting, it even made both Techcrunch and Mashable in the same day.

What’s the news you ask? Well, earlier today comparison shopping site TheFind.com announced that they have acquired designer fashion site Glimpse.com for an undisclosed amount of mullah (rumored to be less than $100K). The announcement appeared on Glimpse. TheFind.com originally launched in 2003 and Glimpse launched just this year. It’s a fine acquisition for TheFind and a great accomplishment for Glimpse founders Frank Han and Steve Lemon.

Recently, after logging in to Google Base, I noticed a new feature that appears on the “My Items” tab underneath “Active Items,” “Inactive Items” and “Bulk Upload Files” (see screenshot below). The feature asked me to answer questions about my items like “In the following product description, does ‘Silk’ refer to fabric such as a silk tie?” The answers it provided for me to choose from were, “Yes,” “Not Applicable” and “No.” Since the word ‘silk’ on my site refers to a material which fake plants are made from I answered “No.” The note Google leaves states that “a record of your answers will be retained by Google and used to improve the quality for your feed as well as our own products and services.”

Note From eCopt: This article has been updated since it originally posted. It now features answers directly from Google about the Base Question feature. See eCopt's questions and Google's answers at the bottom of this page.