Being Frugal with Froogle

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.froogle.google.com' target='_blank'>http://www.froogle.google.com</a><br /><br /></div>"Froogle is a new service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of Google's search technology to a very specific task: locating stores that sell the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can make a purchase."<br /><br />Google is by far the #1 search engine on the 'Net, and they're not about to quit now - they're leveraging their search prowess in new ways, one of them being this new venture Froogle. This could be a serious blow to firms like Pricegrabber and Dealtime - and the affiliate sites like us that rely on them. We'll see what happens - a <a href="http://www.froogle.google.com/froogle?q=ipaq+1910&btnG=Froogle+Search">search for an iPAQ 1910</a> revealed only two accurate results in the first ten, but it's still a beta search engine.

[KyleC]

I like the Google search engine very much. It's fast, easy to use, and returns lots of relevant results. I have used the News function of Google, as well as the image search and I have liked the simplicity and elegance of the interface. I think that Froogle will be very useful to some people, and although the name may be creative, it doesn't do much for Google. Then again, we're talking about a site that gets its name from the number of 10^100

By the way, how did you find this? It doesn't appear to be listed on the main www.google.com page.

[Mike Temporale]

By the way, how did you find this? It doesn't appear to be listed on the main www.google.com page.

I'm guessing from here:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-977042.html

[Hawkeyes]

By the way, how did you find this? It doesn't appear to be listed on the main www.google.com page.

I'm guessing from here:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-977042.html

you can also usually find this type of thing at:
http://labs.google.com/

[Janak Parekh]

I like the Google search engine very much.
You're not the only one. In our department, we don't even say "search for something"; we just say "have you Googled foo?" :)

By the way, how did you find this? It doesn't appear to be listed on the main www.google.com page.
Google has a lot of projects cooking that aren't on the homepage. See http://www.google.com/options/ and http://labs.google.com/ . Ooooh - there's new stuff there! :-D Although, I don't see Froogle in either yet. Must be very, very new.

BTW - Froogle has more variety than the standard metacrawlers, like pricewatch.com. Including big retailers. How long do you think before they complain about deep linking?

--bdj

[sponge]

Be sure to check http://labs.google.com/ out once in a while too, tons of very neat things to play around with. The Google Viewer is quite cool, I've used it a couple of times.

Also, the results of the search of the 1910 is NOT going to be representative of the quality - the product is barely even out! Do a search for something like the iPaq 3955, or any other product that isn't as new as the 1910. It seems like you only tried one search, and judged it on that, because everything else I've looked for has worked great.

It looks like PriceWatch might have a competitor!

By the way, Froogle is in the advanced search at http://www.google.com/advanced_search

[analog_chainsaw]

Froogle is awesome! I'd never heard of this till I saw it posted here. I'm always looking for stuff for my company (and myself). This is just another tool for me to get more dependant on Google.

[Jason Dunn]

You're not the only one. In our department, we don't even say "search for something"; we just say "have you Googled foo?" :)

If I wasn't concerned about Google being ousted by another young search-engine startup (like Goolge did to Altavista), I'd suggest we actually make Google a protocol of sorts google://foo would do a Google search for foo... 8)

[sponge]

One could always do that on their local system :P

Personally, my Mozilla toolbar is already google.

[rgremill]

I can't imagine this working as well as the price hounds found on fatwallet :) .

As a side note: Best Buy (in Houston) had the ipaq 1910 on sale for $250 (after a $50 mail in rebate).

[T-Will]

My IE homepage is set to Google...and I just recently (a few weeks ago) figured out what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button does. It's pretty cool cause it's a shortcut not having to type the www. and .com when going to a popular web site such as Microsoft or PocketPCThoughts.

[rgremill]

I just found this post on fatwallet: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=18&threadid=132986

It looks like those guys are able to get the ipaq 1910 for about $200 ($100 less than the price froogle found...) I still think froogle will be a great search feature.

[ThomasC22]

Very impressed, it's not so much that I've found great prices (although I have in my first few searches) but that I'm seeing vendors that I never would have seen before in Pricewatch or Pricescan.

Score one more for Google!

[Janak Parekh]

My IE homepage is set to Google...and I just recently (a few weeks ago) figured out what the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button does. It's pretty cool cause it's a shortcut not having to type the www. and .com when going to a popular web site such as Microsoft or PocketPCThoughts.
This actually worries a lot of people, because Google is becoming a replacement for URL's!

news.google.com is my homepage - great stuff. (Sorry, Jason, that I don't make this site my homepage... you should get a Google feed setup :))

Last: of course this can't compare to FatWallet - that's manual. Every Google search is mostly, if not completely, automated.

--bdj