Joining the likes of Seth Goldstein, Greg Sterling, and several others, Become.com CEO Michael Yang is the latest search mover and shaker interviewed as part of our “5 Questions with…” series. Read how Become.com plans to solve the user inertia issue, their stance on partner relationships, and what type of shoes Yang coveted while in [...]
Joining the likes of Seth Goldstein, Greg Sterling, and several others, Become.com CEO Michael Yang is the latest search mover and shaker interviewed as part of our “5 Questions with…” series.
Read how Become.com plans to solve the user inertia issue, their stance on partner relationships, and what type of shoes Yang coveted while in high school.
1. How does Become.com plan on getting over the ‘user inertia’ hurdle – that is, the tendency of people to stick with the engines they’re already using. What factors are going to be critical in getting people to make the switch?
History and research have shown that people are drawn to search engines that give them exceptional results for what they are looking for. By focusing exclusively on the shopping vertical, Become.com is able to deliver more relevant and useful results without the clutter and spam that frequently show up in general search engines. Before we launched our site last month, over 10,000 people had registered to be part of the closed preview, so we definitely see that people are anxious for a new, better search experience. Also, we will provide a tight integration between search and comparison shopping to take the shopping experience to the next level.
2. Some have said Become.com is looking to reach audiences in research mode as opposed to ‘buy’ mode. Do you agree with this perception? Why or why not?
Our current service focuses on delivering great research information such as product reviews and buying guides to help consumers decide “what to buy” not “where to buy” on all kinds of products. We have significant advantage in this due to our proprietary search technology. Our goal is to help people in all stages of shopping, from research to comparison shopping so we will be rolling out additional new services in the coming months.
3. Can you tell us a little more about Become.com’s partner relationships?
Our goal at Become.com is to help inform consumers by providing them with the best, most trustworthy information so that they can make smarter buying decisions. To that end, we do not have any partnership relationships for our research results. When we launch our comparison shopping service, we will have merchant partners sending us feeds of their products. This will be clearly separated from the research results, and the name of each merchant will be clearly visible.
4. An article in MIT’s Technology Review mentions that you refined your comparison shopping skills at Seven-Eleven when you were a high-schooler earning a low wage. Is this true? Do you have any good shopping stories from your salad days?
Yes, while I was in high school I comparison shopped for products I needed to buy to be thrifty. One of the products I compared was a pair of shoes called Famolares which were quite popular at that time. I compared the prices at 3 different shoe stores who charged between $22 to $30. I saved $8 for my effort which was a lot of money back then because minimum wage was $2.50 an hour. In 1998, I had another experience where I bought Frontpage 98 software for $150 at MicroCenter computer store and later found out that I could have bought it for $125 on the Internet. These experiences helped to confirm the consumer’s need for a good comparison shopping on the Internet.
5. Tell us a little about your plans to add price-comparison pages to the site. When will this happen? What will this look like?
We plan to launch comparison shopping service this summer. It will be tightly integrated with our shopping research service to provide the next generation shopping experience that does not exist today. We will be announcing more details on this in the coming months.
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