Zypsy is all about shopping.
I decided to test Zypsy ("We search the web for you when you are away from the computer") and have them search the web for 2006 election results. I asked them, "In the 2006 election, what percentage of the vote did Democrat Ted Kulongoski receive in the election for Governor of Oregon?"
An hour passed.
Then my phone buzzed. The text message read: "698,562; 50.8%. In future, please use our service for shopping questions. thanks."
I'm not sure I can find a way to pose every question as shopping-related. Is there an alternative? Who else will search the web for me when I am away from the computer?
I knew there had to be a catch. The business model didn't make sense. Unless we're back to the whole internet bubble thing:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000843.html
Josh,
Thanks for writing about Zypsy. We want to focus on shopping questions, for example you are at a mall and want to know the online price of an item. Having said that we do answer general questions for which information can be found on the net. We just give priority to the shopping questions.
We typically answer questions within 10 minutes of arrival, but on some cell networks it takes up to an hour for the message to be delivered. This is something we can't control and is frustrating.
Cheers.
I'm not sure whether to be impressed or not. I mean, they need to make money. But the whole thing feels a bit... deceptive.
I'm not sure how they make money when I request shopping advice, either, though. They give driving directions and price comparisons, or do lookups of local businesses. Where's the money in that?
Well, I was assuming that to make money, they would have to skew buying choices...somehow... to people that actually pay them. I'm not sure what that mechanism would be. But why else would they care what users look for?
Unless... they're making a database of phone numbers versus preferred products. Wow. That could be valuable.
I have the impression they're more like, "Let's do a cool thing, and the money will come rolling in somehow!"
You know, the old:
Step 1: Build something cool.
Step 2: ???????????
Step 3: Profit.