2013-05-11
Name of the product is the most critical part of marketing. There is an extensive Wikipedia article about it.
However most of the vendors still making mistakes. Consider "Galaxy S3". Samsung invested a lot of efforts into this brand. They managed to post logo and images on almost every billboard in London during Olympic Games. So now almost every man in the world news what "Galaxy S3" means. Still...
Have a look at their promo site:
Notice that there is "Galaxy SIII" and "Galaxy S3"? Every who knows roman numerals won't see the difference. However most of the computer software around the world will. Proove?
The below is search results from Amazon.
The output is quite interesting:
The same results: different output for the same products.
What does it mean?
However most of the vendors still making mistakes. Consider "Galaxy S3". Samsung invested a lot of efforts into this brand. They managed to post logo and images on almost every billboard in London during Olympic Games. So now almost every man in the world news what "Galaxy S3" means. Still...
Have a look at their promo site:
Notice that there is "Galaxy SIII" and "Galaxy S3"? Every who knows roman numerals won't see the difference. However most of the computer software around the world will. Proove?
The below is search results from Amazon.
And
The output is quite interesting:
- The results are different for "Galaxy S3" and "Galaxy S III".
- Notice "hacks" like "Galaxy S III/S3 GT-I9300".
- Some of the merchants add the wrong code "Galaxy S3 I9300".
And
The same results: different output for the same products.
What does it mean?
- For merchant: track different product names, that in turn requires additional product knowledge. Invalid naming (I9300 vs GT-I9300) leads to lower search ranking.
- For customer: different names negatively affect brand. Having "GT-I9300" vs "Galaxy S3" vs "Galaxy SIII" adds undesirable mess.
2013-05-01
Aerse now supports integration with new e-commerce platform Shopify.
Shopify is a powerful e-commerce website solution that allows you to sell online by providing everything you need to create an online store.
The guide below will help you to import data into your shop.
Shopify is a powerful e-commerce website solution that allows you to sell online by providing everything you need to create an online store.
The guide below will help you to import data into your shop.
Setup Shopify
First, you need to create account. Visit http://www.shopify.com/ to setup it. There is free 14-day trial. Second, you need some products you want to sell. This might be a file with "product name" - "product vendor" pairs. It could be generated by your inventory system, invoice system or any other.
To upload products, you need to:
- Navigate to "Products" menu
- Click "Import products" and upload .csv file with product names (or download sample file http://www.speedyshare.com/zuXyF/import.csv )
Once import is complete you will receive e-mail with number of imported files.
Well done! Now you have catalog will of products:
Still, there is no pictures and product's information is empty
Further we would see how Aerse could really speed up the process.
During import, Aerse will transfer all specifications and pictures to your shop. After import, you could easily modify the results. Let's try to fill the data.
Well done! Now you have catalog will of products:
Still, there is no pictures and product's information is empty
Further we would see how Aerse could really speed up the process.
Import Data From Aerse
During import, Aerse will transfer all specifications and pictures to your shop. After import, you could easily modify the results. Let's try to fill the data.
- Open Aerse import configuration page: http://aerse.com/r
- Select "Shopify", read carefully terms and conditions and agree to them
- Enter your shopify URL. For example: "test.myshopify.com" or just "test"
- Click "Next".
After granting permissions, you need to configure import.
There are several options:
- "Import Pictures" and "Import Descriptions". Aerse could update only pictures, only product descriptions or both of them. Select the desired data you would like to have.
- "Language" for products descriptions. Product data could be in different languages. Aerse supports several. Select the appropriate.
- "Overwrite previous data". If this option selected, Aerse will overwrite previous data, whether it is pictures or descriptions. Be careful with that option. Do backup if you already have partially submitted catalog or would like to try Aerse.
At that stage, you could close the window and wait email with import report. Also, here you could cancel import. Please note, that after cancel products already processed won't be changed back.
And after import is done, you will see the results. The catalog:
And the products like this:
Multiple images per product. Full product specifications with nice formatting.
Aerse contains information about thousands of products. This information comes from official sources. For more please visit official site: http://aerse.com/data
Multiple images per product. Full product specifications with nice formatting.
Aerse contains information about thousands of products. This information comes from official sources. For more please visit official site: http://aerse.com/data
2013-01-27
Aerse strives to be technology advanced and fast. Every month several infrastructure optimizations are applied. This month Aerse started to support IPv6 protocol. Now clients with IPv6 support could get all of the benefits from their connection.
There is no need to apply special configuration to enable IPv6 access. If client connection supports IPv6, than it will be automatically selected as preferred.
Despite IPv4 addresses depletion, Aerse continues to support old transport.
There is no need to apply special configuration to enable IPv6 access. If client connection supports IPv6, than it will be automatically selected as preferred.
Despite IPv4 addresses depletion, Aerse continues to support old transport.
2012-12-06
Latest release brings several major improvements to API:
- multiple products pictures. Now it is possible to get multiple pictures for single product. Pictures could be in PNG, JPG and SVG formats. Also PDF format is supported.
- Russian API point of presence (POP). Latency for local requests drops from ~180ms to ~18ms. 9 times better!
- API Dashboard. Now it is possible to monitor every API POP. It provides general information about latency, availability and reason (if not available). Please note that latecy collected using JavaScript and could differ from real. Sample screenshot of dashboard:
Tags: api, availability, dashboard, features, global, javascript, latency, point of presence, POP, russia
2012-11-14
Every product has one or more images. Image has the following properties:
For example, consider low-res image scaled to 256x256:
And high-res image scaled to 256x256:
Second image is looking much better. The difference is: first image was taken from original image 128x128, second image was taken from original image 598x598. As a result, despite the same size (256x256) they are different.
Another main feature of image is format. There are a lot of image formats, but generally only a few are very popular:
To archive small file size JPG reduces image quality:
GIF uses reduced palette (less colors):
PNG do not modify original image (lossless):
On blue:
- height
- width
- format
For example, consider low-res image scaled to 256x256:
And high-res image scaled to 256x256:
Second image is looking much better. The difference is: first image was taken from original image 128x128, second image was taken from original image 598x598. As a result, despite the same size (256x256) they are different.
Another main feature of image is format. There are a lot of image formats, but generally only a few are very popular:
- JPG (JPEG)
- PNG
- GIF
- SVG
- File size. Very important property of image. Every image encoded as a sequence of bytes. Every format use its own encoding. As result the same image encoded using different formats have different file size. The smaller file size the faster it could be downloaded by user. The better user experience. JPG provide smallest image size for almost the same quality. For example image above converted into JPG gives 17.1 KB, into PNG gives 48.6 KB, into GIF gives 14.8 KB.
- Image quality. There is always tradeoff between small size and good quality.
To archive small file size JPG reduces image quality:
GIF uses reduced palette (less colors):
PNG do not modify original image (lossless):
- Transparency. Image could have transparent parts, that won't be rendered by browser. Instead of them background color will be rendered. Transparent image is great when it needs to be embeded into different designes.
Consider the following examples. Top image is JPG (without transparency) bottom image is PNG (with transparency). On white (background, design):
On blue:
On pink:
As a result, JPG is more suitable for storing photos, GIF is more suitable for storing small icons and animations, PNG is better for storing product images.
There is one format, that stands aside - SVG. SVG is a scalable vector graphics. It stores image as text. It has small file size and could be unlimited scaled without loosing image quality. However it is suitable only for simple images such as logos and schemes.
Aerse uses PNG image format as primary format for storing product images, JPG as secondary format, when it is not possible to provide transparent image with good quality. SVG is used mostly for storing property images.
As a result, JPG is more suitable for storing photos, GIF is more suitable for storing small icons and animations, PNG is better for storing product images.
There is one format, that stands aside - SVG. SVG is a scalable vector graphics. It stores image as text. It has small file size and could be unlimited scaled without loosing image quality. However it is suitable only for simple images such as logos and schemes.
Aerse uses PNG image format as primary format for storing product images, JPG as secondary format, when it is not possible to provide transparent image with good quality. SVG is used mostly for storing property images.
2012-11-14
Aerse uses a lot of content such as product specifications and images. Every image has its own author.
Aerse serves content with respect to authors rights. Every image comes with the following information:
All legal information is put on top of window:Aerse serves content with respect to authors rights. Every image comes with the following information:
- Full license text. It contains which rights creators have, which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.
- Author name (if any)
- Author link (if any)
Also Aerse respects the rights of copyright holders and complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other applicable copyright laws. When we receive proper notice as required by the DMCA, we will work to promptly remove content that has been identified as copyright infringement.
2012-11-07
There are a lot of tools that make marketing effective. Social networks, events, contests and more.
Product information on official site is one of the most powerful tool. It gives a lot of information about product: specifications, images, videos, which could be accessed 24/7. And this is where over-marketing pop-ups.
Consider the technical specifications of XBR-55HX929:
"How this technology works?", "How frequently channels switched?" and so on. Some of such properties like "New GUI" [GUI - graphical user interface] don't provide any clues on what it is.
Such properties are trash, that must be removed from product specifications. Customers should be focused on main and outstanding features.
Aerse tries to provide only meaningful properties with complete descriptions. See XBR-55HX929.
Product information on official site is one of the most powerful tool. It gives a lot of information about product: specifications, images, videos, which could be accessed 24/7. And this is where over-marketing pop-ups.
Consider the technical specifications of XBR-55HX929:
- Channel Jump : Yes
- Channel Surf : Yes
- Info Banner : Yes
- New GUI : Yes
"How this technology works?", "How frequently channels switched?" and so on. Some of such properties like "New GUI" [GUI - graphical user interface] don't provide any clues on what it is.
Such properties are trash, that must be removed from product specifications. Customers should be focused on main and outstanding features.
Aerse tries to provide only meaningful properties with complete descriptions. See XBR-55HX929.
2012-10-20
This month Aerse released new point of presence - Russian site. This is one more step toward global content. With local presence it is possible to deliver localized data faster.
Now Aerse has two points of presence: USA and Russia. These points of presence are physically separated from each other, but share the same data. As result, it gives better stability and fast connection.
In addition to that, CDN was introduced. CDN is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers in the Internet. CDN speeds up Aerse by allowing user requests for web pages and data to come from a server located closer to them. Right now, CDN serves static content for Aerse: images, css, js. With active resource caching, it gives incredible speed. Loading of local Aerse takes ~170ms, global ~300ms.
Here is CDN in action:
Now Aerse has two points of presence: USA and Russia. These points of presence are physically separated from each other, but share the same data. As result, it gives better stability and fast connection.
In addition to that, CDN was introduced. CDN is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers in the Internet. CDN speeds up Aerse by allowing user requests for web pages and data to come from a server located closer to them. Right now, CDN serves static content for Aerse: images, css, js. With active resource caching, it gives incredible speed. Loading of local Aerse takes ~170ms, global ~300ms.
Here is CDN in action:
2012-08-27
Each product has properties. Properties is the list of name-value pairs. Some vendors call them "Product Specifications" while others simply "Specifications".
There are several major issues with properties:
Also Eee PC 1215N has property "Storage" which means general description of hard disk drive used in product. But NP530U3C uses different name for the same property - "Hard Drive Capacity".
Aerse merges such properties under consistent name. For example, for "hard drive capacity" it provides "memory capacity" property for both products: Eee PC 1215N and NP530U3C
There are several major issues with properties:
- Their naming is not consistent
- They do not have description
- Properties with the same name have different meanings
Inconsistent naming
Consider the following products:
These products have the same property: central processing unit. However first one has property "CPU", while second one "CPU/ Processor". User should have some background to understand the difference.Also Eee PC 1215N has property "Storage" which means general description of hard disk drive used in product. But NP530U3C uses different name for the same property - "Hard Drive Capacity".
Aerse merges such properties under consistent name. For example, for "hard drive capacity" it provides "memory capacity" property for both products: Eee PC 1215N and NP530U3C
Description
Most of the vendors does not provide property descriptions. There are a lot of well-known properties like RAM. The more RAM product have, the better. The bigger number property have, the better. DDR3 is better than DDR2, no matter what DDR means.
However this not always true. For instance, Eee PC 1215N has property "Camera - 0.3 M Pixel Camera", without any description. Professional with some level of degree could say, that this is "Web Camera" with 0.3 megapixel. But what if this notebook has photo camera and vendor tried to highlight the revolutionary feature of this product? Vendor invested some efforts to make this product, but spoiled the last step - present information correctly to end-user.
However this not always true. For instance, Eee PC 1215N has property "Camera - 0.3 M Pixel Camera", without any description. Professional with some level of degree could say, that this is "Web Camera" with 0.3 megapixel. But what if this notebook has photo camera and vendor tried to highlight the revolutionary feature of this product? Vendor invested some efforts to make this product, but spoiled the last step - present information correctly to end-user.
Aerse adds description to almost every property. Detailed explanation, picture (if any) and example are often included.
Different meanings
Consider the following product: GA-G31M-ES2L. It has property "CPU". The value of that property differs from "CPU" of NP530U3C. Without any description and specific knowledge it is quite hard to understand that these properties have different meanings. For GA-G31M-ES2L "CPU" means list of supported CPU family (series), but for NP530U3C "CPU" means actual CPU installed into product.
Such inconsistencies is quite hard to analyze automatically. Aerse uses internal logic based on dictionaries and information extraction based on semantics.
Currently Aerse provides API for detecting "inconsitent naming". It is possible to send property name and receive correct name used in Aerse. For example:
- central processing unit -> cpu
- central processor -> cpu
2012-08-18
Aerse uses official internet sites to gather information about products. It guarantees information correctness. However all vendors have their own peculatiries.
Different vendors provide different levels of quality. Some of them provide more textual information with detailed properties, while others provide media resources like images and videos.
For example, consider the following products: SBW06C1SU and SBW06C1SU Blue. According to specifications they are quite similar. Both Blue Ray drives with the same read/write characteristics. The only difference is - form factor. The first one is external, the second one is internal. Given that difference, the question arises: does it mean that "Blue" in product name mean "internal" feature? This is quite strange product naming.
Such naming is not desirable for end-user and especial for b2b communications. Product lists could be bloated with duplicates, making it harder to search. End-users could get lost in deris of the clones. Aerse discourages such names and merges such products into one.
For example, LG has three products: LX600 Red, LX600 Black and LX600 Purple. End-users don't know if such products have different internals such as "operation system" or memory, so they look through all of them to find the difference. Aerse finds out the difference and merges these products into one with different "color" property: LX600 lg.
Second example about naming as well.
Consider the following products: RDPV20IPBLK and RDPV20IP. Obviously these products are the same. But why do they have different names?
Global vendors such as Sony could have issues with specification correctness. This happens due to global distribution of their systems. Quite often local sites are managed by local branch. In this case seems like global store.sony.com splits single product into to "RDP-V20IPBLK" and "RDP-V20IPRED". As a result they become out-of-sync with local branch ("Ru").
The reasons for such split could be different. Most likely they intended to have separate statistic for "black" and "red" products. This could be usefull to understand preferences of end-users. Since they didn't have a tool for such action, they created two products instead of one.
For managers of store.sony.com it could be useful, but for end-users such naming is quite confusing. For example amazon.com has two different query results for these names:
Aerse tries to find out such collisions and merge products into one. However this is used quite rarely to avoid false positive results.
Different vendors provide different levels of quality. Some of them provide more textual information with detailed properties, while others provide media resources like images and videos.
For example, consider the following products: SBW06C1SU and SBW06C1SU Blue. According to specifications they are quite similar. Both Blue Ray drives with the same read/write characteristics. The only difference is - form factor. The first one is external, the second one is internal. Given that difference, the question arises: does it mean that "Blue" in product name mean "internal" feature? This is quite strange product naming.
Such naming is not desirable for end-user and especial for b2b communications. Product lists could be bloated with duplicates, making it harder to search. End-users could get lost in deris of the clones. Aerse discourages such names and merges such products into one.
For example, LG has three products: LX600 Red, LX600 Black and LX600 Purple. End-users don't know if such products have different internals such as "operation system" or memory, so they look through all of them to find the difference. Aerse finds out the difference and merges these products into one with different "color" property: LX600 lg.
Second example about naming as well.
Consider the following products: RDPV20IPBLK and RDPV20IP. Obviously these products are the same. But why do they have different names?
Global vendors such as Sony could have issues with specification correctness. This happens due to global distribution of their systems. Quite often local sites are managed by local branch. In this case seems like global store.sony.com splits single product into to "RDP-V20IPBLK" and "RDP-V20IPRED". As a result they become out-of-sync with local branch ("Ru").
The reasons for such split could be different. Most likely they intended to have separate statistic for "black" and "red" products. This could be usefull to understand preferences of end-users. Since they didn't have a tool for such action, they created two products instead of one.
For managers of store.sony.com it could be useful, but for end-users such naming is quite confusing. For example amazon.com has two different query results for these names:
Aerse tries to find out such collisions and merge products into one. However this is used quite rarely to avoid false positive results.
2012-06-24
New feature of this weekend: comparison of products.
Now it is possible to compare any two products with each other. Algorithm of comparison is the following:
Now it is possible to compare any two products with each other. Algorithm of comparison is the following:
- query for compare products is the following:
== . Product queries are common queries, for example they could contain EAN code or full product name. - Boolean properties. Aerse stores only positive Boolean values such as "yes". Since that, if one product has Boolean property and another doesn't, then first product considered better.
- simple countable properties like "CPU maximum frequency" compared as is. The more value the better product. Others, like "net weight", use inverse rule: the less value the better product.
- Some properties could not be compared, because they depend on the context. For example: "display diagonal". While comparing two wide screen monitors "the more diagonal the better" principle is true. However, comparing wide screen monitor with mobile phone screen, this principle is opposite. While this comparison doesn't make sense, Aerse skips such properties.
Sample comparison result using query: Nokia N900 == Desire is shown below:
2012-06-22
New analytic graph was released.
Every operator has unique API key to access Aerse programmatically or using CMS plugins. Now it is possible to extract API monthly activity data. Graph is updated once a month. Here is an example:
Every operator has unique API key to access Aerse programmatically or using CMS plugins. Now it is possible to extract API monthly activity data. Graph is updated once a month. Here is an example:
