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Yang and Yun and Become.Com
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.
June 3, 2005
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Michael Yang and Yeogirl
Yun are two of the most interesting entrepreneurial
engineers in the business of search. Representing the business brains
and intellectual brawn behind the vertical shopping search engine Become.com,
both Yang and Yun have storied histories in the industry. In April 1998
the duo conceived and developed the original comparison shopping site,
mySimon.com, selling it to CNet two years later for $700M. The results
of their unique partnership have shaped the Web as we know it today, effecting
popular properties such as WiseNut, LookSmart and a huge chunk of the
immense Korean Internet market. Somehow, both found the time to earn multiple
university degrees, participate in international economic development
efforts and, in the case of Yang, acquire a third-degree black belt in
Tae Kwon Do. Yesterday, they graciously found the time to speak with StepForth
News.
Earlier this year, Yang and Yun introduced what is arguably the most interesting
vertical search engine, Become.com. Merging their experiences of the past
with what they both passionately believe to be the future of search, along
with $7.2 million in new venture capital funding, Yang and Yun find themselves
sitting atop a tool that could conceivably be the most comprehensive shopping
mall ever constructed. Become.com is a vertical search engine, which means
it focuses on one specific topic area, in this case, shopping.
One of the reasons Become.com is so interesting is that it is one of the
few shopping search engines that uses a spider to populate its database
and an algorithm to sort it. Active for just over a year, the BecomeBot
has found and spidered over 3.2Billion shopping related documents. Once
in the database, these documents are run through Yun’s Affinity Indexing
Ranking algorithm known by its acronym AIR.
While working on the same basic principles shared by most, if not all algorithmic
search engines, AIR has been erroneously compared with Google’s Hilltop algorithm and other Kleinberg derived algos. Yun, who is generally very
informative and friendly said, “AIR is fundamentally different than
from Google. AIR is based on principles of engineering and physics and was
specifically designed for vertical sorting.”
Unfortunately, that’s about all he was going to say about the algorithm,
partly because he and lead programmer Jon Glick have a few more tricks up
their sleeves partly because Yun and Yang wish to protect their competitive
advantage as long as they possibly can. A component of their competitiveness
will be the unveiling of a comparison shopping tool in the early summer
allowing consumers to examine similar products based on several unique criteria.
Having any competitive advantage in the vertical search shopping market
is important not only to growth but to survival. Current market leader,
Shopping.Com was purchased by EBay last Wednesday for approximately $620Million.
The first shopping assistance tool Yang and Yun built, mySimon.com also
enjoys considerable popularity as a CNet property. Being the new kid on
the block in a market that is dominated by properties owned and operated
by EBay and CNet, Become.Com plans to out-market and, within three years,
out-sell its larger rivals.
Other features have recently been added to Become’s otherwise sparse
homepage interface. The most noticeable is a search-term suggestion tool
that appears below the search query box. As a searcher types in keywords,
the suggestion tool lists over a dozen possible words describing the product
or service the searcher might be looking for. Suggestions change as the
searcher enters more letters to complete the word or phrase they are searching
for. Another recently added feature is a spell-checking tool that can help
users find the correct spelling of a company or product name.
Yang sees the purchase of Shopping.com by EBay as a beneficial development. “The
EBay purchase is good for Become because it pushes the idea of shopping
search into the mainstream”, he said. Yang sees the vertical search
sector becoming even more competitive as other firms move into the market
however he feels Become’s technology will carry it above and beyond
its rivals and exceed visitor’s expectations.
Over the next few months, users will notice subtle changes to the front
page interface as Become starts to look for and include sites from around
the world. Yang and Yun hope to provide a full international shopping
service by next year; currently it only supports shopping sites in the
United States.
Users might also notice an increase in personalized services as Become
starts to anticipate their shopping or searching needs. One of the nifty
personalized
tools will be an automatic alerting system that direct users to products
or services they are interested in as they are found in Become’s database.
Webmasters and SEOs will be interested in learning more about the AIR algorithm
and how it works. From our examination and information we were able to glean
from our conversation with Yun and Yang, it would appear that like Google,
Become is highly influenced by links. A major difference between the two
is Become’s ability to apply far stricter link-relevancy measures
than its more mainstream cousin. Become values links from authority sites
above all others. An example Yun offered involved an online camera sales
site with a link from a photography magazine. To add another dimension to
the way Become judges links is the intent of the site owner in placing links
leaving his or her site. Become performs a relevancy test on all links associated
with a site, both incoming and outgoing. Another factor in Become listings
involves minor human intervention. As the BecomeBot spider pulls listings
from around the web based on links it has followed, there are times when
a human eye is better at spotting authority sites related to shopping. A
small group of human reviewers look at sites as they are brought into the
database to help the algorithm determine which could be considered authorities
and which shouldn’t. Yun suggested clear link paths though a site
and obtaining links from relevant sites with very strong reputations, along
with product focused content as the easiest way to achieve strong placements
in Become’s listings.
Yang and Yun are in a great position today. They have just achieved another
$7.2 million in venture capital funding and have long-term plans on how
to best use it. Their spending plans rest on four main pillars. They are
investing in improved technology which will yield new features and applications
to make their shopping search stronger. The first of the major new features
will be the comparison shopping engine to be released early this summer.
Once that component is complete, Become plans an intense branding and marketing
campaign. Before they can market their brand however, they need to fill
a few key positions.
Become is going on a hiring spree and is looking to add a few Vice Presidents
to its management table. Become is looking for a strong VP of Marketing,
a VP of Sales Development, a VP in charge of Syndication, and a VP in charge
of Merchant Sales. They have ten other
positions open at this time and are
hoping to fill them by the end of the summer. By the end of the year, Become.Com
hopes to be a household name in the upwardly mobile world of vertical search.
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