Anything4Restaurants – search engine for foodservice products

October 14th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Food, News, Shopping, Verticals | No Comments »

a4rNation’s Restaurant News has taken an equity stake in SpecPage to launch the industry’s first comprehensive product search community designed to help restaurateurs anywhere source anything they need for their restaurants.

The partnership combines SpecPage’s massive online database of product information from hundreds of foodservice and sanitary supply vendors with NRN’s position as the news and information leader for the foodservice industry. Together, they have created a new website, called Anything4Restaurants.

Anything4Restaurants, or A4R, provides a robust and centralized online community where foodservice operators and distributors can quickly and easily search for and identify the items they need on a daily basis. The site’s inventory includes more than 130,000 products from more than 3,000 suppliers, ranging from food, non-food and beverage products to technology and service providers.

2009-10-14_1731At a time when foodservice executives are looking to contain costs and stay up to date on the newest products available, many are headed online to help them make informed purchasing decisions in a timely manner. Anything4Restaurants is the premier site to deliver what restaurateurs and suppliers need in today’s economy.

Anything4Restaurants, which is free for restaurateurs, is designed to make product searches easy and comprehensive. The site allows users to create a personalized profile and customize searches based on various criteria to meet their needs.

2009-10-14_1732For restaurant suppliers and manufacturers, A4R allows the posting of a complete catalog of product marketing information, which is fully searchable by operators, distributors, brokers and others. With A4R, suppliers can showcase their entire line with full product descriptions, dynamic video presentations and more. A4R also can be utilized as a lead-generating resource for future sales, as well as an advertising outlet for added visibility.

“We created a site where a smaller, emerging company that provides a unique product to the industry can afford to be listed next to a Fortune 500 company,” said Paul Meunier, CEO of SpecPage. “The cost to list products on the site is very affordable, and there are numerous options to increase product awareness among users.”

Finally, distributors also are at home in the A4R community — it’s where they receive restaurateur sales leads and where restaurateurs can locate distributors. A4R truly embraces all three partners in the foodservice supply chain — manufacturers, restaurateurs and distributors alike.

Nation’s Restaurant News is the media brand that more than 400,000 professionals turn to each day to help them tackle the challenges facing the foodservice industry. For operators, NRN provides a one-stop resource for complete industry coverage in whatever format they prefer, whether print, digital or Web-based. For suppliers, NRN’s audience-rich portfolio of print, digital and live-event products provides the reach, access and flexibility needed to open doors and grow businesses. For more information, visit www.nrn.com

SpecPage is the most comprehensive resource for product marketing information in the Foodservice and Jan/San industry. SpecPage provides a variety of hosted catalog solutions, while also managing the information and providing the content needed for today’s comprehensive distributor e-commerce platforms. For more information, visit www.specpage.com.

Sources: Nation’s Restaurant News and SpecPage

Elance’s ‘New Way to Work’ $10,000 Competition

October 14th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

elance
More than ever before, startups, small businesses and independent professionals are embracing new work models while shunning the conventional nine-to-five office cube environment.

These pioneers are working from any location they choose, connecting with partners, customers and staff online and working on their schedule. To shine a spotlight on the pioneers who are modeling the exciting new way to work, Elance is launching its “New Way to Work” contest.

What you win: Elance will award the Grand Prize winner a year’s worth of health insurance premiums or $10,000 in cash.

Time frame: Now through November 30, 2009 at 11:59 pm PST

Who should apply? Any company, entrepreneur or independent professional with an inspirational story about the way they work.

What should you submit? Showcase your “new way to work” through an article, blog post, photo, song, illustration or a video. For those on Vator, you can upload a PDF, PPT, or video to your company profile.

*Search Engine CEOs should send a copy to charles@altsearchengines.com  -editor

Not yet on Vator?

It’s quick, easy and free. First register. Then create a profile for your company. The more comprehensive your company profile is, the more likely to get votes, ratings and be reviewed. Once you create your company profile, then just click the “participate in this competition” button on the top right of this competition page.

Additionally, you can use other mediums, and submit a blog article, a Web page, YouTube video, a tweet, cartoon, art installation, song, haiku, or any other means to demonstrate their point.

Publish and promote your example to capture the attention and imagination of a broader online community. You can then notify contest judges of your effort via Twitter or by posting a link on Elance’s Facebook fan page.

How you win: The contest will recognize the most inspirational real-world demonstrations of this important labor movement.

The Grand Prize winner will be selected by Elance and an elite panel of judges including Tim Ferriss, American author, technology investor, and productivity expert; John Jantsch, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing; and Tory Johnson, career expert, founder and CEO of Women For Hire and New York Times bestselling author whose latest book is Fired to Hired.

Throughout the contest, Elance will highlight the most creative, compelling, innovative and inspiring entrants on the Elance blog. After narrowing the contestants to a set of finalists.

Vmgo!com search engine allows you to control the results

October 14th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Newcomers | No Comments »

vmgo


Vmgo!com is a new type of search engine giving you the power to control the results of the searches.

If you see a web page you do not like, you can simply click the Thumbs Down thumbs-downClick if this page is junk. image and the page will be demoted. This ensures that only the best and most popular pages are listed at the top of the results.

When you see a page you like alot, you can click the Thumbs Up thumbs-upVote for this page. image and the site or page will be promoted. Visiting a website also votes for a site so if you don’t like the site/page after visiting it, remember to come back and click thumbs down button to take back your vote.

thumbs-upCultural references to absinthe – Wikipedia, the free encyclthumbs-down
Tags: cultural references to wikipedia the free encyclopediathe legacy of as a mysterious addictive and mind altering drink continues to this day though its psychoactive effects and chemical makeup are contested its cultural impact is not has played a notable role in the fine art movements of impressionism post impressionism surrealism modernism cubism and in the corresponding literary movements arts amp literature

If you see a page that is spam, you can click the Spam Link and tell our support department why you think it is spam and an email will be sent right away to support and the problem will be looked into immediately.

Source: Vmgo.com

Yandex Launches Yandex.kz in Kazakhstan

October 14th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Global, News | No Comments »

logo-kzThe leading Russian search engine Yandex has launched Yandex.kz in Kazakstan. The online portal offers major Yandex services such as search, news, mail, maps, and hosting customized for local web users.

With 46% share of searches in Kazakhstan through Yandex.ru and Search.Mail.ru, Yandex faces a fierce competition from Google that also has 46% search share in the country. Kazakhstan has 2.5 million internet users out of 15 million population.

The search on Yandex.kz takes into account the morphologies of both Kazakh and Russian languages. Yandex returns links to local web-sites first in return to “local” search queries. For example, the search query for “President” returns the link to the official web-site of the President of Kazakhstan as the first search result link on Yandex.kz. In comparison, the same search on Yandex.ru returns the link to the web-site of the President of Russian Federation on top of the list of search results.

Another example is that searching for “exchange rate” on Yandex.kz will return a rate for US dollar to Tenge, and not the rate for US Dollar to Russian Ruble. As an option, the user can select the language for web search interface to match the language of the search results.

Yandex will work with Kazakhstani advertisers through a local exclusive partner Kaznet Media. The local advertisers can buy Yandex.Direct ads in both Kazakh and Russian languages as well as pay for their online advertising campaigns in both Tenge and Ruble.

Thanks to Yakov from the Quintura Blog.

Universal shopping engine TheFind unveils buying engine

October 14th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News, Shopping, Updates, Verticals | 1 Comment »

thefind_frontpageTheFind today unveiled a first-of-its-kind “buying engine” that helps shoppers find everything they need to make smart purchase decisions.

TheFind now integrates Product Search, Coupon Search, Review Search, Local Shopping Search and Green Shopping Search into a single “universal” search engine TheFind.com where over 350 million products from 500,000 stores and online sellers can be found. With this comprehensive set of shopping search tools and information, TheFind is now the best and last place consumers need to look before making any purchase.

A recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by TheFind found that consumers are doing their research before deciding to buy a product online.

74% of online shoppers check at least 3 online stores before buying a product online;
83% of online shoppers typically read product reviews before buying a product online;
78% of all online shoppers say they are influenced “at least a moderate amount” by coupon codes, free shipping and other discount information they find;
50% say they are influenced “a great deal or a lot”;
42% say the most helpful thing to know before deciding to buy a product from an online retailer is if this “is really the best deal I can get?”

2009-10-14_0951“TheFind is transforming the way people think about shopping search,” said Siva Kumar, co-founder and CEO of TheFind.  “With TheFind’s new search capabilities, shoppers can now quickly locate all the information they need to buy something and feel good about it.  Using TheFind’s award-winning Product Search and Review search, combined with our powerful new Coupon Search and detailed store information, buyers can now decide with confidence what and where they want to buy. TheFind is absolutely the fastest way to find the lowest price or best deal out there from an online or local store that you trust.”

The features of TheFind’s new buying engine include:

§ Product Search – Find over 350 million products from more than 500,000 stores and online sellers
§ Coupon Search – Find coupons and discounts for over 50 million products
§ Review Search – Get quick access to expert and user reviews for faster product research
§ Local Search – See local store options and addresses along with an interactive map
§ Green Search – Find only products from green brands and stores
§ Detailed Store Information – Get relevant store information such as trust, security and store ratings, payment and shipping methods, contact methods and customer service policies

Source: TheFind.com

Survey Methodology:
Harris Interactive® fielded the study on behalf of TheFind from October 5-7, 2009 via its QuickQuerySM online omnibus service, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,046 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older, of whom 1,772 shop online. Data for questions related to online use or behaviors were weighted specifically to the respective “online” populations. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.