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SAN DIEGO–Best Buy launched at DemoFall on Tuesday an online gift registry that let’s people create lists of items they want from any Web site and share that list with others.

Best Buy demonstrated a version in Firefox and said an IE version will be available soon.

Basically, you click on the Giftag icon in the browser bar, pulling up a window at the bottom for adding items to a list. If the site supports the Microformats standard, you can just click on the item you want and the specs are added to the Giftag window. You can add tags and create a new list or add it to another list.

If the Web site doesn’t support the standard, which most retailers won’t, you can highlight and select the item and description and it pulls the information automatically into the Giftag window.

You can email the list to anyone and it will include links they can click to make purchases.

There is integration with Facebook so all your friends there can see your wish list and make gifts for you.

Other social networks will be included later, as will mobile support, the company said. The API will also be made available to developers to create other apps.

Original post:
Best Buy’s Giftag enables wish list creation across the Web

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m a frequent Slickdeals and Fatwallet user. The two are must-bookmark sites if you want to stay abreast on big savings for consumer electronics. Newcomer BeatThat might be more lucrative to deal submitters though, the voracious group of users that feeds these sites with the best deals. BeatThat is trying to woo people like this away from those sites with something a little more useful than community cred–cash.

The site is paying users up to $2 per deal on an item that’s lower in price than any pulled in by its price-grabbing engine. Competitor Pricegrabber has been doing this for years, but has offered no way for users to add their own links to the mix.

To avoid gaming the system, each deal must be verified for users to get paid. There are also some strict stipulations meant to level the playing field, like requiring the item to be in stock for a minimum amount of time, as well as any special coupon codes that go with it. Products must also be new, and the retailers must accept credit card payments–all things that might keep you from getting a big deal on refurbished and factory-restored products; the typical deals site fare.

To compare BeatThat’s results, I did a product search on five popular products: the Canon Powershot SD1100is, a popular Sony HDTV, an iPod Nano (8GB black), a Garmin nüvi 350, and a popular HP desktop printer, then compared the top result against that of Pricegrabber and Google’s Product search engine.

To my surprise, BeatThat’s engine came out on top nearly every time. Included are all the usual things like retailer ratings and a final cost, which factors in things like local taxes and shipping. What makes the system a step up from the others is that you can rank a deal with a vote up or down, similar to Slickdeal’s rep system that promotes items to the front page. BeatThat’s engine works the same way, although manages to add in an editor’s picks section, too.

Despite the low prices, there are some things missing from BeatThat that I’d like to see added. For instance there are no tie-ins with product reviews–neither professional or amateur. Also, while you can rank a deal, you can’t actually rate the item itself. Missing too are some important categories like software and video game hardware.

Current shortcomings aside, BeatThat is a compelling entrant to the deals market and definitely worth bookmarking if you’re doing an online product search. Combined with something like Retrevo that gives you a metacritical score, and RetailMeNot which maintains its coupon code database, and you’ve got a pretty good state of mind going into a three- of four-digit purchase.

BeatThat gives you the lowest prices by rank. Missing however are things like product reviews from professionals and consumers.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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BeatThat pays you to find online deals

As I made the usual morning slog through my in-box Monday, I was about to skip past a news release touting a back-to-school promotion for Live Search Cashback, when I noticed one of the featured deals was on a ThinkPad tablet PC from electronic shoe retailer Zappos.com.

Thinking for sure that it was a typo, I went to harass the person who sent me the release. The funny thing is, it really is Zappos selling that tablet computer. I missed it when Zappos expanded from high heels to high tech.

While the departure sounds strange, Zappos certainly wouldn’t be the first online retailer to go well beyond its initial category. As we all know, Amazon was the world’s largest bookstore before it moved into groceries, sporting goods, and basically anything they can put in a box (and even a few things that don’t need a box).

The key was Amazon had a logistics system that worked better than anyone else’s. I have no idea how efficient Zappos system is, since I still buy my shoes the old fashioned way. However, my co-workers tell me they are amazingly fast at getting your order to you and, well, they do have cool robots.

As for that Live Search Cashback promotion, some of the participants, like Zappos, are offering double their usual cash-back percentage during August to those who place their order after going through Microsoft’s site.

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Zappos tries computers on for size

There’s a new self-serve extended warranty program for consumer goods launching Saturday night: GreenUmbrella. Unlike the typical extended warranties you may get when you buy products, this is an umbrella plan: $9.95 a month covers nearly everything you own. It’s a good deal when compared with other extended warranties, although that’s not saying much.

The cool thing with GreenUmbrella is that if you are on the plan, you can just say, “No, thanks” when the drone at Best Buy tries to push the extended warranty on you. The GreenUmbrella program covers repairs to your computers, game consoles, cameras, refrigerators, TVs, air conditioners, etc. Anything less than $5,000 is eligible, and is covered for three years from purchase date.

To get a new purchase into the system, all you have to do is go online and enter the info about it. You don’t need your receipts to register a product, but you will when you file a claim.

Repairs are handled by The Warranty Group, which maintains a network of certified repair shops for consumer goods. When you call in with a claim, ultimately you’ll be routed to one of their providers for the repair or replacement of your item.

You can put a product on your warranty plan after you've purchased it.

(Credit: GreenUmbrella)

There are limitations, however. The service does not cover accidental breakage, doesn’t cover your mobile phone, and doesn’t cover products more than 3 years old. Also, keep in mind that all new products come with their own warranties. If you have a device that fails during the period of the warranty that comes with the product, GreenUmbrella might help a bit by offering a smoother experience through its service bureau, or by covering, perhaps, consumable parts (like a projector bulb) on a repair for a product whose native warranty only covers malfunctions.

But for the most part, the GreenUmbrella plan only covers products during their most healthy period–the two-plus years that fall between the product’s in-warranty infancy (when it is most likely to fail), and its slip into creaky senescence when it’s more likely to suffer wear-related problems or become obsolete. It’s when you are most likely to need the plan that your products will not be eligible for its services.

GreenUmbrella GM Mike Balducci admits that “you do have a stigma associated with the extended warranty,” although he believes it’s due to the typical, pushy retail sales process. He has a point. Consumers are vulnerable during the extended warranty “sales minute” that comes during checkout, and they resent the hard sell, even if they later end up saving a bundle because they have a plan. It is precisely these sales minutes, though, that GreenUmbrella will be battling. Expect retailers to come up with reasons for consumers to buy their extended warranties anyway.

Balducci also points out that about one-third of products that break and that are under extended warranties don’t get the coverage they deserve since the consumer has lost the paperwork or forgotten that a product is covered. With GreenUmbrella, the single plan should increase the redemption rate–and hopefully improve customer satisfaction.

In the service’s favor–and this is a big deal–GreenUmbrella is a predictable and reasonable service if you ever expect any of your devices to break down during their first years. The plan, at $120 a year, could easily pay for itself if a major appliance like a refrigerator or laptop fails during its term.

Clearly, extended warranties are a gamble, and the odds are on the provider’s side, not yours. That’s why they’re pushed so hard at retail (though not, we should note, at Costco): they’re nearly pure profit for the seller. But if you spend a few thousand a year on electronics or appliances, this plan will provide peace of mind for a reasonable, and for a very small premium over your cash outlay.

Credit:
GreenUmbrella: If you must buy an extended warranty, buy this one

Online jobs marketplace Elance is getting a big update next week, designed to bring more small businesspeople into the world of hiring people they don’t know and will never meet.

The service will layer in a workflow that should make the whole Elance process easier for newbies. There’s a new time tracker widget for contractors that automatically feeds data into the project page and the invoicing system (it can be configured per job, if the contract is for piecework instead of time-based). Elance does not support keyboard logging or periodic screen capture of a worker’s PC, as ODesk does.

Time served.

Also new: Free voice and chat communication support for hiring managers and contractors. People will be able to place anonymous calls even to contractors they haven’t yet hired, if they want to talk with them first (the service will call both parties and connect them, protecting the caller from revealing his or her caller ID).

Elance is also launching a skills testing program, much like ODesk’s, that allows contractors to get certified for particular types of work.

As before, hiring managers much place some of the funds for a job into escrow accounts, which Elance will pay contractors from when work is delivered or time milestones are met.

All the tasks that are underway get their own status page where customer and provider can communicate on their project. The system enforces the creation of status reports and requires each page be flagged with either a “on schedule” or “problem” tag. The goal is to keep communication open, and keep projects moving.

All these additions to the Elance product set are designed to make users more comfortable with the evolving service economy, although, as CEO Fabio Rosati says, the train has already left the station: There’s, “a huge exodus of work that used to be done in offices and face-to-face, and it is starting to move online.”

Rosati’s goal is to make Elance into an “online workplace.” By providing matchmaking tools, workflow helpers, and communications services he wants to make the site, essentially, into a virtual office building — not just the bulletin board Elance was before.

The business is certainly sound, and the timing is right for this push. Elance takes a cut of all contractor payouts (4 to 6% depending on the volume of business the hiring party is doing on the site). That’s a small overhead to pay given the reticence businesses have now to hire new staff. Elance is about more than just that, of course, but in this economy that’s probably enough to get the attention of a whole new troupe of users.

You can check out any time you like.

See also: Crowdspring, Taskmarket, RentACoder.

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Elance updates tools for contractors and their customers