TheFind.com

TheFind, Inc.
Subsidiary
Industry Shopping Search, Discovery Shopping
Founded 2006
Defunct 2015
Headquarters Mountain View, California, USA
Key people
 Siva Kumar (CEO), Shashikant Khandelwal (CTO)
Parent Facebook
Website thefind.com (no longer available)

TheFind.com was a discovery shopping search engine targeting lifestyle products such as apparel, accessories, home and garden, fitness, kids and family, and health and beauty.[1]

History

In March 2015, Facebook Inc. acquired TheFind. TheFind Inc, was founded in 2006 as FatLens Inc., initially specializing in event tickets search but later expanding to product search. On October 31, 2006 the site was re-launched as TheFind.com with an emphasis on discovery shopping search for lifestyle products. TheFind.com is a privately held company in Mountain View, California and received initial funding from Redpoint Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Cambrian Ventures.[2] In 2007, they received an additional $15 million in funding led by Bain Capital Ventures.[3]

Business model


TheFind.com positions itself as a discovery shopping search engine,[4] in contrast to a Comparison Shopping Engine model more commonly used for computers and electronics. According to the company's website, the search database includes over 500 Million products from over 500,000 stores and online merchants.[5] Products are added to the search via crawling as well as merchant feeds. The search results are ranked using an algorithm based on relevancy and popularity, rather than a pay-for-placement ranking.[6] Clicking on a product from a search results page takes the user to the merchant's site where the product can be purchased directly from the merchant. Since its re-launch, TheFind.com has announced several additional features including color search [7] and find similar items [8]

Partnerships

TheFind.com has content partnerships with several established web and media properties including PayPal[9] and Glam Publishers Network,[10] as well as several blogs such as Celebrity-Babies.com, Popgadget.net, and ConnectingMoms.com.

Growth

On March 28, 2007, TheFind.com announced that it has experienced a 540% increase in unique visits since its launch on October 31, 2006, and a change from 141,625 visits in November 2006 to a run rate of over 900,000 visits in March 2007. They also reported a monthly traffic growth rate of over 35% for Q1 2007.[11] Quantcast.com, the leading media measurement service, shows TheFind.com at 7 million visitors per month as of Nov 2008 (http://www.quantcast.com/thefind.com) Comscore Media Metrix shows TheFind to be the 2nd largest shopping search engine with 20+ million visitors per month as of May 2010.

On August 29, 2007 TheFind.com acquired the women's fashion shopping site Glimpse.com.[12] TheFind.com now powers shopping results at Glimpse.com.

Purchase

On March 13, 2015 Facebook announced that they had purchased TheFind.com for an undisclosed sum. It was also announced that TheFind.com would be shutdown immediately and that some of the staff will make the transition to join the Facebook team.[13]

TheFind.com page has been replaced with a placecard informing customers of their move;[14]

"We are joining Facebook!

For the last nine years, we've worked hard to bring you a shopping experience that's easy, efficient and fun - searching all the stores on the web to find just the right products you're looking to buy.

We are now starting our next chapter by combining forces with Facebook to do even more for consumers. Facebook's resources and platform give us the opportunity to scale our expertise in product sourcing to the over 1 billion people that use the platform.

Key members of our team are joining the company and will be working hard to integrate our technology to make the ads you see on Facebook every day better and more relevant to you.

Unfortunately, this means we are taking our search engine offline.

Thank you for your loyalty and for making this a fun journey for all of us!

- TheFind Team"

Charitable campaigns

TheFind.com periodically runs "Color for a Cause" campaigns to raise money for charities. During each campaign, TheFind.com donates $1 to the selected charity each time users run a search that contains a designated color. In the first campaign launched on January 2007, TheFind.com donated $1 per user per day for searches that contained the color red, raising a total of $10,000 for the humanitarian aid charity Doctors Without Borders.[15] In the campaign launched in April 2007, searches that contained the color pink netted $1 per user per day for the breast cancer research organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure.[16]

Industry recognition and awards

In January 2007, SEO consultant Charles Knight named TheFind.com to his list of The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines,.[17] To be included on the list, search engines must demonstrate superiority to Google for that site's search specialty.[18] TheFind.com has remained on this list for each monthly update[19][20][21][22][23] and is the only search engine listed in the Shopping Search category.

In April 2007, Red Herring magazine named TheFind.com as a finalist for the Red Herring 100,[24] a selection of the top private companies based in North America that play a leading role in innovation and technology. TheFind.com was also nominated for a 2007 Webby Award in the Best Retail category.[25]

TheFind has been mentioned on several industry related blogs and social communities, including ComparisonEngines.com and eCommerceOptimization.com. The company continues to generate buzz surrounding their services by announcing new features [26] which include their mini-malls, virtual shopping districts and local search capability.[27] Siva Kumar, company CEO, has also conducted interviews [28] with industry professionals.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mitra, Sramana (2007-04-03). "TheFind: LifeStyle Shopping (Part 1).". Sramana Mitra on Strategy.
  2. ↑ Marshall, Matt (2006-10-26). "Thefind.com, another shopping search engine, aims for comprehensiveness". VentureBeat.com.
  3. ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross (2007-07-13). "TheFind Locates $15 Million in V.C. Funding". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Marshall, Matt (2006-10-26). "Thefind.com, another shopping search engine, aims for comprehensiveness". VentureBeat.com.
  5. ↑ "About Us". TheFind.com.
  6. ↑ "TheFind.com Launches Next-Generation Shopping Search Engine That Helps Consumers Find Any Product Sold Online". 2006-10-31.
  7. ↑ Smith, Brian (2006-12-10). "TheFind Launches Color (For a Cause) Search". ComparisonEngines.com.
  8. ↑ "TheFind.com Launches 'Find Similar Items' Tool That Allows Shoppers To Organize Millions of Products Into Custom Catalogs". 2007-02-28.
  9. ↑ "TheFind.com Announces New Shopping Search Engine Dedicated Exclusively to PayPal". PR News Today. 2007-06-12.
  10. ↑ Smith, Brian (2007-03-24). "TheFind Gets More In Touch With Its Feminine Side". ComparisonEngines.com.
  11. ↑ "TheFind.com is the Fastest-Growing Next-Generation Shopping Search Engine". 2007-03-28.
  12. ↑ "Glimpse Is Now Part Of TheFind.com Shopping Family". eCommerceOptimization. 2007-08-29.
  13. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/13/to-boost-commerce-in-ads-facebook-buys-and-shuts-down-shopping-site-thefind/#Kr0BIf:S3cA
  14. ↑ http://www.thefind/com/
  15. ↑ "TheFind.com's Color Search Raises Funds for Global Doctors". DirectMag.com. 2007-01-22.
  16. ↑ "Color for a Cause – Helping Susan G Komen for the Cure". TheFindBlog. 2007-04-12.
  17. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-01-29). "The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines". Read/Write Web.
  18. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-02-27). "The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, February 2007". Read/Write Web.
  19. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-03-28). "Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, March 2007". Read/Write Web.
  20. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-05-01). "Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, April 2007". Read/Write Web.
  21. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-06-06). "Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, June 2007". Read/Write Web.
  22. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-07-02). "Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, July 2007". Read/Write Web.
  23. ↑ Knight, Charles (2007-08-01). "Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, August 2007". Read/Write Web.
  24. ↑ "Red Herring 100 North America Awards Finalists". The Red Herring. 2007-04-25.
  25. ↑ "11th Annual Webby Awards Unveil Nominees for Best Websites, Videos, and Ads of the Year". WebbyAwards.com. 2007-04-10.
  26. ↑ "Comparison Shopping Features". eCommerceOptimization. 2007-11-14.
  27. ↑ "Local Search Capability". eCommerceOptimization. 2007-12-12.
  28. ↑ "Siva Kumar Interview". eCommerceOptimization. 2007-11-01.
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