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CarZen Takes the Tedium Out of Car Shopping (The Startup Review) - InvitesOctober 8th, 2008 at 3:42 pmSource:Mashable! Back in April, Yahoo acquired IndexTools, a provider of analytics software based in Hungary. Today, that service has re-emerged as Yahoo Web Analytics, and is being offered as a limited beta to customers of Yahoo Small Business – the company’s suite of tools for helping small businesses market and sell products online. Additionally, the tool will also be made available to select Yahoo advertisers. As you might expect, Yahoo Web Analytics includes integration with other Yahoo products. For example, you can analyze the effectiveness of Yahoo search marketing campaigns and track how well individual products within your e-commerce shop are trending. The product will naturally be compared to Google Analytics, the free offering from Google that has similar integration with AdWords. While it may be late to the party, Yahoo Web Analytics is apparently a big upgrade for Yahoo Small Business customers. Mashable contributor Sean Aune is a user of the service, and sent along the following screenshot as an example of what the service’s rather archaic reporting looks like today: If nothing else, if you look at the screenshot below of the new service, it would seem that Yahoo Web Analytics has just received a long overdue upgrade: Yahoo plans to roll out the service gradually to its Small Business Customers through the end of the year and expand the offering to other users in 2009. —Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Yahoo Acquires Analytics Company IndexToolsGoogle Analytics Gets a Beautiful New InterfaceGoogle’s Urchin Software Released As Public BetaGoogle Analytics Announces New Features, Urchin UpgradeE-mail Organizer Xobni Goes To Invite-only BetaCompete to Launch Search Analytics–Its First Paid ServiceQuantcast Launches New Analytics Tools
Company Name 20-Word Description CarZen is a new car research and buying site that provides the most simple and personalized experience anywhere. CEO’s Pitch CarZen is the most efficient and powerful car search tool on the Web that provides the most simple and personalized experience. We are focused on delivering content better and faster and pain-free experiences that empower consumers to make better car-related decisions. CarZen is auto enlightenment. Visit www.carzen.com. Mashable’s Take The news of automotive woe has been made abundantly clear over the past few seasons. GM, Ford, Chrysler and others have all experienced drops of one degree or another. All are cutting output. The financial crisis that has reached global proportions is also naturally impacting consumer decisions. This doesn’t necessarily mean cars won’t be purchased. They will. Only, there is ever more prominence being given to the matter of what cars will be bought up. And that’s where CarZen comes in. The choices available to consumers in the auto market is pretty immense, which the consumer largely enjoys. But it also means that doing one’s due diligence in researching an appropriate vehicle isn’t a five-minute exercise. People pore over data for hours, even days, visiting and revisiting websites of auto manufacturers and review sites and fiddling with brochures and debating things like utility and aesthetics. What CarZen aims to do is eliminate much of the scavenger hunt. The way in which CarZen functions is, in a word, elegant. Not only are the layout and colorway friendly, but as you traverse its various pieces, it’s clear that quite a bit of thought has gone into its creation. Attention to detail has definitely been paid. Graphical transitions don’t crowd out the data, but they do seem to add an extra bit of weight to the whole project. It’s like the proverbial car door test. Does it open and close with a secure thunk, or is it a little rattly, for lack of a better word? CarZen displays quality throughout. You may think it’s not social enough, that it’s more about aggregation of statistics than collective critique. And for the most part, this is true, at least for the time being. But given the parameters set by CarZen’s creators from the outset, I find it to be a really pleasing creation. It’s no real replacement for an amalgam of AutoBlog, Top Gear, Fifth Gear, Edmunds and the rest, but it definitely has its place among the mix. It makes car searching a smidge easier, and if you’re torn between makes and models, price points, sizes, and styles, CarZen makes the shopper’s role less hectic. If that sounds like something you could use, then by all means do. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. To get your invite, go to the CarZen homepage and enter your email address, and CarZen will follow up with your username and password. Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials
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