3 October 2008
For immediate release
Mountain View, CA— StreetPrices today released the world's first spelling suggestion feature on a shopping search engine. The tool offers alternatives to the user's search terms, so users can find the products they want even if their search is misspelled.
"The idea was, a slip of the fingers should never keep you from getting a great deal," said Erin Sankin, VP. The spelling suggestion feature gives alternatives to common misspellings like Cannon (suggests Canon), or typos like pansonic (suggests Panasonic) and pink flood (suggests Pink Floyd). Even badly misspelled words like boze speaerku are corrected (to Bose speaker).
Other shopping engines may correct queries when there are no results, but those systems fail when one or two merchants misspell the item — the user gets a misleadingly small set of results. StreetPrices is the first to take the plunge and display its spelling suggestions for all searches. "I was never a spelling bee champion," said Stephen Heise, Founder. "Now we'll spell product names, so you don't have to."
StreetPrices, founded in 1997 by Stephen Heise, was the third shopping comparison website, and the inventor of price graphs and price alerts. It continues to lead the comparison shopping field with great prices and unique features, including a "search by specs" tool and its own merchant rating system. Originally focusing on consumer electronics, StreetPrices is now branching out into other product categories.