For the past 3 years, I’ve been running a side project called TicTap. TicTap started off as a free SMS service, so you could text us the ISBN of a book, and we’d return the Amazon.com information to your phone.
The SMS service has been shut down because it was unprofitable. Fortunately, TicTap is much more than an SMS service today. It is an Amazon.com associate and that means we carry Amazon’s catalog.
But TicTap tries to differentiate itself in a few ways:
- Searches Amazon.com products better than Amazon.com
This might sound like a boast, but do give it a try. The clustered search helps to group unique products together, and the results are often more relevant. Try this search for harry potter to see what I mean.
- Designed for mobile devices and screen readers
Yup! TicTap not only works on a web browser, it can be viewed on a mobile device too. It’s presentation is optimized for speed and clarity and is a lot simpler than the web version.
For visually-impaired users, we present TicTap for screen readers.
- Automatic currency conversion
For non-US users, you can set the exchange rate for your own currency to the US dollar, and all prices will be shown in your currency. This was something I needed badly because I wasn’t fond of multiplying decimals!
- Price alerts via email
Is an item over your budget? Not to fear, just set your budget and we’ll track it for you. If the price falls within your budget, you’ll be notified by email.
- Sales rank history
TicTap graphically shows the sales rank history of almost every product. This is a very popular feature with authors. Here’s the sales rank history for the Xbox 360.
- Clean, soothing layout
I’m often confused by Amazon.com’s cluttered pages. Maybe it’s just me, but this was one thing I tried to avoid with TicTap. TicTap tries to provide only the information that will help with decision making such as prices, reviews, similar products and shipping options. You might even say there’s too little data presented!
This is just an introduction to TicTap. To experience its richness, you’ve got to give it a go. Try these searches for the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3.
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About the author
I'm Alex Choo and I live in sunny Singapore. I'm also the developer of WP Text Ads, a WordPress plugin that lets bloggers sell ads directly to advertisers so that they pay 0% in commissions and earn 100% in profits.
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