WEB SERVICE
Ferreting out a great bargain on the Web takes time, patience, and determination - sometimes way too much of each. Enter DealTime.com. Just tell this smart shopping service what you're after and its crawlers scour the Net nonstop for the object of your desire. DealTime.com also lets you choose how to be notified: by email, pager, cell phone, or a handy Windows app called Notifier.
Only want stuff from classified ads? No problem, you can limit the search as you want, choosing from classified-ad sites, commercial auctions, person-to person auctions, and online stores. Another nice touch: The service gives the remaining bid time for auctions.
There doesn't seem to be a catch, unless you consider online advertising a problem. The company makes its money by offering advertisers extremely targeted audiences. In the market for a laptop? That's all a Gateway needs to know. There doesn't seem to be a connection between which companies advertise and which sites DealTime offers links to - a sign that the service delivers the best price regardless of marketing alliances.
Notifier is horribly addictive, and easily becomes a part of your daily routine. After a quick download from DealTime.com, the app sits quietly in the taskbar and doesn't take up a lot of screen space when expanded. Besides checking in on what the crawlers have dug up, this desktop miniportal can also help you track headlines and stock quotes.
DealTime.com promises all sorts of additional services. By the time you read this, DealTeam, designed to let you shop in packs with others to get bulk rates, will probably be up and running.
Let's just hope DealTime.com doesn't get carried away in the brand-extension excitement:In this tangled Web, simplicity is bliss.
DealTime.com: www.dealtime.com.
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