Darren Straight's Blog

Ever needed to find the comparison price of an item while shopping, but in that moment in time you don’t have access to a computer or internet connection to use services like Windows Live Product Search or Kelkoo.co.uk, the answer is probably yes as we always want to try and get the best deal when out shopping.

So that’s why you can now use Frucall a new US Web 2.0 Service which will allow you to find the comparision of shopping prices by calling 1-888-DO-FRUCALL and typing in or reading the product’s barcode number to the system. Frucall will then search the product on Amazon.com, Yahoo! Shopping and Streetprices.com and will return the pricing results within ten or so seconds.

Consumers can use a voice menu to “bookmark” items, leave themselves voice notes for later reference, listen to customer ratings, and soon purchase the product directly from their cell phone. Consumers can also register at Frucall.com to personalize their shopping experience and also access more valuable features.

Technical Specs:

• Frucall is a Web 2.0/m-Commerce mashup service which combines a wide range of technologies such as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), XML, VoiceXML, TTS (Text To Speech), ASR (Automated Speech Recognition), SMS and WAP to deliver real-time information from the Internet to consumer cell phones.
• Currently, the information Frucall delivers to consumers’ cell phone is comparison shopping data.  The format of delivery is voice.  Therefore, Frucall can be called from any mobile or land line phone.
• Frucall has a voice portal (1-888-DO-FRUCALL) and a web portal (http://www.frucall.com) tied together with backend business logic implemented in Java, deployed on the Apache Tomcat J2EE platform.
• In addition to comparison shopping, Frucall also offers basic social networking services such as reminders and group messaging via SMS.

Thanks goes to Michael Brito from Frucall for providing me with this information.

1. Frucall to be releasing new features for August 2006 » Darren Straight’s Blog says:

   August 14, 2006 at 11:03 am

   [...] Remember my recent post about Frucall the new US Web 2.0 Service which will allow you to find the comparision of shopping prices by calling 1-888-DO-FRUCALL and typing in or reading the product’s barcode number to the system which will then search the product on Amazon.com, Yahoo! Shopping and Streetprices.com and will return the pricing results within ten or so seconds. [...]