Cool eBay/Flash Search App: Cooqy

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are the new Web 2.0 buzzword. Its no surprise, then, to see an RIA emerge for eBay - Cooqy. Cooqy is a flash-based site (application?) that aims to improve on the eBay search experience.

Cooqy is packed with search-related features not available on the eBay website, including a photo collage view of search results, maps, tabbed browsing, tagging, photo magnifiers, and more. Like other flash-based RIAs, there are no screen refreshes. When you search for items or click on the various parts of the interface, there are smooth UI transitions (the faster your hardware is, the better it works).

Cooqy creator Robert Yeager is not just focusing on product features. According to Robert, users can achieve much better performance using Cooqy than by using the eBay website, which is especially important for those on dial-up or outside the US:

"Cooqy is a thick client.  Everything it needs to know for rendering a screen is downloaded in the thick client runtime before the program starts.  eBay's HTML website is a thin client, so the rendering information for screens must be downloaded with each and every network transaction.  On eBay, item details pages typically weigh in at over 100KB without images (autolisters can bloat this even more).  Cooqy only needs to download 2KB to render the salient item details."

I've been trying out Cooqy for a few weeks, and I find that I really like the tabbed browsing experience in particular. I also am very impressed with the custom item details view, which takes the item description and strips out all of the unnecessary formatting and markup. The tagging concept (adding tags to items or sellers) is interesting, but there isn't critical mass to make this really useful yet. I'd also like to see some more simple features like showing if items can be purchased with PayPal.

I conducted an interview with Robert Yeager to find out more about Cooqy:

Where did you come up with the idea for Cooqy?

I had developed a standalone application called AuctionVision in 2003 that mined eBay for auction bargains.  I wasn't able to justify paying for web services, so I screen scraped eBay's website for data as many other similar tools did back then.  Last December I learned that eBay had opened up their web services free of charge and was holding a Developer's Challenge.  At the same time I just happened to be exploring Web 2.0 technologies for the first time.  After evaluating several AJAX toolkits, I eventually became sold on OpenLaszlo as being a mature and viable technology.  Four weeks of part-time work later, the core of Cooqy was operational in time for the Jan. 31 deadline for the Developer's Challenge (albeit hosted on my home PC).   After the Developer's Challenge deadline, I continued Cooqy's development and refinement to see how far I could push the technology.  That is still continuing.  The development of value-add functionality to eBay shopping has really only just begun.

And where did you get the name?

I did a lot of research into potential names, and I spent several weeks trying out all sorts.  I really wanted something 5 letters long or less... Once I got into it, it turned out to be incredibly hard -- finding a short and sweet name that also had an available .com domain!!  I think I settled on Cooqy because it met the 5-letters length or less requirement, and I wanted a name that people would be comfortable letting into their homes -- something that was fun, familiar, and nonthreatening (being a play on the word cookie).  I was very much against any name that was mechanical, cold, and unevocative.  Weeks of agony finally led to a lightening strike...that seems to be how my creative process goes with whatever I do.  The tag line "Treat yourself to better shopping" came just about a month ago, 5 months after the name was developed.  So, Cooqy's name was in a way defined by the struggle to find a short and sweet .com name that was available -- a task that keeps getting harder and harder.

What is your favorite feature in Cooqy?

The community tagging and chat systems, because of the potential they hold to help police eBay.  Community tagging and chat were developed out of personal frustration with eBay's feedback system...

Cooqy's community tagging system was built to help the eBay shopping community to police eBay in a forum than is separate from eBay's feedback system.  Sellers and items can be independently tagged in Cooqy by registered Cooqy members (who are authenticated with eBay first).  Tags can be any text phrase and have a disposition. Whenever item details are reviewed on Cooqy, the accumulated disposition of any associated tags for the item or seller are displayed in red or green, along with the ability to view the tag details.

The community chat system works just like a message forum, except that chat threads appear inline with items and sellers as you shop. This new concept was built after I observed several website forums like eBay Forums and Google Groups where eBay members were sharing their good and bad experiences on eBay. I thought it would be powerful if this body of knowledge could be easily accessible while shopping.

Like other Web 2.0 social tagging websites, a critical mass of users is necessary to provide value.  To prime the pump, individual Cooqy members must have a selfish sense of providing value to themselves by tagging and chatting about items and sellers. Cooqy's tagging and chat systems have just been introduced, so it is too early to know if and how the community will utilize the features. But I am committed to continue to evolve the features as needed, because I feel they are the best hope to improve the policing of eBay by leveraging the unfettered communication of the eBay shopping community.

Now for our "Five Questions":

1) What is the last thing that you bought on eBay?

A Ferrari 612 Scaglietti just last week!  Well, a 1:18 scale one I found at a 50% discount using Cooqy's misspelling scanner.  I am amazed at how many items on eBay are misspelled.

2) What is your defining Web 2.0 moment?

December 2005 was when I first realized that there was a Web 2.0 train leaving the station I needed to catch.  Up until then I had developed web sites in the traditional HTML Java/JSP and C#/.NET manner, which I had always found to be as tedious and unproductive as assembly-language programming. I came across some websites using AJAX that were mildly interesting.  But then I found Laszlo Mail and was immediately hooked.

3) SOAP or XML?

XML.  SOAP still has interoperability issues among vendor implementations, especially with name spaces. Anyone who has actually tried to hook up disparate systems (say, a Perl::SOAPLite client talking to a C# .NET web service) knows that it just never works the first time out of the box. I've successfully used SOAP, but I've had far fewer issues with XML interfaces.

4) What's playing on your iPod right now?

Bruce Hornsby. I have played piano since the age of 5. I have a Steinway at home I play about an hour a day. Bruce's music is a good challenge to play -- I'm the type of person who bores easily and always needs a challenge.

5) Do you have a signature drink?

Fruit2O, because it has helped me lose 30 pounds in the last year.

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Thanks for the interview, Robert!

-Alan