On June 26, 2006, a new shopping search engine called Jellyfish launched in the United States. The difference between Jellyfish and other generic shopping portals such as Pricegrabber and Bizrate, is the advertising does not run off of a Pay Per Click system (PPC), but rather a Value Per Action (VPA) advertising scheme.

VPA works like this: the user clicks on a link to shop at a specific store, their shopping habits are tracked, and when the user makes a purchase the store offers them cash back on their purchase. For example, if I buy a $1000 digital camera from Best Buy, with a 2.3% cash back, I will receive $23 dollars. This system isn't anything new -- it is the same model as old affiliate advertising -- however this time around the money is given to the buyer. The VPA system allows stores to compete for your sale by adding bigger and better cash back rewards.

The Backend

The backend to Jellyfish operates off of Ruby on Rails and various AJAX frameworks such as Prototype, Moo.FX and lightbox. The cash back tracking system is routed through Commission Junction, an affiliate tracking and advertising system that has some big name clients.

The Design

Very few websites make me say "Wow" when I first view them, but the design of Jellyfish made me do it. The perfect combination of colour, wholesome web 2.0 design elements and AJAX all make the entire interface completely intuitive and easy to use. Jellyfish breaks the mould from traditional shopping search engines, paving a new path in the shopping world.

Annoyances

At first the picture-like category intrigued me, but after using it I found them to be quite frustrating. While it looks pretty, it is just not functional. The categories should be listed in a clear, constant structure so they don't confuse the user.

It is also frustrating having to click the top level category link, only to be brought to yet another subcategory page (more clicking!). Some of these subcategory pages have too many listings in them, and finding what I was looking for easily was a difficult task.

Overall

I give Jellyfish a huge 4 out of 5 lemons. This site is awesome, so check it out!