WebProNews

Los Angeles-based MeziMedia announced its Smarter.com product comparison site will set up operations in Shanghai.

The computer and consumer electronics shopping search engine company disclosed it will establish a Chinese version of its Smarter.com site. Two executives, noted as Jessica Chen and Eric Zhang in the press release, have been hired to oversee operations.

Smarter's shopping engine provides user-contributed product reviews, and pricing information collected from online retailers. Searches can be performed by product category or name, and further tailored with a price range selected by the user.

China has been widely targeted by big-time search engine names like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search, due to its growing number of Internet users. "China currently is the second largest country in the world in terms of Internet usage, with an expected 133 million users by the end of 2005," said Harry Tsao, Co-Founder of Smarter.com, in the release. "While online shopping in China is still nascent, 15% of Chinese users use the Internet for shopping information, and we believe that Chinese consumers will rapidly adopt shopping search."

Mr. Tsao, along with MeziMedia co-founder Talmadge O'Neill, has some familiarity with the search engine market. They founded Overture, which Yahoo purchased in 2003. Overture now forms the heart of Yahoo's online advertising operations.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.