Icecat Release Notes (109): Brand Reviews, Intel specs

In these Icecat release notes, we discuss the results of sprint 109. The main highlights of this Icecat release are that we completed the roll-out of near real-time XML, added three Latin-American locales and a reviews score in brand rank pages, and included Intel embedded specs in more categories. The previous Icecat Release Notes are here

Near real-time XML roll-out complete

We finished the roll-out of near Real-Time (nRT) XML. All XML users receive now nRT XML. We started the project in December last year. The main advantages of nRT are more timely syndication of product data and more flexibility regarding providing custom XML services.

Supporting Chile, Peru, and Colombia

Chilean Spanish, Peruvian Spanish and Colombian Spanish are now available in Icecat XML, JSON, and on icecat.biz as three new Latin-American locales. The advantage is that country-specific messaging for these locales can be supported now.

Brand Rank Page: Average Review Score

We apply a new widget to display a brand’s average review score based on the tens of thousands of product reviews from our reviews aggregator Testseek.com. See for example the average brand review score of HP: https://icecat.biz/en/brand-statistics/hp

The calculation is straightforward: the total of scores per each product / total number of products with a score.

Another change on the brand rank page is that we removed the “International” locale from the “By country” graph legend calculation. As a result, the blue shades provide better differentiation between countries.

Local specs via import matrix

A new function for the editorial team is that they can add local specs via the import-export-tool. Before, they could only add the international spec value. To use this feature, a specific locale should be specified in the header of an upload matrix.

Deactivate brand de-duplication in Title

We have the possibility to add a brand name to a product family, even when it is duplicating the official brand name associated with a product.
For instance, if the Brand is “HP”, and the product’s Family is “Omen by HP”, the auto-generated product Title will start with “HP Omen by HP…”.
Our default brand de-duplication logic removes the second “HP” string from the title unless the new check box “Disable brand name deduplication” is activated. Therefore, from now on, we leave it to the brand owner to decide if a duplicated brand name in a product title makes sense or not.

Intel spec values in more categories

On behalf of Intel, we embed its spec values in products with “Intel Inside”. In this new release, we expanded the number of categories for which this is relevant. Here is the updated list:

Smartphones
Graphic Tablets
Stick PCs
Backpack PCs
Thin Clients
Embedded Computers
Server Barebones
Edge Computing Platforms
Network Surveillance Servers
POS Systems
Signage Displays
Smartglasses

Managing duplicate images

We added the deactivation of local product images if it is the same as an international (INT) image, which is not expired and still visible. In summary, we updated image gallery management policies regarding duplicates as follows:

Firstly, if we are getting identical images for the INT and EN locales, we should add these images to the INT locale of the product only with Visible=Yes; for other locales we then set Visible=No.
Secondly, if we are having in the system a duplicate image with locale=EN or other locales except for locale=INT, because we are getting the same image for locale=INT, then we deactivate all non-INT images and set Visible=Yes only for the INT locale.
Thirdly, if we are having in the system, a duplicate image with locale=INT, because we get from feeds the same locale=EN image, then we should add the EN locale to the image but set Visible=No for this duplicate image.
Finally, if we are having in the system a duplicate image with locale=INT which is expired or deactivated, because we are getting an EN image from feeds, then we should add the EN locale image to the product with Visible=Yes.