• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 8, 2010

Comparison shopping site NexTag on Thursday announced the acquisition of product review and recommendation engine Wize.com. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. NexTag is betting on Wize to bolster its search results, and increase shoppers' reliance on the site for buying guidance, according to Jeffrey Katz, chief executive officer of NexTag.

"The synergy between NexTag's proprietary price comparison technologies and Wize's sophisticated review content will allow us to expand the range of shopping services we offer," said Katz. According to Katz, NexTag's ultimate mission is to be "an indispensable shopping resource for consumers at every stage of their shopping experience." Per the deal, Wize President and CEO Tom Patterson will report directly to Scott Simmons, president of NexTag. Wize is expected to maintain its offices, employees and management team in Burlingame, CA.

Wize launched in late 2006 with the help of $4 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund. Since then, Wize claims to have aggregated more than six million product reviews on over one million products from thousands of sources across the Web. The startup's patent-pending Wize Product Research Engine analyzes this data using real everyday language based on what people have said is important.

According to Nielsen, recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising. Following that same logic, Facebook is presently selling so-called "social-context" ads to top-tier marketers. The ads appear on the right-hand side of a user's home page, and feature an image and headline from the advertiser. Accompanying the ads are the names of one's "friends" who have already clicked on the "like" button associated with the brand or ad in question.

Wize's long list of rivals includes consumer-reviews technology vendor PowerReviews, consumer electronic shopping and review site Retrevo, SmartRatings, and TestFreaks, to name a few.

Katz joined NexTag as chief executive officer in March from his post as chairman, president and CEO of LeapFrog Enterprises. There he led the expansion of the company's online education product line.