Become.com’s claim to fame is that it’s the “first vertical search engine to combine product-focused Web search wit comparison shopping.” While vertical search engines (limited to specific areas, such as shopping) have existed for quite a while, they’ve oddly never been as good as their more general counterparts. Become.com (among a handful of others) are changing that.

Become certainly delivers many nifty features that the “big boys” lack in their area and employs refreshing Ajax swiftness to do so. Having just launched a visual upgrade, everyone at Become is more excited than ever. Hear Become.com’s Greg Haslam speak a bit on the company’s strategy and search technologies in this interview with webpronews.com.