Success Drives NADAguides.com and Experian Partnership

Last week, NADAguides.com and Experian Automotive announced plans to extend their partnership through 2009. NADAguides.com, a vehicle pricing and information site, has been tapping into Experian’s National Vehicle database to populate its vehicle history reports for the last three years. The database contains information on more than 500 million vehicles with reports available in a variety of packages--from single history to unlimited reports. (Experian Automotive is a division of Experian Inc.)

Overall, this partnership enables NADAguides.com to provide a complete slate of car-buying information services for site visitors. These consumers can search for car prices, car quotes, used care values and side-by-side comparisons.

Both companies said the benefits of their partnership were too great to let it end. Knowing that site visitors rely on Experian's database for answers, officials at NADAguides.com had to guarantee that a main traffic draw remained in place. The folks at Experian also recognize the value of their database and want to keep it in front of relevant consumers. Look for this partnership to be renewed well beyond 2009 and don't be surprised if Experian extends its list of partners during that time as companies continue to realize the value of such an extensive database. The company's technology is already used by other prominent automotive-based sites such as eBay Motors, Yahoo! Autos, CarsDirect.com and CarMax.com.

Labels: databases, experian, nadaguides

Getting Real

You've built an online service, something of a cross between eBay and ThomasNet. It's focused on facilitating B2B connections in the explosive China marketplace. It's so well received it generates over 10 million sales leads annually. That's just part of the massive success story that is Global Sources. And what does Global Sources do next? It launches a print trade magazine.
Okay, the Global Sources story is actually more complicated than this, but my point remains: with everyone working so hard to find success online, how is it that some of the most successful online players are making moves into print?

Consider another undisputed online success story: TechTarget. Born online, it now has not one but three print titles now. And they serve high tech markets of digital natives, where the conventional wisdom would suggest print should be long out of fashion.

My absolute favorite example is still Search Marketing Standard, a new print trade magazine serving SEO and SEM professionals. Even those whose profession is to show others how to market and sell online still apparently want to receive their information in print.

It's easy to say, "hey, if companies will buy ads and people will read it, why not do a print magazine?" Fair enough, but that doesn't get at the bigger question: what drives the enduring appeal of print to both advertisers and readers?

Quite likely, there are multiple drivers, many of them quite banal, that work to make things look more complicated than they really are. But one factor, and I've heard this from both publishers and advertisers, is that print "makes you more real." Think about it. Anyone can create a website cheaply and easily, but few can afford to publish a print magazine. It speaks to commitment, substance, authority and influence on the part of the publisher. Advertisers say basically the same thing. The print medium lets them be more creative and deliver more complex messages. Just as importantly, a full-page print ad lets an advertiser stand out from the crowd, and demonstrate substance and commitment that's a lot harder in the pay-per-click online world. In short, print lets both publishers and advertisers make a real statement. And generate real business, which in turn generates real profits. And that's real good.

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Labels: eBay, global sources, health content07, Infocommerce, print medium, search marketing standard, tech target, ThomasNet

A Stately Alliance

LexisNexis this week announced that it has expanded its partnership with State Net, a provider of legislative and regulatory intelligence, to provide state legislative history content within LexisNexis services. Users will now be able to view legislative history since 2003 and search the full text of documents such as committee reports and fiscal notes. Both companies expect this new content will help customers improve their legal and compliance processes.

This alliance is proof that publishers of all sizes can benefit from alliances. Even large publishing giants like LexisNexis clearly see the value in partnering to add more depth to their content and help bolster the services they offer to customers. Customers don’t care if you build or buy--it doesn't matter to them if you create a new product offering from scratch or if you acquire or partner to bring that new feature to them. They only know if you don't have something they need. LexisNexis does a great job keeping a pulse on what’s happening in their customers' world. The company understands customers' problems and it works to find solutions that will conquer any task those customers face. LexisNexis knows, as we all should, that if you can't help a customer accomplish his goals, he will find an information provider that can.

Creating a Community

Online real estate service Zillow.com celebrated its first anniversary with last week's launch of Home Q&A, which includes features that connect buyers and sellers in a community atmosphere. HomeQ&A is essentially a platform that enables those buyers and sellers (and real estate agents) to ask and answer questions about particular properties.

Site visitors can also now create their own profile pages that contain photos and contact information. They can also add an unlimited amount of photos to a specific home's Web page. If a house is for sale, visitors can indicate that and also include the asking price. Zillow.com also launched EZ Ads, a tool that enables real estate agents and home sellers to purchase ads targeted to a specific region (by zip code).

While many online content providers are still investigating the potential value of online communities, Zillow.com certainly hasn't wasted any time adding such a feature to its service. It will be interesting to see how quickly Home Q&A develops and if buyers and sellers utilize this new community they've been offered. If it works in this market, will it work in yours? This is definitely a development the online database publishing community needs to keep an eye on.

A New Search Engine for ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo last week launched a new version of ZoomInfo.com that utilizes the company's patented semantic search technology. As a result, the company promises better search results for users. The company says the semantic search engine will crawl the business web for information, scanning such sources as Web sites, press releases and electronic news services. Then, it will semantically tag, aggregate and organize the information into usable profiles.

New features that ZoomInfo.com now offers include free company searches, comprehensive job searches and highly relevant product searches. The site will also continue to offer plenty of free (and small fee) functionality. Searching people by name will still be free, while ZoomInfo is now touting low-cost access to deeper people information (such as work history, education, contact information and web references) as part of its ZoomExec service. ZoomInfo has also announced an initiative serving B2B advertisers later this year.

Services, such as those offered by ZoomInfo, are now abundantly available on the web for people seeking contact information for other individuals and companies. (Among ZoomInfo's competitors: Jigsaw and LinkedIn.) Because this new "market" is getting flooded with players, it’s more important than ever for these companies to provide even better offerings. The big differentiators in this marketplace will be the most accurate information, found quickly and presented in an easy-to-use format. By bolstering the functionality and breadth of its offerings, ZoomInfo is on the right track. Time will tell if the new ZoomInfo.com is really different--and better --than the rest.