Acquisition Converts Questex into Service Provider
Business-to-business media company Questex Media Group has acquired Five Star Alliance, an online luxury hotel booking service that caters to affluent travelers. Questex already serves that audience with a slate of publications, such as Premier Hotels & Resorts, Luxury Travel Advisor and Travel Agent Magazine. The company also hosts travel-related conferences.
Criteria to list properties on Five Star Alliance is very strict—it's by invitation only. The site currently features more than 1,300 hotels, including The Carlyle in New York and Washington, D.C.'s The Hay Adams. Newsletters and blogs on the site offer visitors recommendations. The site averages more than 3 to 4 million page views and more than 400,000 visitors each month.
Questex understands the importance of making its pages come to life. For a traditional b-to-b publisher like Questex to add a transactional service to its product and service portfolio is a good move. This acquisition really rounds out Questex's offerings to serve the affluent traveler, hotelier and travel advisor at every step of the customer life cycle. Customers can now research destinations and book their trips without leaving the Questex portfolio of products. These days, it's all about becoming a complete service provider; and that's exactly what Questex has done.
LexisNexis Launches Relationship Management Tool
LexisNexis has launched ExecRelate, a service that provides users with information about directors, executives and their relationships in order to take advantage of relevant business development opportunities. The subscription-based service offers access to more than 700,000 unique personnel names and titles, more than 65,000 parent companies with more than 118,000 linked subsidiaries, nearly 200,000 of the most prominent U.S. and internationally-based public and private companies and nearly 50,000 board members from all NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX traded companies.
ExecRelate also has a side-by-side comparison feature that shows linkages and commonalities between board members in a variety of areas--such as current career or board memberships, job and board history, educational background, association memberships, certifications earned and awards won. An alert system can be activated to keep users updated on individual personnel changes and changes within an entire organization.
ExecRelate is also utilizing Web 2.0 technology to enhance its capabilities. Its social networking module, ExecRelate Relationship Manager, helps users map relationships and create connections with business development sources.
In an environment where social networking, via sites such as LinkedIn, has become increasingly popular over time, it's no surprise that LexisNexis would launch such a service. Individuals seeking business development opportunities have always recognized the value of connections and networking. Social networking technology has just brought that to the forefront of business in recent years. LexisNexis is smart to add ExecRelate to its offerings. It's a service the marketplace is definitely ready for and it will likely become a mainstream offering for business information providers in the short term.
R.H. Donnelley Buys Business.com
Yellow Pages and online local search company R.H. Donnelley Corp. has apparently shifted toward a more interactive online-focused strategy, as evidenced by yesterday's announcement of its acquisition of Business.com, a well-known business search engine and directory and pay-per-clock advertising network. Donnelley will pay $345 million in cash and deferred purchase consideration in a deal expected to close in the third quarter.
The deal will give Donnelley ownership of a handful of online properties, such as Business.com, Work.com and the Business.com Advertising Network. According to a company statement announcing the deal, Business.com optimizes revenues from these entities through its Performance Based Advertising (PBA) platform. Donnelley expects Business.com's search and directory technology and interactive thought leadership will help strengthen Donnelley's Triple Play business-to-consumer integrated marketing programs.
Business.com founder and CEO Jake Winebaum will become president of Donnelley's interactive unit (RHDi), which will house the Business.com properties as well as DexKnows.com and LocalLaunch!, a search engine marketing company. Donnelley apparently won't need to make any changes to make Business.com a profitable segment of its business. Business.com is already profitable and it is expected to post revenues of more than $50 million this year, according to the company statement.
While this deal certainly represents Donnelley's shift from the Yellow Pages business, it should make industry watchers wonder if it also represents the beginning of the end for traditional Yellow Pages services. This acquisition could affect more than just the two companies involved. It is unlikely that Donnelley will completely abandon its Yellow Pages roots as a result of its Business.com buy--at least not yet. But a tell-tale sign will be where the company invests much of its future resources--in the Yellow Pages or in its interactive online business unit now anchored by Business.com. Directory and database publishers need to keep a close eye on this one.
Free Promotion for Trulia.com
Real estate search engine Trulia.com this week announced an agreement it formed with CNNMoney.com (Money magazine's online presence) to provide local home listings information to Money's 2007 list of "America's Best Places to Live."
The list, which was made available on the site this week, will offer visitors a variety of information--from homes for sale, recent home sales and "million dollar homes" located in the cities featured in the annual listing. Maps created by Trulia will also appear on the site--users just need to click on a map to obtain information about a particular home (such as location, price, photos, bedrooms and baths, and square footage. Money visitors will also be able to search for homes throughout the U.S. courtesy of Trulia technology.
This is really a smart idea by the folks at Trulia. At no cost, they have found a way to promote their wares; and Money is able to offer a nice value-add to its readers. Partnerships are a huge key to success and it looks like Trulia has found a viable one in CNNMoney.com. This collaboration should certainly serve to increase Trulia's profile in the real estate industry.
Zillow.com Continues to Grow its Community
Real estate web site Zillow.com continues to add community features to its site, the latest were launched last week. Among them were individual neighborhood pages (containing more than 130 U.S. cities and more than 6,500 neighborhoods). The pages contain local demographic and real estate information, but that content is designed to be enhanced by local individuals who want to add photos and other local news. The pages will also serve as a forum for individuals to ask or answer questions about neighborhood real estate.
Other new features include Zillow Discussions and Polls. The discussion feature is a forum that enables Zillow community members to communicate about real estate-related topics (such as real estate investing and hiring an agent) on a national scale. The poll function enables Zillow users to create a survey on any topic and post it on a local or national level. Votes by the Zillow community will be seen immediately.
Zillow has also personalized its home page for registered users or individuals who have previously visited to include their home neighborhood, city or recent search area.
Through these new offerings, especially the neighborhood pages, Zillow is building reference content into its site. This will accomplish two goals: increase user value and improve the site's search engine rankings. It's certainly a smart move by a site that is quickly making a name for itself in the real estate market. By continuing to make the site more interactive, Zillow is able to further engage its current visitors. The Web today, as social networking grows in leaps and bounds, is all about making connections and Zillow is definitely helping those visitors make those contacts. It's been a busy 2007 for Zillow and it probably won't slow down. Expect further content and connection enhancements throughout the rest of the year.