Startups Launch to Help Web 1.0 Sites

Two startups have launched recently to assist web 1.0 content and commerce sites add much needed web 2.0 features – Aggregate Knowledge and BazaarVoice. The companies, both backed by Josh Kopelman’s First Round Capital, help companies add customer feedback features at a fraction of the price of developing them in-house.

Menlo Park-based Aggregate Knowledge, led by CEO Paul Martino and VP Products Chris Law, launched officially today at the eTech conference. The company creates automated “behavior recommendations” for websites – things like “people who look at this also looked at” and “people who bought this also bought” features. See screen shot here for a visual. Integration is extremely simple.

Aggregate Knowledge also creates white label “ajax homepages” for clients that help to promote this information. See this screenshot for an example.

Texas-based BazaarVoice, which is a little further along than Aggregate Knowledge, provides Amazon-like editorial recommendations for products – things like customer reviews, etc. This is big business – BazaarVoice is able to provide their service at a fraction of the cost of in-house development, and even very large sites like CompUSA are starting to adopt their solution. Pricing starts at about $2,000 per month for smaller customers. In addition to Josh Kopelman, BazaarVoice has received funding from Tom Ball at Austin Ventures.