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.
website says….
“Bazaar” is a word that is symbolic of the beginning of commerce – the initial marketplaces. ……
They missed saying that its an Indian word & still happening in India.
This is a great idea. Many companies don’t have the midshare or resources to pull something like this off. Congrats to them.
I believe Amazon already patented a couple of Aggregate Knowledge’s core competencies specifically:
“people who look at this also looked at” and “people who bought this also bought” features
Patent
http://patft.us...umber=6,999,941
Article
http://www.tech...1617246_F.shtml
Actually, now that I think about it, I could probably pull this off for any given site in a few hours.
Actually, I’ve been wondering about this. How much does Amazon’s patent cover? All recommendation/collaborative search systems? How do Half.com and others get away with recommendation systems?