SPECIAL REPORT: Cutting Edge ecommerce Solutions for Content Sites, FizzyLab & Nexchange

This week we have a special treat for you: profiles of the top two
cutting-edge companies helping publishers integrate their
online content with ecommerce. Please note: they are
presented here in alphabetical order.

COMPANY A: FizzyLab, http://www.fizzylab.com

Clients: BusinessWeek.com, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post,
NY Post, SnowBall.com, BizJournal.com, RedHerring.com +++

Service: Fizzylab’s Relevator service automates linking
related content within your site -- or across your network
of sites. Many people leave content sites because they can’t
find what they’re looking for. On the other hand,
many sites’ editorial teams spend up to 50% of their time
trying to identify and link related content. Publishers can
also use the service to link ecommerce and classifieds
offers within stories to readers based on their typical
demographic and psychographic profiles. Base line -- you
bring the content, classifieds and advertisers to the table;
Fizzylab helps them meet each other.

Cost: There’s a monthly flat fee, based on the size of the
site and content update frequency, which can go as high as
$10,000. Plus there’s a click through fee on top of that
averaging about $10/m. But Fizzylab doesn’t take a cut of
your sales.

Notable Quote: Scott Hudson, CEO & Co-Founder, “Our goal is
to connect everything on a Web site on the basis of
relevance, but the task of identifying what’s relevant -- an
article to a product or to a classifieds listing -- requires
more than a straight forward data mining approach. A
standard automated program would link a story about a kid’s
soccer game with an offer for a soccer ball, but you might
also want to sell a mini-van. Our approach is much broader,
we extract concepts, involving demographic and psychographic
data about who’s reading what.”


COMPANY B: Nexchange, http://www.nexchange.com

Clients: TravelNow.com, Cox Interactive Media (about 30
sites), GenerationA.com, Weather.com +++

Service: Nexchange can work with you in two ways. Content
sites requiring merchandising help to grow their ecommerce
sales get a live team of expert merchandisers assigned to
them. They basically do what Fizzylab does only with human
labor instead of software. Nexchange’s other program is a
series of “plug and play” content products you can run on
your site which have been pre-imbedded with ecommerce
merchandising links and ads. Examples: An article about the
Harry Potter craze complete with a kiosk selling related
products. Holidays are big -- Nexchange offers sites
everything from Father’s Day to Valentine’s Day “pre-
merchandised content.”

Cost: There’s absolutely no cost to implement at this time …
but Nexchange takes 75-95% of each sale made as their
commission. Occasionally there are special short-term deals
where you get more.

Notable Quote: Kathy van Pelt, VP Marketing, “Our feeling is
that the automated tools are very good for capturing direct
sales opportunities. But if they see the word ‘travel,’ all
you get is a bag offer. A human person will think to add an
offer to send flowers to someone at home. So we combine
direct and indirect sales opportunities.”