Day: May 1, 2000

ec-Content, Inc. announced the availability of its MRO content library, and content acquisition, management and maintenance offerings for B2B Net marketplaces, and introduced its Supplier Neutral Content methodology for managing and maintaining value-added content. A provider of comprehensive MRO content with a management and maintenance solution, ec-Content partners with Net marketplaces looking to increase the effectiveness of their online catalogs to attract and retain more buyers. Because no two suppliers, manufacturers or wholesalers collect, maintain and present content in exactly the same way, buyers often find there are many sources for price and product information coming from a single manufacturer or supplier, making it difficult to locate and purchase items. The acquisition and maintenance of electronic catalog content, and the ability to offer item cross-referencing are daunting tasks that require marketplaces to aggregate hundreds of thousands of items with different attributes, from different catalogs. ec-Content removes the burden of these tasks by providing Net marketplaces with access to a centralized content library of 5.2 million items, supporting tens of millions of SKUs, across 40,000 suppliers that can be customized to reflect buyers’ negotiated prices for each supplier. The complex MRO content is cleaned, normalized and standardized, then maintained on a scalable database. By outsourcing content management to ec-Content, buying organizations eliminate the need to track their purchases through hundreds of paper catalogs containing items with different attributes and often outdated pricing. ec-Content’s value-added content includes enhanced product descriptions, images, common identifiers, and current pricing information updated on a regularly scheduled basis. In addition, ec-Content provides quality assurance services including the ongoing tracking of anomalies, discontinued items and pricing changes, that improve Net marketplace content and in turn, makes the marketplace more valuable to its customers. To effectively manage the electronic catalog content needed by Net marketplaces, ec-Content assigns a universal number to each item in their database, and maps that identifier to corresponding supplier part numbers and commodity codes. The solution behind ec-Content’s Supplier Neutral Content is the Content Overlay Process that essentially overlays supplier catalogs that include varying descriptions for identical products. This eliminates the need for Net marketplaces to input multiple product descriptions from multiples suppliers, establishing a scalable process for managing and maintaining customized catalogs. www.eccontent.com

PanaSite Software Inc. announced the successful beta testing of its new Web-based content management service aids in establishing and managing a dynamic Web presence. PanaSite’s new Web-based subscription service is an online application that helps businesses get — and keep — a handle on issues that are critical to the successful execution of a company’s Internet strategy. Subscribers to the service have access to a customized turnkey Web content management solution that reduces the time and capital investment required to build and maintain a dynamic Web presence. The new PanaSite service eliminates the need for dedicated Web-focused technical specialists and puts control in the hands of the non-technical professionals who understand the content. It also eliminates the need for custom content management software. PanaSite’s application platform contains a set of tools capable of importing assets from an existing Web site anywhere on the Internet and automating a client-specific publishing workflow that tracks new content from creation through approval and deployment. Beta testing is wrapping-up this month for the as yet un-named service. Value-add services include opportunities for expanded exposure and revenue generation via the display and/or resale of a company’s original content to and through third-party Web sites and content distributors; opportunities to integrate interesting and dynamic content from a variety of content feeds for automatic publication to a subscriber’s Web site; and easy-to-use credit card processing, survey and contact information forms for collecting and tracking marketing data and leads, and more. The new Web-based subscription service is expected to be available June/July 2000, and joins PanaSite’s other content management solutions, PanaSite Enterprise and PanaSite Professional. There is a one-time set-up charge and a low monthly fee. PanaSite will also offer a 30-day free trial. www.panasite.com