FW: Claria releases PersonalWeb

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/business/03ecom.html?_r=2
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/business/03ecom.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pag
ewanted=print&oref=slogin> &oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
 
April 3, 2006
E-Commerce Report

Every Click You Make, They'll Be Watching You 

By BOB TEDESCHI

WOULD you trust a company enough to let it follow your every click online?

Claria, a company once vilified for raining pop-up advertisements across the
Internet through its Gator software, is betting its business that the answer
is yes. Claria said it would announce Monday the release of PersonalWeb, a
service that will let people download a piece of tracking software and
receive a home page filled with news stories and other information tailored
to their interests.

If a man, for example, downloaded the software and surfed through stories
about the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa
l_collegiate_athletic_assn/index.html?inline=nyt-org> N.C.A.A. basketball
tournament and car reviews, his PersonalWeb home page would reflect those
interests the next time he clicked to it. In addition to showing newer
headlines about cars and college basketball, the page might also feature ads
from car companies or for jerseys from the man's favorite team.

Claria says that because those ads are so closely aligned to the user's
interests and recent behavior, marketers will be willing to pay more than
they might on other sites for the ability to reach PersonalWeb users. 

That part of Claria's plan is convincing enough for some analysts, and
privacy advocates appear satisfied that Claria will stand by its pledge to
track only the computer (whose owner it does not identify), not the personal
information of the user. Whether many consumers will use the service anyway
- and give marketers an audience worth pursuing - is the big question.

"I'm not convinced that consumers will place enough of a value on
personalization that they'll be willing to download a piece of software and
change their home page just to try it," said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with
Nielsen/NetRatings, an Internet consultancy. "And it remains to be seen
whether Claria's personalization will yield something that much better than
the typical home page of today."

...

 

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