Aggregate Knowledge Unveils the Internet's First Discovery Service


Going beyond traditional search, new Web service helps consumers instantly 'discover' relevant content across individual or multiple websites

SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 30 /-- DEMO 07 -- Aggregate Knowledge today unveiled the Internet's first service that emulates the way people naturally discover information and shop for products offline. Aggregate Knowledge's Discovery Services, demonstrated today at the prestigious DEMO 07 Conference in Palm Desert, go far beyond traditional keyword search by tapping into the actual behavior of other online users to suggest relevant content.

"Whether we're shopping or dining at a restaurant, we routinely look to the choices made by those around us," said Paul Martino, Aggregate Knowledge's founder and CEO. "Imagine you notice a waiter delivering a dessert to the next table and think 'I'll have what she's having.' Or perhaps you pass a busy boutique and conclude an item is the season's 'must have.' Chance discoveries such as these occur every day in our offline lives. With Aggregate Knowledge's Discovery Services, these serendipitous discoveries can now happen online as well."

Aggregate Knowledge achieves its breakthrough in discovery and navigation by observing the anonymous behavior of customers to anticipate each new customer's intent and to instantly surface relevant alternatives. By employing a super computing architecture, which aggregates billions of data points in real time, the content delivered instantly adapts to changing consumer behavior. And since Aggregate Knowledge requires neither personal information nor site registrations, both personal identity and proprietary information remain secure.

"Our mission is to improve the experience of every online user and the success of every Internet business by making wonderful and unexpected discovery a part of being online," said Martino. "This is achieved not by typing in a few magic words into a search box, but by emulating the way people behave in their everyday lives."

Aggregate Knowledge's first product implementations help consumers find new products and content within the retail sites where they shop and within media sites where they browse for news. Later implementations will feature content syndication that brings content across multiple sites to users.

Discovery for Retail(TM) suggests relevant products to shoppers and achieves breakthroughs in sales, customer conversion, shopping cart size and site ease-of-use for online retailers. It is already used by companies such as Overstock.com, one of the world's largest online retailers, with an inventory of over 800,000 SKUs.

"Over 20% of all products purchased on Overstock during the holiday season were directed through the Discovery Window that Aggregate Knowledge powers on our site," said Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com's CEO. "Our customers love the new choices they are given, and we are thrilled with the results -- higher sales conversions, larger shopping cart sizes and increased customer engagement and satisfaction." (See accompanying press release titled "New Internet Discovery Service from Aggregate Knowledge Drives Over 20% of Holiday Purchases on Overstock.com" found at http://aggregateknowledge.com/news.)

Discovery for Media(TM) meets the ultimate challenge of delivering relevant online content in a fast-changing environment. When news breaks, Aggregate Knowledge responds by tracking real-time reader behavior and adapting its content delivery to meet emerging consumer interests and associations. Aggregate Knowledge Discovery for Media achieves higher page views and reader time spent on their sites, as well as greater click-throughs. Discovery for Media currently powers the Discovery Window for the WashingtonPost.com.

Unveiled today is Aggregate Knowledge's Collective Discovery Network(TM), the industry's first service to bring Discovery across multiple online sites. Instead of just showing books related to additional books or news stories related to other news stories, Aggregate Knowledge's Collective Discovery Network surfaces relevant content regardless of type or location. Unlike a traditional ad network that places advertisements in front of customers, the Collective Discovery Network delivers relevant content, products and services.

For example, if a customer is reading a news story about the home team, an ad network will place an advertisement for a ticket seller next to a story about the upcoming game. As a member of the Collective Discovery Network, the actual tickets the customer wants to purchase are presented along with other relevant content such as player information, related stories and merchandise.

Aggregate Knowledge customers automatically become part of the Collective Discovery Network. This creates a larger, richer and more relevant collection of information for users than could ever be offered by a single site. Currently in internal beta, the Collective Discovery Network will be publicly available on sites later this year.

"Aggregate Knowledge is defining the new category of discovery on the Web," said Chris Shipley, DEMO's executive producer. "By tapping into the collective wisdom of crowds, it is giving Website owners and their users unexpected and often delightful new things to explore, learn and buy -- things which they would not have found using traditional keyword search. The new era of discovery is upon us and Aggregate Knowledge is clearly leading the way." Aggregate Knowledge's Discovery Services are deployed as a Web service in two weeks. The service is offered free of charge for the first 30 days, followed by a pay-for-performance pricing model.

About Aggregate Knowledge
Aggregate Knowledge offers the industry's first online Collective Discovery Services that emulate the way people naturally discover and shop for products and information offline. Built on top of a sophisticated, super computing architecture, Aggregate Knowledge harnesses the behavior of users to fundamentally change the way people navigate and engage online. Aggregate Knowledge delivers significant revenue enhancement to site owners by providing real-time, collective merchandising and navigation capabilities. Funded by premier venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the company's management team includes veterans from IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Sun and Tribe.net. More information can be found at www.aggregateknowledge.com/.

All Topics