Centraal Corp. in Palo Alto, CA, creator of the RealNames System, said it is raising the price of its annual RealNames subscriptions from $40 to $100.
The company has received more than 6,000 subscriptions to date, in a period of
only six weeks. The price hike takes effect on July 1. Centraal said it thinks
the price increase is justified through the addition of a RealName Data
Management organization that manages the integrity of the RealName database.
The RealNames System directs brand navigators (those looking for product or
service information specifically about a key brand name) directly to a Web
site or page within a site. Centraal defines RealNames resolutions as the
equivalent of a direct link, similar to a click through in a banner ad.
The RealNames Management Team now examines, processes and manages the
RealNames database.
“The RealNames System is changing with market demand. We have been talking to
most of the leading advertising agencies and marketers who quickly see the
value of the resolution. One hundred dollars a year is not much to pay to
guarantee that a brand or company name is No. 1 on the search results on
AltaVista’s Search service and soon on our other partner sites,” said Ted
West, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Centraal.
With RealNames addresses, subscribers have the ability to use symbols (such as
the ampersand in Barnes & Noble Books for example), numbers, letters and even
foreign languages such as all Roman-based languages as well as Cyrllic, Greek
and Turkish. In the next eight months Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese,
Korean and Thai characters will be supported.
RealNames can direct brand navigators to a specific page within a Web site,
rather than simply taking them to a Web site’s home page. With RealNames,
users can type in a product, phrase, brand or slogan, and go directly to that
page. Companies that are launching a new product, for example, can also test
messages, and new product acceptance with their RealNames.
The system provides statistical data, such as how many times a given name is
resolved (its popularity) and where the user originates.
