Content Matters

Alacra Pulse Named SIIA CODiE Award Finalist

Alacra Street Pulse has been named a finalist in the Best Content Aggregation Service category for the 2009 CODiE Awards, sponsored by the Software and Information Industry Association. The annual SIIA CODiEs are peer-awards, voted on by members of the industry association. Voting by SIIA members begins today, with the ultimate winners announced at the SIIA NetGain conference in early May.

 

The Pulse Platform, which was launched four weeks ago, combines content from traditional news sources with a group of about 1,000 hand-selected blogs. The content is then run through our proprietary semantic tagger, which extracts entities, such as companies or people, and events, such as analyst upgrades or downgrades, mergers and acquisitions, corporate bankruptcies and more.

 

Street Pulse, the first application on the Pulse Platform, aims to answer the question “what do key opinion leaders have to say…” about a given company. By aggregating comments from sell-side, credit and industry analysts, along with key bloggers, Street Pulse provides a single view into what’s being said by key opinion leaders about a company or industry.

 

Street Pulse uses a freemium business model. There’s a completely free version available at http://pulse.alacra.com. That version is supported by advertising and the sale of contextually relevant content from the Alacra Store. A professional version, available for license, provides additional functionality such as portfolios, email alerts, enhanced sharing capabilities and advanced search.

 

In the coming weeks, Alacra will be introducing additional applications on the Pulse Platform, including Deal Pulse (M&A events), Legal Pulse (law firm mentions in the news) and Weak Pulse (events for distressed companies). As with Street Pulse, each of these will have a free and a professional version.

 

Alacra always gets its best ideas from our customers. I welcome you to use Street Pulse and send us your feedback.

Seeking Social Media Marketing Intern

Alacra is currently recruiting for a social media marketing intern for this summer.

Candidates should have hands-on experience with social media applications – blogging, Twitter, social bookmarking and related areas. The Social Media Marketing Intern will provide marketing support for a series of products launched on the Alacra Pulse platform and related products. Specific tasks may include authoring blog posts, posting tweets and engaging users via Twitter, researching and identifying potential PR opportunities and exploring ways in which we might engage our user community both within our existing sites and on external social media platforms.

Candidates should have a practical knowledge of and experience with social media applications (Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc), solid business writing skills and a strong intellectual curiosity.

For more information @ me @graubart or send your CV to barry-dot-graubart-at-alacra-dot-com.

Please feel free to forward this to others who might be interested.

Alacra Pulse Launch Wrap

The past two days have been a lot of fun. We launched Alacra Pulse Wednesday morning and it's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday was a whirlwind for me. I woke up with adrenaline racing, which quickly turned to "what if..." anxiety during the commute then back to an adrenaline rush the rest of the day.

This was a pretty exciting launch for Alacra. Most of our products focus on niche markets and the products generally sit behind a subscriber login wall.

Alacra Pulse was different for us. It’s probably the first product we’ve built that has strong potential appeal for the mainstream user. Plus, it’s the first freemium app that we’ve built, so it’s out there for the world to see. And (we hoped) those factors would also give it appeal to media and blogs.

The launch went largely as we’d hoped. The product performed as expected and the media response exceeded expectations.

We did more preparation on the PR side than we’d done in the past. Following a recommendation from David Meerman Scott, we built a media room for Alacra Pulse. It’s nothing flashy, but it gave us a structure to package the press release, product details, screen shots, FAQs and other background information in a single place. That made it easier for bloggers and journalists to write the story.

The day started well, when the launch was picked up by the respected blog A VC (authored by Alacra board member Fred Wilson) and by FreePint’s VIP LiveWire service. Those were followed by an article by Michelle Manafy at eContent (btw - if you haven't seen it, you should read this FierceContentManagement interview with Michelle).

The Alacra Pulse launch got picked up by several other news sites and blogs throughout the day, including this thoughtful post by Steve Sieck at SKS Advisors, and later peaking with a piece on TechCrunch that afternoon.

Throughout the day we also monitored tweets. There were more than a hundred Pulse-related tweets during that first day.

Of course, the launch is just the beginning. In the days and weeks to come, we'll be working hard to build on that initial splash to grow the Pulse user base. If you've been using Pulse and have some feedback, please drop me a note or post a comment below. If you haven't tried it yet, visit the site and then share your thoughts.

BTW - You can follow @AlacraPulse on Twitter.

Introducing Alacra Pulse: Where Wall Street and the Alternative Media Meet

I’m excited this morning to publicly announce the launch of Alacra Street Pulse, the product that we’ve been working on for the past 6-9 months.

Street Pulse was borne of two related trends that we’ve been following for the past 12-24 months:

1. The diminishing role of sell-side research; and
2. The rise of the professional blogger

In discussions with clients, we’ve heard that there is a strong interest in alternative media, but that there was an even greater concern about quality. Our clients were not ready to turn on a fire hose of blog content for bankers and other professionals to consume.

So, today, we introduce the Alacra Pulse Platform and its first application, Street Pulse.

Alacra Pulse finds, filters and packages web-based content that lets you quickly consume relevant, important information about a company. 

Alacra Pulse has two parts. The underlying platform reads web-based RSS feeds – from newspapers, magazine, trade publication sites and blogs – and extracts information from each article or post.  We first extract or tag entities (companies) from each piece of content and then we look for business events such as an analyst comment, a bankruptcy filing, news or rumors of an M&A transaction, or a quote by a CEO.  On top of the platform sit a series of event-specific applications, which drive current awareness, competitive intelligence and idea generation for users.

Alacra Street Pulse, our first app on the new platform, answers the question “what do key opinion leaders have to say about…” a company today? Street Pulse brings together comments by traditional analysts – sell-side, industry and credit analysts – with those of a group of hand-selected bloggers.

Alacra Pulse uses the freemium business model. There’s a free version at http://pulse.alacra.com. That version is supported by advertising plus links to contextually relevant content for purchase at the Alacra Store.

There’s also a professional version, which provides added functionality like portfolios, email alerts, information sharing features and advanced search capabilities.

In the coming months, we will launch additional event-specific applications focusing on M&A deals & rumors, distressed companies, CEO quotes and more.

I'd love to hear your feedback on Street Pulse. Please visit Street Pulse and play with the app. Let me know what you think, either in the comments below or drop me a note at barry-dot-graubart at alacra-dot-com.

Does Freemium work for b2b?

One of the more successful business models in the web world has been the freemium model, where you give away a basic version of the product to the masses, then charge power users for added functionality. The popular example of this is photo sharing service Flickr, where most users use the free version, but some (like me) pay a nominal annual subscription to have multiple photo albums and other bells and whistles.

Most examples of freemium have come in the b2c space, including products like Flickr, Trillian or Skype. There have been some freemium-like models around b2b content, but those have mostly been built on providing limited content for free (e.g. Hoover’s or the FT) or on a temporary basis, rather than providing full content for free, with functionality being the difference in the premium version.

I believe the freemium model can also thrive in the b2b space. This is especially the case in a difficult economy. In a market like the current one, the freemium model helps in two clear ways:

• Brand awareness and lead generation: in a tight economy, marketing dollars are scarce and the cost of introducing a new product can be daunting. If your offering is compelling, the freemium model provides an avenue for you to generate brand awareness through word-of-mouth and social media marketing.
• Shorter sales cycles: long sales cycles can be like a slow death for a company. In this market, budgets are being cut and it’s difficult to generate new spending. The freemium model allows you to cheaply get your product in the hands of potential customers, some of whom will desire the added functionality of the premium version.

A frequently raised concern is that in a down economy, users will “make do” with the free version and not upgrade to the premium version. While that’s a valid concern, if your premium version provides quantifiable benefits over the free version, there will be a portion of your audience who will pay for that. There will always be peripheral users who might have purchased the premium version were there not a free one, but chances are those are the users who see only modest value in the product. Whether they would have bought in the first place is questionable and if they did, it would have likely been a long sales cycle.

The freemium model doesn't make sense for every product or service. In order to succeed, the free part has to be comprehensive and compelling, so that users will become heavy users (can't simply provide teaser content). At the same time, the premium features have to be so compelling that for a portion of your user base will convert to the paid version.

This Wednesday, Alacra will put this model to the test, launching a new platform and application with both a freemium and premium version. Check back tomorrow for details.

Alacra Book Wins SIIA CODiE Award

Tonight were the 2008 SIIA CODiE awards, which recognize excellence by companies in the Content, Software and Education markets.

I was honored to accept a CODiE on behalf of Alacra for our Alacra Book application.
Alacra Book was the winner in the Best Solution Integrating Content into Workflow category. It was especially gratifying to be selected when we consider the tough competition in that category, including CCH, Cicero, EDGAR Online and Generate.

The CODiEs are awarded through the votes of our peers in the content, software and education space. This year, there were over 1,000 CODiE applications submitted, so we're somewhat humbled to be recognized among the many industry leaders.

During the past year, we have upgraded Alacra Book clients to the latest version of Alacra Book. The product enhancements were directly driven by client feedback, so we feel confident that the new version is living up to the goal of integrating content into workflow.

Congratulations to Product Manager Janet Tarendash, Vice President of Development Ajit Tharaken and the entire Alacra team who have been actively involved in the development, testing and rollout of Alacra Book.

Research Zeitgeist - Q1

Research Recap has released its first quarter Research Zeitgeist.

Research Recap, launched by Alacra last summer, highlights interesting credit, investment, economic and market research.  Each week, the most widely-read posts are noted in the Research Zeitgeist.  Then, each quarter, a comprehensive Zeitgeist identifies those posts that received the most attention during the three-month period.

The Research Zeitgeist for the first quarter of 2008 was released this morning. Not surprisingly, the most widely read posts of the quarter largely reflected the credit crunch and market turbulence of recent months.

The top posts for the quarter were:

1. Warning Signs Seen in Rising Credit Card Delinquencies (CreditSights)
2. Research Primer: Credit Default Swaps (Fitch)
3. Research Primer: Structured Investment Vehicles (Moody's)
4. Bond Insurer Downgrades Could Lead to Bank Downgrades  (S&P) 
5. Role of Hedge Funds in Subprime Crisis Examined (International Monetary Fund)
6. Subprime Mortgage Lending Primer (NERA Economic Consulting)
7. Market-led Measures Not Enough to Solve Subprime Fallout (Oxford Analytica)
8. Write-down Spotlight Shifts to European Banks (CreditSights)
9. Alternative Proposals to Stem Subprime Foreclosures (various)
10. Audit Integrity Questions Citigroup's Risk Assessment (Audit Analytics)

Hmmm... I think I'm sensing a theme here.  Perhaps if Ben Bernanke were reading Research Recap he might be less afraid to mention the R-word.  I hope that Q2 and Q3 can bring some posts about growth and recovery, but I'm not optimistic.

Alacra Book Named 2008 SIIA CODiE Finalist

Alacra Book has been named a finalist in the SIIA CODiE awards.

The annual CODiE awards recognize leading products across three groups: Content, Technology and Education. Nominated products are reviewed by an SIIA-appointed judging panel who select the finalists. Winners will be selected by SIIA member votes and will be announced at the upcoming SIIA NetGain conference.

Alacra Book is a finalist in the Best Solution Integrating Content Into Workflow category (OK, that's a mouthful to say, but it's fairly descriptive of the category).

Alacra Book is a workflow application which enables investment banks and professional services firms to streamline the process of creating briefing books and public information books (PIBs), a key element of the business development process. Traditionally, creation of a PIB took an analyst or associate 3-4 hours, utilizing the individual products from each of their content providers. Alacra Book cuts that time to 10-15 minutes by integrating all of the databases into a simple workflow.  Today, 19 of the 20 largest investment banks have cut their research costs through use of Alacra Book.

The CODiE's are a competitive process - there were more than 1,000 nominations.  We're thrilled to have been named a finalist and look forward to the announcement of the winners May 20.  For those of you attending NetGain, I'll be a panelist on the Platforms - Will they Tilt In Your Favor? panel and hope to see you there.

AlacraStore Case Study

I was thrilled that MarketingSherpa selected the Alacra Store as the subject of its latest case study, entitled "How Pay-Per-Article Option Tripled Revenue for Subscription Site". Those in marketing or eCommerce have come to rely upon MarketingSherpa's case studies for insights and real-world examples of successful online marketing.

The case study looks back at the brief history of the Alacra Store and documents its growth, particularly the strong growth of the past year. The article also provides a look at the overall platform that Alacra has launched in order to fuel future growth of the Alacra Store, including our Research Recap blog; Alacra Content Marketplace, the infrastructure to scale our integration of new content sources; and the Premium Content Ad Network, our just launched affiliate program that connects content with readers of financial blogs and websites. 

The case study was well-written and accurately depicts the steps that were taken. However, I'd like to make one small correction to the record. The writing style of the MarketingSherpa case studies tends to attribute all of the efforts to a single individual. In the case of the Alacra Store, it was clearly a team effort. I'd like to recognize a few of the indivduals who have been responsible for building the Alacra Store into what it is today - Jarid Lukin, Ron Waksman and Tony Bruni, among others, deserve the recognition for their efforts.

The full Alacra Store case study is available on the MarketingSherpa site.

Alacra seeks Business Development Manager

Alacra has an opening for an aggressive business development manager with 1-3 years experience in an online biz dev role. This position will be responsible for recruiting partners for our newest offering, the Premium Content Ad Network, along with related products.

Candidates should have a proven track record in targeting and recruiting partners for an online business and should have a strong understanding of internet business models including affiliate marketing and online advertising.  This role requires someone comfortable with all facets of web 2.0 technology. This is a true biz dev role, not a sales position.

The position is based in our downtown NYC headquarters.

Qualified candidates should email their CV to nyjobs (at) alacra (dot) com.

Full position details are provided on the Alacra site.