CC,
You may recall my mumblings late last year (http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=12136018) regarding ClickChoice and their free product, myFilter, vis-a-vis Net Shepherd's webpage ratings.
ClickChoice's other products,
- myFirewall, which "protects against Internet hackers coming inside your machine and looking at files (like your financial data), taking files, or leaving problem files behind. Because myFirewall can be set up with protections, privileges and restrictions on a per-user basis, you can determine who is allowed to send and receive which files into or out of the PC. In addition, ClickChoice myFirewall provides the unique ability to manage cookies so that cookie files are associated with the current user, increasing the relevance of the Internet to each individual." This certainly is an interesting free product that most Internet users would look into, especially given the security issues these days. clickchoice.com
- myBrowser "sits on top of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator, allowing multiple users in a household to customize the look of the browser for each of them. The free software comes with tools that include several sample 'skin' that users can use or modify, or they can create their own." myBrowser provides other capabilities, including increased e-commerce security and the option to obtain alerts regarding special promotions from vendors (a gem for those vendors, obviously!). clickchoice.com
I believe the ClickChoice merger with Net Shepherd is important because it extends the power of the same technology fuelling Answers.com, in that:
- Net Shepherd's technology facilitates myFilter, myFirewall, and myBrowser for their users in a loop by using their task force and their powerful Internet Community Management System (ICMS), and
- ClickChoice, "which generates and distributes online user data in real time to enable e-marketers to precisely target individuals", provides the real-time information about the users to business/retailer subscribers whom everybody is stepping over each other for. See Message 12136056
The already low cost of Net Shepherd's task force, coupled with the efficiency and valuable data provided by the task force, is drawn upon for so many sources of revenue. I suppose what I'm trying to say is the cost of the obtaining the information is low, the accuracy and speed is high. On top of that, they are able to sell it over and over again to several business segments: e-marketers and traditional market researchers; companies focused on customer relationship management and/or customer-driven industries; etc.
myFilter and myFirewall are yet more sources of information to sell to businesses. Basically, they're like "one-stop shopping" for business-valuable information! :)
Well, myFilter is now available for download (with myFirewall scheduled for early 2000 and myBrowser in late 2000).
More importantly, I wonder if the launch of myFilter is a prelude to something that may be coming soon.
Below is the details of how ClickChoice's flagship product, myFilter, works.
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Each time a member of your household tries to access an Internet page, ClickChoice myFilter automatically checks the ClickChoice database for the page rating and suitability for the user. Based on the predetermined rating levels you've set for household members, each person is granted or denied access to the page (so, for example, your 8-year-old may be denied a page that your 16-year-old can access). This process is transparent and instantaneous.
Pages are rated as accessible to children (through 12 years of age), teens (through 17) and adults. In addition, there's an "Adult (+)" classification that allows full access to the Internet. ClickChoice ratings cover a variety of categories, including pornography, profanity, pyrotechnics, hate, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling, violence and cult activity.
The heart of ClickChoice's rating system is a unique collaboration of machine filtering and an exclusive community of thousands of Internet users like you. First, the ClickChoice myFilter search engine scans more than 100 million Internet pages and flags possible objectionable or unwanted content. Then our community of human reviewers goes to work, analyzing pages for contextual and subjective issues, based on both visual and verbal content.
The individual page ratings are stored in the world's largest database of rated Internet sites. This database is continually updated and expanded, capable of adding tens of thousands of new ratings every day. Thanks to our exclusive "Rapid Response System," if a user requests a page that is not in our database, the request will be forwarded immediately to the community, which typically will rate it within 30 minutes to an hour (and many times, even faster). In that way, ClickChoice myFilter always refers to a current and complete list of rated sites, providing 100 percent coverage of the sites that you and your family visit.
clickchoice.com
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Sorry for the length of the post (CC, you asked me to expand, and boy, did I!)
Denise. |
