Despite a contraction in some sectors of the Internet economy, record- breaking attendance at Internet World demonstrated the staying power of Web-enabled commerce.
Citibank, Chase and CompuBank were among the exhibitors, but you'd know it wasn't a banking conference-and not just by the 50,000 attendees. The guy with the pierced tongue explained he had taken out the series of earrings that still marked his ear, not in an effort to appear professional but because earrings are no longer cool.
The appropriately named James Dean was an exhibitor at Internet World, the annual conference organized by the magazine of the same name. Dean was demonstrating Athlete.com, a teen sports portal that features streaming media, which recorded our conversation using browser-based videoconferencing.
Although the few banking sites in one of the three exhibit halls seemed flat by comparison, some attendees suggested that there was a new and desirable sense of purpose at this major annual event. "People are getting more serious," said Pablo Ouziel, vice president of corporate development for AskIt.Com, an automated query response site, akin to AskJeeves.com. "Before, Internet World was a big marketing show, but venture capital is hard to get right now."
Others agreed, suggesting there's far less emphasis on consumer sites and even less on gimmicks. "There are fewer dot.coms and more infrastructure," said Jonathan Frances, national account manager with Digex, a Dallas-based firm that hosts Web sites. Clients include Fleet Boston and J.P. Morgan & Co.
But there was still too much hype for Bill Hencie, managing principal of Hencie, another Dallas firm. Hencie designed E*Trade's site, among others. Positioned adjacent to a booth hoisting jugglers and drummers into the air on a contemporarily designed "crane," Hencie said there's still too much noise-in every sense. "You can't hear. It's overwhelming."
A bit like the Internet?
Peter Jacobsen, a principal in Advanta Growth Capital, an investment fund subsidiary of Advanta Corp., based in Spring House, PA, opined on other trends reflected at the conference. "Wireless is enormous this year; it was nonexistent last year," he said. (A supplier of software for mobile employees, Hand, reckoned it was one of at least a half- dozen wireless application vendors at the Microsoft Corp. booth.)
Jacobsen says electronic customer relationship management, or eCRM, also is "big" this year. Meanwhile, though, interest in banner ads, streaming media and personalization has waned, he says.
Advanta Growth has invested in AskIt, a provider of natural language processing software that automatically answers text questions posed by online customers.
Following are brief notes on some of the financial services companies, as well as vendors targeting them, that participated in Internet World 2000:
nWingspanbank.com is to go live with AskIt this month, Ouziel says, to help the cyber-bank educate its brokerage clients and respond to their customer service queries. This follows AskIt's use by senior employees of both the old Citicorp and Salomon Smith Barney. Since late fall, they have been able to get information on their investments in a private retirement fund through AskIt.com.
nCiti signed up close to 1,000 conference attendees for its aggregation service, MyCiti.com, according to estimates provided by marketing coordinator Maryann Giarratano. Citi registered 340 new users on each of the first two days during the three days in which the exhibit halls were open.
Its goal for the entire conference was to register 400 users, said another woman, who was demonstrating the service. Before being clear of BTN's purpose at the show, she made a mercurial swing from solicitous to accusatory: "Look! Are you really interested in signing on, or are you just taking pictures for another site?!" It took several layers of approval to avoid being expelled from the booth.
A representative for Bizzed, meanwhile, guarded the freebee yo-yos like her life savings. All this was a bit ironic, given the personal interest implied by "My" Citi, as well as the fact that Bizzed's chief executive has emphasized in interviews with BTN that much of the success of the small-business portal is owing to its personal touch.
MyCiti, which went live in July, had 50,000 users as of mid-October, the Citi representatives said. (That was the count before Internet World, which ran during the week of Oct. 23.) Powered by Yodlee Inc., it allows consumers to consolidate financial information, none of which need be related to Citi, plus non-financial information, such as frequent flyer miles.
nCompubank was touting, amongst other things, the "CoBanking" initiative it announced last February, when it shifted orientation from consumers to businesses. Essentially, Compubank is providing instant, private-label portals to non-banks. "A company that wants a banking portal doesn't want to have to get a bank charter, etc., etc.," explained Thomas Calabro, director of cobanking business development.
GE Corporation, which already provided mortgages and insurance through a subsidiary, added general banking services such as checking and electronic bill payment through Compubank last May. And HD Vest, a Dallas-based financial planner, also entered banking with a CompuBank provided portal, MyHDVest.com, which went live in the fall.
WebTrends Corp. apparently recognizes that there are two kinds of people who frequent bank Web sites: customers and potential customers. WebTrends wants to help Web-enabled companies of all kinds capture missed opportunities with these visitors.
Its CommerceTrends Visitor Relationship Management Platform is designed to turn browsers into customers, the company says. "It's a Web traffic analysis tool," adds Catherine Magoffin, customer marketing manager. "(CommerceTrends) monitors what the visitor's experience is, how they are using a site, whether they are a first-time visitor."
She says the product offers analytic tools that calculate the potential and actual return on investment for each customer. CommerceTrends also stores data that tracks where on the Web people entered a client's site. "This is great for our clients' marketing departments to see which campaigns are better."
WebTrends counts Citibank and Merrill Lynch among its customers.
CyberSource is in the business of Web security. Once a company grabs new customers, it probably wants to make sure their data is safe. The Fraud Screen service from CyberSource is designed to help banks and merchants ensure that people are who they claim to be.
"The soft under belly of the Internet is that every charge isn't necessarily guaranteed," says Juan Herrera, director of sales and alliances for the company. Fraud Screen takes consumer data and uses it to assure payment.
Usually, banks are only concerned with consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on an online order form. "But you're left with all this other information for banks to use in risk assessment," Herrera explains. Fraud Screen uses geographic data such as ZIP codes and area codes to verify people's identities. It also examines the kinds of purchases charged to a card to help tip off banks to potential fraud. "People don't usually charge two big screen TVs in one day."
Fraud Screen scores the risk of consumers on a scale of 0 to 99. The higher the score, the higher the risk level of the transaction. The bank, of course, can decide at what risk level it will approve charges.
CyberSource has partnered with Visa and sells Fraud Screen to "anyone selling consumer products," Herrera says. Clients include Motorola, Kmart and insurer AIG. N
