blueorganizer

Tonight NY-based AdaptiveBlue is announcing the launch of the latest version of their BlueOrganizer Firefox (and Flock) add-on codenamed Indigo. I had a discussion with CEO Alex Iskold and Biz Dev Director Fraser Kelton about the new features and my notes are below.

Iskold loves to talk about "semantic Web" -- I think he has used the term more than any other single person online today. In simple terms, BlueOrganizer is a "smarter" way to browse. It takes normal links and enhances them. It senses what a page is about and can switch how it handles the page based on content type. For example, if you are on a book page on Amazon, BlueOrganizer knows and adjusts the links it presents to you. If it's a movie site, you might see Fandango but you wouldn't see that as an option on a music page. The little icons on the toolbar change to reflect what type of page it is.

There is a tie-into many of the major social services including: Twitter, Tumblr and Lijit which lets you export your saved items directly. It's a good way to get your favorites out to your friends quickly.

When you install BlueOrganizer, it filters through your Internet history to determine what initially shows up on your BlueOrganizer profile. Iskold says that none of this data is transmitted to AdaptiveBlue.

One of the interesting bits I noticed when watching the video is that if you install the Smartlinks widget (another AdaptiveBlue product), it automatically adds BlueLinks to the site. This is a very smart distribution move. Once you install the BlueOrganizer add-on, it scans Web pages and injects the SmartLinks into the page as it finds them. It's a good idea but at the same time, could it take away my chance to earn affiliate revenue? If I have a link to a book on Amazon using my affiliate code, and then the person goes to Amazon thru the SmartLink, I lose that sale. Perhaps there is a way to engineer it so I still receive credit.

The add-on also makes the most out of microformats so if you click on an address (that has microformats in use), it presents the address with links including Google Maps and other location-based information. The system also recognizes 500 common names and by clicking on a name, it provides a menu of options including Wikipedia and Google Search.

Some stats that Iskold shared include: 1.3 million downloads of the add-on, 5000 blogs have installed SmartLinks and hundreds of thousands of active users of BlueOrganizer.

The company continues with the same revenue model we have written about previously -- affiliate sales. When you click to purchase a book or movie through BlueOrganizer and don't have the affiliate field set, the commission goes to AdaptiveBlue. Amazon came out last week with a strong notice about people using their own affiliate code for sales. Not sure how that impacts how the affiliate codes work with BlueOrganizer.

AdaptiveBlue has launched their latest version of their BlueOrganizer Firefox plugin. Named "Denim" it offers a variety of new features to help site visitors, publishers and plugin users. Richard and Duncan have done a good job of explaining the new features so I thought I would take a stab at the benefits for the site publisher.

The new smartlinks option allows you to setup links that offer the BlueMark panel which offers many options for that product. This works mainly for books, music, dvds, etc. So rather than just linking to Amazon (which still remains), a small bluemark box appears next to the links (only the ones you specify) and when you click the bluemark box, a layer opens (see image below) displaying all of the options available for that product and category.

What's great is that for publishers, you can now monetize most of the links. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. So whereas before, your link went to Amazon and if someone prefers to order from B&N, you see nothing, now you have an opportunity to monetize no matter what the customer wants to use. Your Bluemark box also offers more options as displayed below.

What I like about this new bluemark option is that I determine what links get the special treatment and which don't. This was one of the big beefs with Snap previews... they were on or off, no middle ground.

Also, the BlueBadge widget (as seen on left menu) will now also offer the BlueMark option. And as always you can monetize the widget as well.

One thing that I would suggest is that they look at offering me some custom options within the BlueMark. So I could add Viddler to the list of movie clip options or add Buy.com to the list of booksellers.

In summary, I think these new publisher monetization options should help AdaptiveBlue push their offering to new heights. Check out our previous AdaptiveBlue coverage including my interview with Alex Iskold, founder.

Editor's note: AdaptiveBlue is a current advertiser on CenterNetworks.

AdaptiveBlue has released the 3.1 version of their BlueOrganizer product. I like the tool because it takes Firefox (or Flock) and makes it a truly personalized experience. And since I use SmugMug, this makes it that much better.

The BlueOrganizer supports almost 100 sites in about 15 categories. From the BlueOrganizer overview: BlueOrganizer is the new smart-browsing tool for Firefox and Flock. It unleashes the information hidden in the pages of your favorite web sites, and allows you to quickly do what you want to do: find, compare, upload, download, post, rent, reserve, rank, keep track, subscribe, share, and more... The Web is even more connected with BlueOrganizer!

Disclaimer: BlueOrganizer is a current advertiser on CenterNetworks