FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jocelyn Hutt, Editor 617-559-1102 jhutt@homeportfolio.com |
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New Service for Retailers Expands HomePortfolio’s Collaborative Search Network | |||
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NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS, January 17, 2008 —
HomePortfolio®, the leading Internet search network for home design and renovation, today announced an exciting new service for retailers. Customized Collaborative Search™, which will be rolled out this quarter, lets dealers and showrooms offer visitors to their Web sites the same kind of rich collaborative search experience that is available to users of HomePortfolio’s flagship site (www.homeportfolio.com).
“While we have powered dealer and showroom Web sites in the past, this new service takes syndication of our search technology and database of 2,000 premium and luxury-tier brands to a whole new level,” said HomePortfolio Co-Founder and CEO, Rolly Rouse. “With Customized Collaborative Search, we not only give local showrooms a gorgeous, interactive presentation of their brands and products, but also powerful, networked tools for collaboration that deepen their relationship with customers,” said Rouse. The new service goes far beyond simple syndication of HomePortfolio’s best-of-breed product database. It lets retailers offer their customers an entirely new kind of online product search experience, one that couples search with collaboration. As before, users can search easily using a wide array of criteria – style, shape, type, material, color, and others. Users can “find similar” products based on individual product attributes (e.g. “stainless steel”), or based on desired combinations of attributes. Enormous images help users decide what they want. Now, HomePortfolio’s Customized Collaborative Search service makes searching, saving, and sharing even more powerful and effective. Each user can collaborate with their design team, friends, and family using a personal Home Design Portfolio®. Images are exchanged electronically. Notes are attached to images and sent back and forth. Team members are notified of changes via e-mail. In the past, consumers would buy stacks of magazines and tear out pages to show others what they wanted. Today, they go to the Web first. But individual Web sites operate as silos. They often have wish lists, but none of these are designed to work together. Saving, organizing, and sharing product options is often frustratingly hard. Collaborating on decisions is difficult. With Customized Collaborative Search, saved products no longer exist only in silos. They work across HomePortfolio’s entire Search Network. When users save a product at a retailer Web site, they can see it at HomePortfolio.com alongside all of the products they’ve saved at all of the sites they’ve visited (provided those sites are members of the The HomePortfolio Network). For example, bar stools saved on a furniture retailer’s Web site can be paired up on a user’s computer monitor with island cabinet options from a kitchen & bath showroom and green granite countertops from a local fabricator. Customized Collaborative Search offers dealers and showrooms valuable content for their Web sites. It creates a closer connection with the consumers and design professionals who are desired customers or prospects. It drives traffic to showrooms. It facilitates clear communication, and expedites purchasing decisions. As the housing downturn deepens, Customized Collaborative Search is a powerful new tool that can help retailers reach and serve their markets more cost-effectively. Customized Collaborative Search for Retailers is one more building block in HomePortfolio’s larger plan to create a collaborative search network that spans across thousands of individual Web sites. Toward this end, HomePortfolio is developing syndicated partnerships with manufacturers, retailers, design professionals, magazines, newpapers, television programs, and industry trade shows and events. Just a few weeks ago HomePortfolio announced a “first-of-its-kind” partnership with the Architectural Digest Home Design Show (March 6-9, 2008 at Pier 94 in New York City). Under this agreement, HomePortfolio is powering an Interactive Product Guide for the show’s Web site. The Guide will give attendees an in-depth preview of each exhibitor’s products (to learn more see www.homeportfolio.com/ArchDigestShow). The Interactive Product Guide will be maintained by HomePortfolio throughout the year, until it is updated for the 2009 show. About HomePortfolio HomePortfolio — an independent, privately held company — is the only Internet search company focused on home design collaboration. HomePortfolio’s pioneering Web platform for collaborative search showcases 700,000 products from 2,055 of the best manufacturer brands, as well as information on 100,000 local showrooms. Consumers, architects, interior designers, and builders use HomePortfolio to find exactly what they want, and to collaborate on new homes, renovations, and redecorating projects. It’s like tearing pages out of magazines, but the products that are saved and shared are interactive and alive with information and connectivity. HomePortfolio’s personal Home Design Portfolio® helps users save time and avoid costly mistakes. # # #
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