Centraal Enhances RealNames Database

Centraal Corp. said that it significantly enhanced the databases that make up its RealNames System.

Centraal launched the Real Name System in March as a new global naming system for navigating the Internet instead of using URLs. It began providing the service on AltaVista in May.

The enhancements supplement the RealNames service by adding names from several important categories of commonly used Web sites, the company said. To do this, Centraal’s internal team of RealNames analysts reviewed hundreds of thousands of Web sites over the past four months, and determined the RealName that most appropriately reflects each site.

Centraal added to the RealNames database:

• Tens of thousands of trademarks of common products currently used and owned by Fortune 500 companies and their subsidiaries.
• Stock Ticker symbols for every company on the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges.
• One hundred top finance and mutual fund sites.
• Hundreds of federal government agencies and organizations.
• Musical artists who record with Columbia, Reprise, Geffen, Warner Brothers and Elektra.
• Films with Web sites at Sony, MGM, Fox, Paramount, Miramax, FineLine and Dimension Films.
• All teams of the NFL, (Major League Baseball), WNBA, NBA, NHL (National Hockey League) and Major League Soccer.
• Two hundred American radio stations identified by their call signs and band.
• Programming for four major American networks, MTV and PBS
• All major universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad.
• Over five hundred high schools in the U.S. and abroad.

Additionally the RealName resolvers are now capable of identifying and properly resolving all two million .com, .org, .net, .edu domain names and all 60 million email addresses worldwide.

“This represents another milestone in our effort to deliver a ubiquitous, comprehensive, and high-quality namespace to Web site owners and the Internet user community,” said Keith Teare, founder and CEO of Centraal. “We do not expect to see users having to deal with URLs by the end of the century.”

A RealName resolution occurs when a user enters a specific or generic word into a navigation window (browser command line, search box, etc.) and is directed to a specific Web site, or provided with a list of RealNames subscribers. Since launching the service on AltaVista the use of RealNames rose from 300,000 resolutions per day to about 1 million, the company said.

“Our daily user rate has increased by 100% since the end of July, to nearly 6 million visitors per week. We also know that nearly 75% of these visitors are ‘unique users’,” said Ted West, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Centraal.

Centraal’s RealName resolvers claim more than 3 million RealNames. The past four months have shown that nearly 25% of all searches are brand-related; 10% are entertainment-related; 10% request large Web sites; and 15% are looking for download information. As the user base grows, Centraal said it will continue to provide subscribers with more aggregated analytical information.