RealNames Subscription Price Hiked to $100

Centraal Corp. in Palo Alto, CA, creator of the RealNames System, said it is raising the price of its annual RealNames subscriptions from $40 to $100.

The company has received more than 6,000 subscriptions to date, in a period of only six weeks. The price hike takes effect on July 1. Centraal said it thinks the price increase is justified through the addition of a RealName Data Management organization that manages the integrity of the RealName database.

The RealNames System directs brand navigators (those looking for product or service information specifically about a key brand name) directly to a Web site or page within a site. Centraal defines RealNames resolutions as the equivalent of a direct link, similar to a click through in a banner ad.

The RealNames Management Team now examines, processes and manages the RealNames database.

“The RealNames System is changing with market demand. We have been talking to most of the leading advertising agencies and marketers who quickly see the value of the resolution. One hundred dollars a year is not much to pay to guarantee that a brand or company name is No. 1 on the search results on AltaVista’s Search service and soon on our other partner sites,” said Ted West, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Centraal.

With RealNames addresses, subscribers have the ability to use symbols (such as the ampersand in Barnes & Noble Books for example), numbers, letters and even foreign languages such as all Roman-based languages as well as Cyrllic, Greek and Turkish. In the next eight months Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Thai characters will be supported.

RealNames can direct brand navigators to a specific page within a Web site, rather than simply taking them to a Web site’s home page. With RealNames, users can type in a product, phrase, brand or slogan, and go directly to that page. Companies that are launching a new product, for example, can also test messages, and new product acceptance with their RealNames.

The system provides statistical data, such as how many times a given name is resolved (its popularity) and where the user originates.