CNET Channel Powering Content

As e-catalogs become the platform of choice to market technology solutions, IT companies must provide comprehensive product content that enables buyers to make well-informed purchase decisions while keeping down costs of providing this up-to-date, reliable and rich data.

Using patent-pending technologies and implementing business processes that govern product data and e-catalogs, CNET Channel meets the needs of IT channel companies by offering a single, consistent and constantly updated source of technology product information across multiple vendors and multiple markets that enables a global reach and quick time-to-market.

Already adopted by leading technology resellers, eTailers, distributors, manufacturers, shopping destinations and marketplaces, CNET Channel's technology foundation has become the de facto standard for defining the way in which products are classified, described and documented in the IT industry.

What makes CNET Channel's technology so indispensable to its customers?

• Completely platform independent – it can be stored and used within any database or e-business architecture making its integration easy, simple, and transparent
• Relational and indexed data structure – allows for the development of a fully customizable tools layer to build smooth catalog browsing, search-by-product attributes, product grouping and displaying, and side-by-side product comparisons
• Component-based product information – delivers the flexibility to build well-informed and fully customizable product information pages
• Multi-market – various countries localization differences in hardware and software
• Multi-lingual – product information coverage is available in 12 languages
• Highly compatible – can be merged with any personal content and data, thanks to clean SKU mapping

CNET Channel enables IT channel businesses to convert vast amounts of non-standardized product information from multiple sources into usable content for electronic product catalogs. By taking this OEM product information, processing it into a standard product data model and storing the standardized data in a structured data repository, CNET Channel delivers the most technologically sophisticated, cost-effective product content delivery solution in the industry.

CNET Channel's technology foundation is comprised of the following components:

• Product Data Model™ – a patent-pending common reference system to describe products in a given category from thousands of different vendors.  Today, the Product Data Model contains over 100 categories (e.g. laptops, handhelds, phones and memory) in 14 classes (e.g. systems, networking, video, and communications) for IT products and consumer electronics products. Over 9,000 attributes provide structured capture guidelines.
• Transactive Product Data™ – digital, granular, and highly structured product data resulting from the capture of a product's features into the Product Data Model. Enables Web sites' transactive functionalities (searching, comparing, configuring, etc.) and the building of well-informed and customized product information pages.

Together, these foundation technologies enable CNET Channel to provide the unbiased, consistent, and detailed product information (pictures, specs, marketing descriptions, etc.) IT channel businesses need to improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue. And CNET Channel enables customers to transform their e-commerce capabilities at a fraction of the cost of most internal operations.

CNET Channel is at the forefront of the industry, expanding the functionality and capabilities of our solutions in 2005 to include new and emerging types of rich product content and intelligence to meet the constantly evolving needs of customers.

Technology White Paper

• DataSource™: Content Delivery and Maintenance for Your Electronic Product Catalogs
  (December 2004)
  This paper will help CIOs and IT/eCommerce engineers in channel businesses understand the technologies that comprise the DataSource solution, how these technologies work together to provide the richest and most complete product information in the industry, and how their businesses can use DataSource to reduce operating costs and drive revenue.