Aggregate Knowledge launches Pique Discovery Network
Aggregate Knowledge launched a major update to its service that aggregates user data from retail and media partners and presents consumers with relevant products and content as they peruse Web pages.
The company renamed its service the Pique Discovery Network and added new capabilities, such as targeted product and content placements in emails and through affiliate channels. "Pique" stands for a person's curiosity and interest to discover things in the network, explained Dave Peterson, chief marketing officer for Aggregate Knowledge. (Pique actually means a sudden fit of anger; to cause to feel resentment; pride in oneself; or a tightly woven fabric with raised cords. Perhaps not the best choice of spellings.)
Like a recommendation engine, such as Amazon’s, Aggregate Knowledge’s service captures collective user “interest” and delivers relevant products and content to Web pages in a widget. The collective interest placements are gleaned from anonymized user data from Pique Network partners that is sent and processed by the Pique Discovery Engine. It finds the connections, based on up-to-date behavioral data, and combined with partner data and rules fills the widgets with contextual items that Aggregate Knowledge and its customers hope will lead to transactions and increased user engagement.
For example, someone reading an article about wine would see related content and products purchased by others who read the same article.
Prior to the Pique Network, Aggregate Knowledge was confined to collecting user data and delivering relevant items for a single site. The new offering adds Email Discovery, which places fresh, relevant items in emails each time they are opened, and Pique Multi-Site Discovery delivers items with aggregated data from across multiple partner sites. Peterson called Multi-Site Discovery "the AdSense of content."
In addition, Pique Affiliate Discovery places relevant items based on user behavior into an advertising widget or banner each time the ads are served. A person reading a news article would see an advertising widget with products and services related to the page content.
Aggregate Knowledge plans to extend its Pique Discovery Network across mobile, point-of-sale and set-top box services. According to the company, more than 60 million people each month visit its 30 partner sites, including Overstock.com, SmartBargains.com, Vinfolio and TicketsNow.