Vanno offers company intelligence at user-defined prices
Vanno, a company that tracks companies’ non-financial reputations (how they treat their employees, clients, the environment, etc.), is now letting users acquire this information at subscription prices of their choosing. Basically, they are asked to “pay what it’s worth” for a range of data the service has synthesized from its users, the news, blogs, gossip sites and the like.
This might sound dubious as a business strategy, but in all likelihood the move will win the San Francisco-based company more publicity and business than bargain prices ever could. Registered users will still have free access to Vanno’s Company Reputation Index — including lists of the best and worst companies measured on various scales. It also has a pretty good fallback plan if the concept fails, in the form of heaps of marketable data.
Right now, Vanno’s system includes information on 6,000 companies, including links to all relevant news stories, web comments, rankings and sources that have somehow been folded into their scores on Vanno’s reputation index. It also lets its users view how companies’ reputations have changed over time and to compare them side by side with their competitors. They can download this service for free in the form of Excel spreadsheets that they can then circulate to whoever they want.
“It surfaces interesting, relevant articles for me about companies I like to follow,” Orbitz chief executive Barney Harford told VentureBeat. He says the service lets him see whether the company’s initiatives are gaining positive traction, as well as articles about how Starbucks leaves its water running when employees wash utensils (”That’s been a frustration for me too,” he says).
Vanno says that allowing users to pay what they want for its services will also tell them important things about its social networking audience — namely how much business intelligence is worth to different segments of the population. This data in itself could then be turned around and sold to various interests.
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About the Author, Camille Ricketts
Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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