Praized

Praized Media was founded to help local media companies tap into the growing potential of online word-of-mouth and social media. We believe the future of local media is right in front of our eyes and that if we act now, we can maintain (and even increase) the relevancy of media companies in the next years. We’ve developed multiple enterprise-class social modules that can be integrated within an existing platform or be used to create a brand new social destination site.

The Praized enterprise platform toolkit includes:

• Local Activity Stream module
• Real-time Search module
• Local Questions & Answers module
• Social Yellow Pages (merchant ratings/reviews platform)
• Editorial module (structure and connect existing local editorial content around places)
• Social media applications (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Mobile
• Reputation Management & Lead Generation module coming soon!
• Real-time Conversation module coming soon!

Local Activity Stream Module

Praized’s Local Activity Stream module displays in real-time all local activities happening within a user’s geographical area. The stream’s content is custom-made for each enterprise customer and can include user activities (votes, recommendations, comments, questions and answers, etc.), advertiser actions (new ad products, new business listings or modification to an existing listing), editorial content, local news, classified ads, weather, events, blog posts, local Twitter activity, etc.). Users are able to see all latest activities within their local area, increasing the discovery aspect of the local media site. It enables local media publishers the capacity to surface ad products into a user-friendly context. This white-label module can be integrated in an existing local media property or can be used to create a brand new destination site. This module serves as the glue that binds all internal and external local content sources together.

Real-time Search Module

Praized’s Real-Time Search module enables users the ability to do structured local searches in the local activity stream. This white-label module can be integrated in existing local search platforms in search results pages. For example, a user could see the last few activities in their favorite Yellow Pages headings or for selected keywords (ex: what are the latest restaurants in New York that have been reviewed?). These results sit side by side with the current local search results which mean the publisher does not have to break their listing ranking business model. Again, this enables publishers to surface ad content in a user-friendly context. This module requires implementation of the local activity stream.

Social Yellow Pages Module

Praized’s Social Yellow Pages module can be used to create a social site where users can vote, comment, favorite and share businesses with their friends. The platform currently holds 17M+ business listings for North America through data licensing agreements with Yellow Pages Group (in Canada) and Localeze (in the US). Each merchant in the database has a profile page where users can find complete contact information and related tags for the merchant. In that page, users can also leave comments, vote for that place and share it with their friends. A user sign-up/log-in system is also in the platform (including compatibility with Facebook Connect). A robust search technology enables users to find what they’re looking for in their favorite city. Search results ranking is determined by user votes using a Bayesian ranking model but that ranking model can be easily modified to introduce advertiser-driven ranking. The platform is completely search engine optimized.

Local Questions & Answers Module

Praized’s Local Question & Answer module is used by consumers to ask local questions to the community and to their social network friends. Users simply fill a question box and click the “Ask” button. A unique page for that question with pre-determined suggested answers gets created and all friends’ answers are added to this page. The question asked is also displayed on the home page of the Local Answers module community and can be broadcast to Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and Ping.fm. When the question is sent to social network friends, it comes with a short-form URL (ex: przd.com, lnk.yp.ca, etc.) inviting people to come and answer back at the publisher’s web site. Each unique question page is search engine optimized to generate traffic from search engines. Often used to find answers to long-tail like questions (ex: I’m looking for a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi in downtown Toronto), it enables the publisher to start collecting structured meta-data on specific merchants. This white-label module can be integrated into an existing local media property or can be used to create a brand new destination site.

Editorial Module

Praized’s editorial module enables Web editors to structure local editorial content around places. By identifying places mentioned in editorial content, editors can link those places to white-label merchant profile pages powered by Praized (identical to the ones you find in the Social Yellow Pages module). A place badge can be added at the bottom of the editorial content to show users all places mentioned in the article. Links to all articles that mention a specific place will appear in the merchant profile page, building a repository of all editorial content related to that specific place. This helps tremendously with search engine optimization, offering a new entry door to discover editorial content.

Social Media Applications

Given the fact that the Praized platform was built as an API from the ground up, it can easily integrate itself into external third-party software and online properties. Praized Media has developed two such applications, one for Facebook and one for Twitter, both of which can be white-labeled.

Facebook

The Praized Facebook application allows consumers to vote and comment on their favorite places within the Facebook environment. Every action is broadcasted to the user’s activity stream. A point system associated to all actions in the application allows the creation of a top user ranking system.

Twitter

The Praized Twitter application (developed through a Firefox Add-on) allows users to easily share places on Twitter through the addition of an “Insert place” button within Twitter and a short-form URL. To download the Firefox add-on, users go to TwitArea.com. Once installed, a button appears in Twitter. Clicking on the button opens up a window with a search box. Users can then search for the place they want to share in Twitter. Clicking on “Tweet this” inserts the name of the place and the short-form URL leading to the place profile page of the Praized Social Yellow Pages module (or to any local site).

Mobile

Given that mobile devices are inherently social and local, the Praized platform adapts perfectly to this new environment. Praized has built an iPhone application that can be white-labeled for any partner. The application allows users to find nearby places (via the iPhone geo-location functionality) and vote and comment on their favorite places. In addition, because the Praized platform is built on an API, we can work with any mobile developer to create additional applications for various existing mobile devices based on all our modules.

Reputation Management & Lead Generation module coming soon!

This module brings social media reputation management and keyword tracking tools for merchants. Praized aggregates all locally-relevant conversations related to that merchant and/or its main business categories (brands, products, competition, activities in its main headings, leads. etc.) happening in Twitter, in Facebook, in Friendfeed, in blogs and in other social web sites. Merchants can then easily join the conversation without having to monitor all of those social media sites. Publishers can charge a monthly fee for access to this information.

Real-Time Conversation Module coming soon!

Praized’s Real-Time Conversation module enables Twitter-like short-form (140 characters or less) public and private messages between users and other users and/or merchants. This white-label module can be integrated in an existing web property or can be used to launch a new site. Users can start following (through a subscribe functionality) other users or merchants to see their messages. Users and merchants can be followed asynchronously (i.e. you don’t need to “follow” a user or merchant back if they start following you). Messages can be sent to your mobile device through SMS. The creation of a merchant account in the Praized real-time conversation module leads to the creation of a Twitter account for that merchant. Messages created in the publisher’s web site are then synchronized with Twitter and are broadcast without having to go on Twitter. Twitter messages broadcast from our system come with a personalized short-form URL that brings traffic back to the publisher’s web site. All public messages can be integrated within the Local Activity Stream module.

Monetization

Praized Medias has developed advertising products that can be integrated within the modules mentioned above. Contact us for more details.

Praized Media is unique in its product strategy. All of its products are social media enablers, allowing local media customers to integrate major social media components to their current mix of user features and advertiser products. Praized’s products are designed to increase its customers’ online reach and user visits, to generate new user content and to produce new revenues. All private label modules are currently available in English and in French and other languages can easily be added.

Contact Paul Dawalibi (paul@praizedmedia.com, 514-513-3938) for more information.