Octopus.com Partners With Content Providers

Posted on August 9, 2000

Octopus, a service that allows users to gather and customize "Views" of web-based information and services, has announced that it has signed partnership agreements with Broadband Sports, CNET Networks, Inc., DMusic Network, E! Online, GameSpy Industries, Hollywood Stock Exchange and MP3.com. The partners will use Octopus to create co-branded ``Views'' of their own content that will be featured throughout the Octopus View directory.

``Today's Web authoring tools force publishers to organize their content into arbitrary categories and rigid navigational hierarchies,'' said Steve Douty, President and CEO of Octopus.com, Inc. ``It is hard for publishers to dynamically aggregate and deliver highly targeted content that is usually distributed across their Web sites. Octopus not only lets them easily rearrange their own content with this loyalty-building approach, but simultaneously cross-promotes other related offerings that users frequently overlook.''

Octopus users can save one or more Views into their own password-protected account. In addition, users can email these co-branded Views to friends and co-workers. Octopus makes it possible for publishers to create pre-personalized Views of their own content that can be adopted by Octopus users.

``Users will access E! Online customized entertainment View, enabling them to quickly find content that is most relevant to their interests,'' said Laurel Wyner Dunlea, Marketing Vice President of E! Online. ``This will be particularly useful as we are now approaching one million pages of content on our Website. Octopus allows us to offer up-to-the-minute entertainment news and celebrity gossip that is dynamically refreshed -- to guarantee the most current buzz.''