By Nick Patience
Centraal Corp, the company behind the RealNames domain name-brand name mapping system, is extending its service to be able to cope with names and identifiers that may change regularly. Previously, if a company wanted a RealName to map onto a variable name, each name had to be entered into Centraal’s resolvers. Now Centraal has plugged in a set of rules that reads the RealName and passes back what comes after the RealName back to the company or organization’s own web site. The Palo Alto-based company calls this new service Active Namespaces. For example, should Federal Express adopt the system, it would enable users to input FedEx followed by a tracking number into their URL bar in their browser and be taken directly to the relevant part on FedEx’s site – akin to typing a query into a company’s own search engine.
To demonstrate the system, Centraal has added rules to enable the web sites of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), US Patent & Trademark Office and the Internal Revenue Service. Users are able to enter ‘IRS W2′ and be taken to that form on the IRS’ site. In order for this to work, like the rest of the RealNames system, users need to download the plug-in from Centraal’s site. One way that could be avoided is for Centraal to sign a deal with one of the big two browsers. We’ve been hearing that such a deal is imminent for a few quarters now, but it sounds like it’s going to happen within the next few weeks, and most likely with Netscape Communications Corp.
Centraal is readying commercial versions of Active Namespaces for companies that pay for it and it expects to roll out new Namespaces every month this year. There is also a large distribution deal coming next week, promises company founder and CEO Keith Teare – which will either be with a search engine or a portal/community web site. Also look for the launch of Centraal’s My RealName personal name system at Spring Internet World in Los Angeles next month. My RealNames enables individuals to register a name that is meaningful to them free of charge, provided they are a member of one of 17 web communities, including Tripod, ICQ, GeoCities, iVillage and eBay, among others.
Centraal also filled out its executive team a bit this week with the appointment of Barbara Gore, most recently of Netscape, as the company’s new senior VP of business development and strategic planning, while Rob Bowman, formerly of Exodus Communications, has been appointed as VP of engineering and operations. Nicolas Popp has been promoted to CTO. The company is in New York next week presenting to the folks at the Paine Webber internet conference.
