SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 8, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- MarketWatch.com, a leading provider of business news, financial information and analytical tools, has introduced Sphere's contextual blog search tool across its article and blog pages. The launch was announced yesterday afternoon at the Web 2.0 conference, during which Sphere's CEO Tony Conrad showed the contextual widget on the MarketWatch.com site.
"We are pleased to partner with Sphere to surface the best, most relevant blogs for our users, enabling them to connect with the larger conversation online," said Gordon McLeod, president, Dow Jones Online.
Sphere is a unique intuitive search engine that provides blog search results from related news and information sites, books, photos and podcasts. In addition, Sphere recently made its core technology available in a contextual widget or module format, providing additional flexibility in how Sphere can be integrated across any Internet site. The contextual widget enables publishers to showcase related site content, as well as timely posts from external blogs.
"We're thrilled to be working with MarketWatch.com as the first major media partner to integrate our contextual widget," said Mr. Conrad. "By integrating our blog search tool, MarketWatch.com can make available the most relevant blog posts that are contextually relevant to their articles. Connecting readers to the larger conversation happening in 'People Media' is a powerful user experience. MarketWatch readers can now dive into the topics that interest them through the diverse, timely and in-depth dialogue of the best bloggers on the Internet."
The Sphere widget, utilizing AJAX technology, has been customized to integrate seamlessly within the MarketWatch.com site. Listed under every article page and blog post are sharing and tagging tools, followed by a "More Content: Related Blogs & Articles" link that launches the Sphere widget. Readers can then browse three areas of contextually-relevant information:
-- Bloggers Talking About This Topic -- Related Articles from MarketWatch -- MarketWatch Blogs (Bambi's Blog with Bambi Francisco, Frank Barnako's Media Blog and Herb Greenberg's Market Blog)
The integration of Sphere's contextual module is the latest innovation on MarketWatch.com, which has added Digg, Del.icio.us and Facebook's "share" tool to the site in recent months. In addition, MarketWatch recently relaunched its search pages to integrate related podcast and video results, as well as results from top news and finance sites outside the Dow Jones Online network.
About MarketWatch Inc.
MarketWatch Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company and is a leading provider of business news, financial information and analytical tools. The Company operates two award-winning Web sites, MarketWatch.com and BigCharts.com, as well as the stock market simulation site, VirtualStockExchange.com. The Company produces the syndicated MarketWatch Weekend television program and provides radio updates every 30 minutes on the MarketWatch.com Radio Network. MarketWatch also offers subscription products for individual investors, including the Hulbert Financial Digest suite of products, Retirement Weekly and ETF Trader. The Company's MarketWatch Information Services group is a leading licensor of market news, data, investment analysis tools and other online applications to financial services firms, media companies, wireless carriers and Internet service providers.
The MarketWatch From Dow Jones logo is available at http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2639
About Sphere
Founded by veteran Internet search and information retrieval innovators, Sphere is a blog search engine that allows users to easily discover the highest quality and timely blog content and makes it possible for publishers to integrate the best blog writing into their website properties. Sphere's award-winning Sphere It! contextual widget allows users to instantly connect the news online to the parallel blog conversation. Sphere It! has been adopted by popular mainstream media and micropublishers such as MarketWatch.com, Time, About, GigaOM, ZDNet and Techcrunch. For more information please visit www.sphere.com/ or the company's blog at sphere.wordpress.com.