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Revolution Health, the high profile health information company founded by Steve Case, has been through its share of troubles over the last year or so: first it laid off about 60 employees from its Health Networks division eight months ago, and last month it laid off another 50 employees, about 20 percent of its present workforce, reports industry newsletter AISHealth. The company says the latest round of reductions was due to a reorgfollowing its December acquisition of HealthTalk, an online source of chronic-care information and programming, the story says. The company now has about 200 employees.

A not-so-secret-secret: Revolution is exiting out of its B2B services (direct-to-employer Web portal business ), and will only focus on consumer health portal/info, and the company confirmed it...it will continue to sell its portal capabilities through licensing partnerships with distributors such as Medco Health Solutions, the company says.

With this reorg, all of Revolution's acquired businesses will have a single sales force, one content group and one marketing team. The key point is that the company is "yet to show a really cohesive and compelling business strategy," the story mentions.

We have also been hearing some rumblings of the company looking for strategic options...among some of the options we have heard being discussed is outsourcing some or all of the online ad sales to a network like Glam Media or others. Glam has entered into health network sales recently, and has interests in looking at anchor tenants to own in the sector. More when we have more?

Meanwhile, Steve Case spoke at our EconHealth conference earlier this year in March, and the video is embedded below. Click on the "Browse Video List" button to view the two videos in this series.

Source-washingtonpost.com

Taiwan --- Alibaba.com, a major business-to-business (B2B) Web portal, launched its Taiwan Web site yesterday, providing an online marketplace for global trade and other services for importers and exporters. Taiwan's version of alibaba.com will join its Chinese, Japanese and American counterparts.

David Wei, CEO of the company, said alibaba.com already has 40,000 Taiwanese members. He illustrated the resourcefulness of the Web site by stating that after its release, all forms of businesses can be established through alibaba.com.

Wu Shing-han, a representative from UPS Taiwan, commented on how Taiwan businesses will benefit from the services provided by alibaba.com. He noted that the Web site will help maintain the competitiveness of Taiwanese businesses by facilitating greater exchanges between Taiwan and China. He further added that alibaba.com will also connect Taiwan to the rest of the world, thus creating a forum in which Taiwan businesses can expand outside Taiwan. "Rather than flying everywhere, you can just simply go on alibaba.com," Wu exclaimed.

Tsui Jen-fu, an official of alibaba.com, reinforced this sentiment by stating that as alibaba.com's greatest market will be in China, greater emphasis and resources will be placed on the Chinese version, thus allowing Taiwanese businesses to benefit as well.

Steve Kang, sales manager of the Taiwan branch of alibaba.com, stated the Web site has provided a growing online population. "In China, alibaba.com has 24.8 million registered members; outside China, alibaba has 4.9 million registered members around the globe," he said.

"We aim to help Taiwan's small and medium enterprises (SMEs)," Kang emphasized. He explained that while 97.7 percent of Taiwan companies are SMEs, they only contribute to 18 percent of Taiwan's exports. "This shows that there is still much room to grow for these companies," he said.

Manager of CP Group International Co. Ltd., Liu Chih, recommended alibaba.com, saying that since becoming a member of alibaba.com, his company's sales have increased 100 times within two years, from NT$1 million to NT$100 million.

When asked about whether any cultural conflicts would arise between the Chinese and Taiwanese versions of the Web site, Wei responded that rather than conflicts, the creation of the Web sites will lead to greater diversity, which Wei said is beneficial, adding that several of the board members are also Taiwanese.

Source-asiamedia.ucla.edu

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, is aiming at registering 100 Indian travel agents on their global B2B platform www.starwoodnet.com, by year end. With increasing number of properties in India and in the global market, the US based hotel group is looking to promote the B2B distribution channel aggressively in India. The portal, which was introduced last year has registered about 20-25 travel agents till date. This online booking engine, is a global rate programme for approved sellers with facilities like 24X7 availability of rooms, web booking and access to more than 850 hotels in 95 countries across seven-hotel brands.

“We are in talks with various trade associations in India for being a part of this website. Since we are not charging any membership fee and are offering online bookings with safe payment gateways, I think it is a win-win situation for both sides,” said Saugat Nandy, Manager, Global sales, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide during a presentation of the website at the TAAI Western Region meet in Dubai recently. “The programme is designed for sellers of packaged travel who do not have the ability to negotiate local contracts based on the requirement.

Read complete story >>

LUND, Sweden & COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Apptus, a global provider of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) solutions, today announced that the major directory service of Denmark, De Gule Sider, has successfully implemented Apptus platform to launch their brand new site Allbiz.dk, a business to business directory service.

"We’re very excited and proud to accomplish our vision to develop a state of the art B2B directory. This has been possible thanks to the Apptus Theca Platform, set to give deep, precise and highly structured search results," says Patrick Mesterton, Online Marketing & Sales Director, DGS.

Allbiz.dk focuses on B2B customers and services exclusively. It is an excellent tool for small and medium sized companies when searching for new suppliers, customers or partners. In one single place Allbiz.dk provides information that is essential for development of B2B relations such as key financial figures for evaluation of companies.

The search engine behind allbiz.dk is highly flexible and capable of accommodating the most advanced search queries of our users. This has been made possible thanks to the great technical expertise at Apptus. Thanks to the flexible mind of their employees we have a solution that meets our market requirements, says Pernille Eiberg Brocks, Product Manager, DGS.

Allbiz.dk is the latest search solution that Apptus has created for DGS during the last few years. DGS has with the help of Apptus turned their site into a first-rate service which has doubled the amount of data, users and performed searches, whilst keeping the same platform thanks to the Apptus Theca® flexible and advanced solution.

For us it’s stimulating and rewarding to work closely with an advanced company such as DGS and the Allbiz.dk project, says Michael Atlevi, CEO at Apptus. It’s a company that moves in new directions on the market. Furthermore it’s a proof of the excellency of our Apptus Theca® platform. It is scalable both in volume load and complexity and handles a company in serious growth. Apptus Theca® is continually being refined and developed at a pace that ensures and strengthens our customers’ leading positions over the years.

About Apptus

Apptus is a private company, headquartered in Sweden with offices in Canada and England. As the Nordic leader within the field of search and database technology, Apptus provides solutions and products that ensure accessibility for customers with growing data sets and strong demands for search logistics, relevant results and connections to the customer's own business. Apptus primarily supplies solutions to customers within the fields of e-directory and e-commerce. Among the customers are Bokus, CDON, De Gule Sider, Eniro, Hitta, Lokaldelen and Lunarstorm. Apptus conducts research in search and database technology. Apptus’ keywords are quality, result and growth. For more information, please visit www.apptus.com.

About Allbiz/De Gule Sider

De Gule Sider® is the leading information service in Denmark with more than 374 million look ups per year in 101 telephone directories, at degulesider.dk, allbiz.dk, mobil.dgs.dk and information service 1811. De Gule Sider A/S is the largest publisher of telephone directories in Denmark with an annual number of copies exceeding more than 7 million directories. De Gule Sider employs approximately 600 people. De Gule Sider is a part of European Directories S.A. - one of Europes largest directory publishers with companies in several European countries.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://newsroom.cision.com

Source: (BUSINESS WIRE)

CHENNAI: As part of its efforts to usher in e-governance, Tamil Nadu Government on Thursday launched a website for online processing of land documents, including registration.

State Minister for Revenue and Housing I Periasami unveiled the website at a regional review conference organised jointly by the Land Resources department and Union Ministry of Rural Development.

"The website 'www.eservices.tn.gov.in' will have all details such as patta pertaining to lands of individuals," he told reporters.

"So far, 3.2 crores of land resources having full details of the owner/enterprise across the State have been registered on this website", he said.

The website which is to be launched in interior districts of Tamil Nadu in a phased manner will be covering the entire state soon. "Initially, it has been launched in Dindigul, Vellore and Coimbatore" the Minister said.

Elaborating about the project, Union Rural Development Secretary Rita Sinha said e-processing would prevent tampering of documents and every individual registering on the website would have a unique identity number.

Already this kind of e-processing of land resources had been implemented in various states and also in other countries, including England, Australia, Thailand and Kenya.

"Initially, we have planned to launch it in 11 states across the country and as of now, it has been completed in Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and now Tamil Nadu. We want to cover the entire country by the end of 12th Five Year Plan," she told reporters.

With this kind of development, accuracy and time reduction could be achieved, she said.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

According to an iResearch report released Friday, the overall B2B trading volume in China reached RMB 24.5 trillion (US $3.45 trillion) last year.

These sales numbers represent almost 58 percent of sales done by SMBs (small and medium-size businesses).

However, this marks the first time that the overall B2B trading volume of SMBs has been higher than that of larger companies. Despite this, many SMBs still opt for traditional marketing and sales routes over online trading, the report noted.

But the numbers also indicate that SMBs will increasingly use the Internet as a B2B trading platform over the next five years, said iResearch.

It also found that the online sales budget of China's SMBs accounted for about 14.2 percent of its total sales budget last year, up from 14.2 percent year-on-year.

SMBs have taken advantage of the government's drive to develop B2B and e-commerce applications, along with widening Internet penetration, the report said.

But on average, many obstacles still remain for SMBs in the lack of credit protection online, the rather slow development of third party payment solutions and a lack of staff skilled in the B2B segment.

Overall, most SMBs that used the Internet to trade were in the computer software, electronic appliances and clothing industries, the report said, with companies in the food industry being among the least likely to trade online.

Alibaba.com, the B2B trading platform that focuses on SMBs, continued to lead the B2B market for most of last year. Its revenues totaled RMB 2.25 billion (US $316.4 million), up over 65 percent year-over-year, accounting for 57.3 percent of China's total B2B revenues last year, up from 51 percent the previous year

Source: b2bnewsworld.info