Janrain, a provider of user-management platforms for the social web, released its Janrain Capture software-as-a-service platform August 10. The National Geographic Channel is among the companies using it to collect data about website visitors.
Capture runs on Janrain’s User Management Platform (JUMP). Consumers can sign up for a company’s website by registering there or using their existing Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Google log-in information. Consumer data is then shared with the client.
The Yellow Pages Group and Eastman Kodak are also running Capture, which is cloud-based.
The National Geographic Channel previously did not gather data about its web visitors, said Brad Dancer, the network’s SVP of research and digital media.
“We didn’t have any registration,” he said. “We had blogs and message boards, but you could post anonymously. We didn’t have a real system for it. We didn’t know anything about them.”
Dancer said the National Geographic Channel plans to use the collected consumer information to seek feedback from its viewers about the network’s programming.
“That helps us generate ideas internally about the shows that we could do,” Dancer said.
The network also will conduct research to develop other methods to use the data to its advantage.
