Jigsaw Data Corp. Launches Business Contact Marketplace Globally with 'Wisdom of Crowds' Approach to Data Collection

Business Wire, June 14, 2005

SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Jigsaw Data Corporation, the online marketplace where people buy and sell business contact information, announced that it is expanding globally with its Version 2.0 of its marketplace and applying its collaborative platform beyond business card information to include corporate information. The new version combines the collective wisdom of Jigsaw's members to provide missing pieces of data about a company, and provides enhanced contact search capabilities for more targeted customer prospecting. The expanded marketplace gives Jigsaw's members a competitive advantage by providing an extremely accurate, up-to-date database of international business contacts for sales, marketing or recruiting purposes.

In his book, "The Wisdom of Crowds," author James Surowiecki, hypothesizes that a large group of people are smarter than an elite few and are "better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future." Inspired by this theory, Jigsaw enables its members to vote on company information and compiles this data to provide a collective educated estimate on criteria such as company revenue and number of employees, which can be used as search parameters within the database. Members can also save their search queries and be notified via email when new contacts that match their search criteria are added to the Jigsaw marketplace.

"Jigsaw's wisdom of crowds approach to data puts a disruptive twist into the traditional data model and enables us to compete against established data players who provide company data at a premium price," said Jim Fowler, CEO and co-founder of Jigsaw. "We're leveling the playing field for small and midsize companies with limited resources to pay for business contact data, while helping our members to be more efficient in reaching prospects, whether it be in the U.S. or beyond."

As part of its Version 2.0, Jigsaw is expanding its six-month-old service beyond the United States into other major English-speaking countries including Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and India. Through the Jigsaw marketplace, Jigsaw members will now be able to buy and sell contacts from not only their own country but also from other English-speaking countries. Jigsaw's global expansion makes it the only data service to enable easy access to accurate international business contacts that are complete with email address, title, telephone number and address.

This expansion marks a major step in Jigsaw's goal of mapping every business organization in the world. The Jigsaw database currently contains more than 800,000 contacts and 70,000 companies and grows by approximately 7,000 new contacts a day. There are already more than 50,000 international contacts in the database and members from 25 different countries. The Jigsaw marketplace opened in the United States in December 2004 with 20,000 contacts at 2,000 companies.

Like U.S. members, international members can subscribe to Jigsaw's global marketplace through a "Pay or Play" option: monthly membership costs U.S. $25, but is free to those who add 25 or more contacts per month. Members earn Jigsaw Points when they enter new contacts into the database, update existing ones or refer new members. They can either use their points to purchase other contacts or sell their points to other members for the equivalent of $1.00 per contact.

About Jigsaw Data Corporation

Jigsaw (http://www.jigsaw.com) is the first online marketplace where people buy and sell business contact information. Jigsaw offers members access to a fresh and up-to-date database of contact information that increases efficiency by shortening the time required to find business contact data. The data contributions and collaborative oversight continuously made by Jigsaw members ensures the accuracy and growth of the Jigsaw marketplace. Jigsaw Data Corporation is located in San Mateo, Calif., and funded by El Dorado Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners.