Benicia, California -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/04/2008 -- Pure Verticals (http://www.pureverticals.com) recently filed for patent protection for its new ground-breaking eProcurement to Virtual Community Platform (e2VC). The e2VC platform is a breakthrough in B2B marketplace and virtual community revenue opportunities, allowing businesses the unique ability to directly sell and advertise their products and services to external virtual communities, such as social networks, online gaming communities, virtual worlds and the like, in a highly targeted and controlled manner. Pure Verticals also announced today that the e2VC beta will be available to businesses and consumers in the first quarter of 2008.

eProcurement sites, also called B2B marketplaces and exchanges, have traditionally been environments where businesses gather exclusively to conduct B2B buy/sell transactions. They have broad appeal because they span across all market sectors and industries. From manufacturers to online retailers, all business organizations perform some sort of purchasing function. For all of the merchants and vendors who sell consumer goods and services, once they’ve procured their goods from the eProcurement site they are forced to leave their business site and sell their goods through external sales channels. e2VC changes all of this.

The e2VC platform is a breakthrough process and technology for supply chain optimization. e2VC allows businesses to assess demand more quickly, which allows for reductions in inventory and improved product availability. Serving horizontal and vertical eProcurement sites alike, e2VC not only automates the entire business procurement process - from requisitioning, approvals and purchase order creation to RFQs, reverse auctions, receiving, inventory, and invoicing - it also provides direct access to vast and highly targeted consumer channels using efficient tools. “The timing for the e2VC platform is perfect as powerful forces fuel the demand for evolved B2B marketplaces and for social networks to define solid revenue streams”, says Ariel Wada, co-founder and CEO of Pure Verticals. “We realized early on that our work on the monetization of user-generated content (MUGC) would benefit greatly from providing merchants easy access to virtual communities, so we focused on integration of MUGC with the classic eProcurement functions almost immediately. We are pleased to be launching the MUGC and e2VC platforms in the same quarter, linking “business networks” and “social networks” in a powerful way for the first time”, says Wada.

The value of e2VC for all B2B marketplace members is enormous, but for today’s approximate 40% of businesses who buy goods within the online B2B marketplace for resale to consumers, e2VC is a gold mine with unlimited growth potential. Using a centralized Web console, merchants now have the ability to take goods they just procured online and to immediately turn them around and, in a highly targeted manner, sell them directly into virtual communities. The e2VC system will attract merchants of all sizes and types; those who buy and sell within the online B2B marketplace and then sell to the virtual communities as well as home-based entrepreneurs who want to use the system’s multi-channel sales capabilities. “As more and more small businesses participate, manufacturers and distributors will find a wealth of additional opportunities to serve the marketplace”, says Wada.

Virtual communities participate by simply integrating the special e2VC shopping cart, over which the community site owner has complete control, into their online properties. The entire shopping experience is maintained within the community site to ensure community integrity is maintained. For product offerings, site owners have a choice – rely on e2VC’s merchant-to-community screening filters or, for greater control, screen all of the incoming seller requests. For example, the site owner of a large horizontal social network with sports-related groups may choose to approve all merchants who are requesting to sell sports products in their site, or the site owner may choose to look at all of the business profiles and statistics before allowing them to sell to the community.

The e2VC platform allows any number of external virtual communities to participate. “The system ensures integrated independence - each virtual community maintains its community integrity. No “pushed” advertising or unwanted soliciting is experienced. The shopping system is there to support community member purchases”, says Wada.

For virtual community sites that produce user-generated content (UGC), Pure Verticals’ patent-pending MUGC technology is the perfect complement. The unique MUGC platform allows end users complete control of the brands they wish to promote within their user generated content, and allows for a rich blend of revenue-sharing opportunities for community members and site owners.

A comprehensive consumer feedback and rating system is built into e2VC to allow all consumer buyers the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. Merchant reputation statistics are provided from not only one virtual community but from every e2VC-enabled site in which the merchant participates.

e2VC promises to deliver significant new productivity gains to businesses, slashing overhead and inventory costs, creating untapped sales opportunities, and providing self-managed advertising and promotional tools. The e2VC platform is packed with easy-to-use yet sophisticated transaction-oriented tools: self-serve, video-supported product display, advertising and promotional tools, and the option to use electronic payment systems to handle orders. Comprehensive business social network tools and services are planned for the next release.

The company's application for patent protection on the e2VC process and technology is now pending in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

About Pure Verticals
Pure Verticals, Inc. was established by a team on a mission to make vertical social networks not just better, but better in ways which will revolutionize the way we understand them today. Pure Verticals combines traditional needs, innovative and tested technologies, and creative out-of-the-box ideas in order to extend the ultimate value of vertical social networks.

Combining the power of the internet with emerging and adopted media, Pure Verticals provides vertical networks with media distribution outlets which span the Web, television, mobile and other mass media channels. These vertical networks bring like-minded people together by delivering superior and premium experiences while developing innovative ways to broadcast themselves, interact and receive true value for their respective markets.