VRMcompanies

• E-Lance

One of the first companies to offer buyers the ability to post a project and have vendors bid for it

• Lending Tree

Allows banks to bid for customer's loans

• AttentionTrust / Root Markets

Challenging the (implicit on most of the Web) assumption that attention data is the property of the vendor. Sets this (valuable to vendors) information as a tool that individuals can selectively share with vendors, in order to get the best response from those trusted vendors.

• Vendor/Product Comparison Sites

Sites like Froogle, CNET's reviews and others that aggregate product pricing/availability information are conceptual ancestors of VRM. By implicitly forcing vendors to compete more directly on price and service (all vendors' prices, and often vendor rankings, are displayed together for the person seeking the item or service to evaluate), these sites offer seekers a first, crude tool for Vendor Relationship Management.

• FareCast

(Can anyone point to the site that recommends the optimal time to purchase airline tickets, or other examples?)
done. -cfc