VentureBeat Profiles, a directory of info and buzz about companies

I’m pleased to introduce a site called VentureBeat Profiles, which lists comprehensive information about tens of thousands of companies and executives.

We just launched the site this morning. It offers all kinds of ways to find, discover and share information about companies.

The site lets VentureBeat’s users, as well as the companies themselves, update corporate profiles directly, submit press releases, and follow the buzz about their companies on a Twitter stream contained on their profile page. VentureBeat Profiles will show traffic trends for web sites, a private exchange where users can provide their opinion about the relative potential success of each company, and a list of competitors — all making VentureBeat Profiles one of the most in-depth resources for private companies and executives.

The site is based on TradeVibes, a leading database of private companies that VentureBeat acquired last month. We’ve spent the past few weeks redesigning the site, and wanted to relaunch it as soon as possible to keep it fresh. But going forward, there’s plenty of work to do. We’ll continue to allow third-parties to use our widgets, and plan to make the information even more sharable in the coming weeks (stay tuned). Meanwhile, we’ve moved right away to make it even better for our hundreds of thousands of monthly readers.

Here are some of the ways we’re doing that already:

Widgets — VentureBeat is integrating the profiles into VentureBeat’s story posts. So when VentureBeat writes a story about say, Facebook, more information about Facebook will be inserted at the bottom of the story — in the form of a widget from the VentureBeat Profile page about Facebook.

Press Releases — VentureBeat will let companies submit press releases to their VentureBeat Profile page in order to keep their page up to date (so PR professionals should make sure to submit the press releases they are publishing for their companies)

Conversations — VentureBeat has added a Twitter stream to the profiles as a way to keep up with the latest buzz about the companies. Any tweet with #company name is pulled into the company’s profile page so that readers can narrow in on news only about that company.

We hope you enjoy the new addition. We look forward to hearing your feedback and advice.