I’m not in Santa Barbara at CJU but to coincide with the big event, Commission Junction today formally announced its new Web Services offering, which has been in beta testing for over a year. I talked briefly with Frank Gerstenberger, director of product management, about Web Services on Friday.

CJ’s Web Services is based on industry standard protocols, such as SOAP, and is intended to allow advertisers and publishers to develop their own applications to create unique products or consumer experiences in the CJ Marketplace.

Advertisers can now offer affiliates enhanced access to their product catalog data feeds. Advertisers can also create their own branded experience for their affiliates. For publishers Web Services provides the ability to perform searches based on keyword, UPC, manufacturer, model number, advertiser, SKU and more. That means that a shoe affiliate doesn’t need to download an entire product catalog from a merchant they can simply define download criteria such as only get product information on “red shoes.”

There’s no charge for advertisers and publishers, they just need to sign up for the services. Gerstenberger says there is sample code that can be downloaded for publishers to start programming. All the Web Services details, along with additional info, resources and a place to discuss ideas, can be found here.

Several CJU attendees that have agreed contact me with updates from the conference. I’ll be sure to get some feedback on this announcement as well.

Meanwhile, check out Vinny Lingham’s blog for some CJU info. lisap@revenuetoday.com