Some apps get rolled out by IT departments; others are pulled in by employees. Genius.com's marketing application is an example of the latter. Used by salespeople for e-mail campaigns, SalesGenius signals when a message gets opened or a Web site visited. The company has just landed $19 million in funding and its biggest corporate account. --John Foley

	Thompson: Landing and expanding

Sales pros can sign up directly for SalesGenius for $49 per month. As word spreads, adoption grows. CEO Thompson calls it a "land and expand" strategy. The complementary Genius Team lets sales managers distribute leads among sales reps. IT departments may vet Genius' software as a service for privacy and security, but no heaving lifting is required.

Salespeople create an e-mail using SalesGenius or Microsoft Outlook that includes a link back to the company's Web site. A "tracker" function signals when the message gets opened and when the recipient visits the Web site and shows which pages are viewed. Genius Interactive lets users create a Web site overlay--a greeting or special offer, for example--that appears when prospects come to the Web site; the site itself doesn't change. A reporting capability shows up-to-the-minute results of e-mail campaigns.

Genius just landed $19 million in third-round funding, bringing total VC investment to $34 million. Its customer base exceeds 30,000 named users. About 30% of business comes via Salesforce.com.

Genius last week announced that BT Business, the business retail unit of communications services giant BT, has put SalesGenius into the hands of its office-based account team. These sales reps sell dozens of products--DSL and voice services, for example--to up to 350 accounts each. BT expects SalesGenius to help it with account prioritization and to deliver "instantly responsive" customer service. BT Business becomes the largest of Genius' approximately 425 business accounts.