Vivisimo: Search Technology That Cuts through the Internet Clutter
Vivisimo, the creator of innovative web-search software that clusters information according to topics, has unveiled a special Ben Franklin web portal in honor of Franklin’s 300th birthday.
Located at ben.clusty.com, the new tool is a comprehensive one-stop site for searching Franklin’s own writings and a selectively curated collection of tens of thousands of web pages related to him. Befitting Franklin’s leadership in establishing the country’s first public library, the site is free and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
“Vivisimo got its start thanks to the National Science Foundation and Pennsylvania’s own Ben Franklin Technology Partners. We have a duty to give back,” says Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO and co-founder of Pittsburgh-based Vivisimo.
The Value of “Clustered” Searches
According to Perez, Franklin’s tercentenary provides Vivisimo with a chance to showcase “Clusty,” the company’s new search technology, which offers a unique take on the traditional search engine that even Internet powerhouse Google does not feature. Clusty organizes search results into folders grouping similar items together.
For example, a search of the word “liberty” organizes the top 250 to 500 results from both literary sources about Franklin and his own writings in folders on the left of the screen. These folders, on topics such as “Philadelphia,” “Liberty Bell” and “Autobiography,” help visitors focus on areas of interest and can be expanded to view additional subtopics.
The Ben Franklin portal also offers a comprehensive collection of Franklin’s proverbs and writings that are available on the web in addition to a unique “Educator Resources” tab, which offers a hand-selected group of resources designed to help teachers plan science, history and civic lessons for students at every grade level.
Vivisimo’s development work began at Carnegie Mellon University, an institution with a legacy of significant contributions to web search tools, starting with the creation of Lycos as a university spin-out in the ’80s.
The company was supported over many years by the National Science Foundation. In addition, Vivisimo received a total of $500,000 from BFTP between July 2000 and April 2002. “This is the only outside money the company sought to get off the ground,” says BFTP marketing director Terri Glueck.
Entering the Mainstream Search World
Currently, Fortune 500 businesses, government agencies, academia and millions of searchers use Vivisimo’s clustering technology to better organize and navigate massive amounts of information.
“Vivisimo immediately went after blue-chip clients such as Johnson & Johnson, and they got off the ground quickly,” Glueck says. “Today they are profitable. They moved into bigger quarters in Pittsburgh this past year to accommodate their growing staff and opened an office in Paris.”
Best Enterprise Search Solution
Earlier this month Vivisimo’s Velocity 4.2 was chosen as the “Best Enterprise Search Solution” at InfoWorld’s 2006 Technology of the Year Awards. InfoWorld’s annual Technology of the Year Awards recognize the top 10 technologies that made the greatest impact during the past year, as well as products that best exemplify the implementation of those technologies.
“InfoWorld’s selection of the best enterprise search is based on in-house testing by their experts, which makes their selection of Velocity as a technology of the year especially gratifying,” says Jerome Pesenti, co-founder and chief scientist of Vivisimo.
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