Look at TinEye, The New Image Search Engine

May 6th, 2008 by Guest Author
Posted in Innovations, Newcomers, News, Reviews, Verticals | No Comments »

Today Idée Inc. announced the launch of TinEye, their image search engine, a search engine touted to do for images what Google did for text. Just as you are familiar with entering text in Google to find web pages that contain that text, using TinEye, you enter an image to find pages where that particular image (and modified versions of it) appears.

Tineye was founded by Idée Inc., a company that develops advanced image identification and visual search software. The service provides clients with reports of where their images and videos have been used, allowing photo wire agencies, stock photography firms and entertainment and media companies to recover lost revenues by identifying billable image uses or infringements. Tineye currently boasts a library of nearly half a billion images in its database. Potential users may request an invite to be involved in the testing process, though the beta is currently at capacity.

Click video.

Available in a closed beta at tineye.com, the new image search engine showcases Idée’s image index and search capabilities and introduces the world’s first image identification based internet search engine.

“Today our new image identification based search engine allows users to search over 487 million images in mere seconds,” said Leila Boujnane, Idée CEO and co-founder, “but that is just the beginning. Our unparalleled image identification technology will enable millions of users worldwide to search for images like never before.”

Instead of using tags or keywords as you would do with existing image search engines, TinEye allows you to use an actual photo, or an image from the web, to find almost instantly where that image has appeared on websites from all over the internet.

Today users can search close to half a billion images from an ever-expanding index of web images. TinEye is regularly crawling the web and indexing images based on their individual digital signatures or ‘fingerprints’. Unlike any other search engine, when TinEye finds an image, it looks at the pixels in the image. Even if the image has been altered through edits including crops, colour adjustments, objects added or removed, or even skews, TinEye can identify it.

Thanks again to Rafi for this post! 

Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management

May 6th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Innovations, News | No Comments »

So why do these companies matter?

Not necessarily because they are the most innovative, but that’s a factor. Not because they are ahead of the curve on Enterprise 2.0 initiatives, but that’s also a factor.

Not because they are the most financially successful (that’s not a factor), and not because they have the most efficient marketing engines—that’s not a factor either.

We have long held that the true essence of knowledge management is an attitude, a single-minded commitment to improvement. And companies on our list simply must emphasize an abiding determination to serve their most important constituency: their customers. They must also show agile innovation combined with a full understanding of the forces that affect, and will affect, their customers.

It’s relatively easy for our informal panel of judges to hear vendors tell their stories. And we’re all pretty skilled at filtering out the hype and pure marketeering. But that doesn’t go quite far enough, which is why we have a savvy group of users to contribute to the list.

BeatYouThere LaunchesUnique Real Estate Search

May 6th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News, Reviews | 2 Comments »


BeatYouThere, a free online real estate search engine launches today with over two million property listings and a social networking platform that will allow users to communicate with each other.

BeatYouThere helps assist home buyers make a decision that is often times the largest single investment they will make in their life by allowing registered users to post comments on topics like properties and real estate professionals. In today’s market, home buyers need to be aware of all of the listings that are available to them, not just MLS listings. By using BeatYouThere, millions of frustrated home buyers, fed up with searching through hundreds of real estate web sites, will be able to use one search to compare property listings from dozens of real estate sites.

Starting today, home buyers, sellers and real estate professionals can search for properties and leverage the BeatYouThere social network. It will allow users to make smarter decisions faster and more confidently by gaining better insight into the opinions, details and views of a trusted real estate business network.

BeatYouThere introduces a unique social networking platform that allows registered users the ability to post comments on property listings as well as write reviews on real estate professionals that they have worked with (similar to the eBay.com and Amazon.com user rating system). To ensure the network’s safety and promote better quality of the reviews, BeatYouThere will not allow any anonymous or slanderous postings.

“We are excited to launch BeatYouThere.com and introduce our innovative social platform,” said Mark Langowski, CEO of BeatYouThere.com. “Our Web site revolutionizes the online real estate search and was built to be a one stop shop for
buyers, sellers, brokers and real estate investors. They now can communicate with each other, post testimonials, write reviews on properties, post properties for sale and create a network of friends while having free access to our database of listings.”

Why is BeatYouThere different?

Unlike competitive web sites such as Trulia.com, Zillow.com, Realtor.com and Roost.com, BeatYouThere.com is the most compelling real estate resource that offers its users all of the following features:
*Easy to use user interface that is simple to navigate for a beginner or novice
user.
*The breadth of data goes beyond realtor listings alone, including foreclosures,
auctions, for sale by owner, classifieds, bank-owned properties, rentals and
commercial properties.
*Ability to search for home loans without having to provide personal information.
Provided by MortgageBot LLC.
*International reach: BeatYouThere.com is expanding internationally to allow
brokers from around the world to access one easy platform to advertise their
properties as well as providing homebuyers and investors with global property
listings.

BeatYouThere will be partnering with thousands of online sources to provide its users with the most breadth of listings which include pre-foreclosures, auctions, bank owned properties, realtor listings, classified advertisements and for sale by owner data for both residential and commercial property.

The SemanticHacker $1,000,000.00 Challenge

May 6th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News | No Comments »

1. What is the SemanticHacker $1M Innovators’ Challenge (SHIC)?

SHIC is a unique opportunity to be awarded for a significant contribution to identifying and jumpstarting a new semantic discovery application for TextWise.

The judging panel will be selectively choosing up to 3 award recipients. That recipient is awarded:
* $100,000 immediate payout
* Development and rollout of the software prototype and/or business plan by TextWise
* Become a part of the team
* Up to an additional $900,000 during the first year after the application is released

2. How do I enter the Challenge?
To qualify for the Challenge, participants must submit:
* Software Prototype OR
* Business Plan OR
* Both a Software Prototype and a Business Plan
* as well as a complete Challenge Entry Form.

3. How many $1 million awards will be available?
Up to 3 awards will be made if an entry meets the Sponsor’s criteria.

4. Who is sponsoring the SemanticHacker $1M Innovators’ Challenge?
 TextWise, LLC is sponsoring SHIC.

5. Who owns the intellectual property rights for entries?
 You do. TextWise is granted non-exclusive worldwide rights. TextWise LLC cannot promise to retain confidentiality of any entry or that a similar idea or application prototype is submitted and awarded.

6. Who owns the intellectual property rights of my software prototype and/or business plan submission if I win?
 TextWise does. The rights will be assigned to TextWise exclusively.

7. Why is TextWise running this Challenge?
 We are looking for exciting applications to extend our technology into new markets.

8. Why should I enter?
 This is an opportunity to:
* See your idea launched into the marketplace!
* Make a significant impact in the semantic space where few others have done so
* Earn an immediate payout on your work AND share in the revenue from a product in the market
* Join the TextWise team to see your vision become a reality (if applicable)
* Win up to $1,000,000

9. How can I improve my chances of being successful?
 1. Develop an application that can have demonstrable commercial viability and has the potential for significant financial impact on the application space to which it is applied.
2. Focus your application or business plan on a vertical market. Areas such as finance, health and pharmaceuticals are just a few of the industries that might be good places to start.
3. Submit your application or business plan along with a complete entry form by the Challenge deadline.

10. How many entries can I submit?
 There is no limit to the number of entries you can submit. Each will be judged independently of the others.

11. When is the deadline for entry?
 The deadline to enter is Wednesday, June 18th 2008 at 11:59pm EST.

12. Who is eligible to enter?
 Individuals who are legal U.S. residents and over the age of 18 at the time the entry is submitted are eligible to enter.

13. How can I apply?
 Entries can be submitted at http://www.semantichacker.com/challenge/how-to-enter

14. Who reviews the entries?
 Judging will be performed by a panel of judges selected by the Sponsor from the TextWise advisory board, venture capitalists, the semantic developer community and TextWise.

15. What are the judging criteria?
 Qualified entries are judged based on the following subjective criteria:
* The potential to generate revenue via an application that can have demonstrable commercial viability and have the potential for significant financial impact on the application space to which it’s applied;
* The uniqueness of the idea;
* How it utilizes TextWise’s base technology; and
* How it solves a problem for the intended user/consumer/business audience.

16. When will the award recipient be announced?
 We will notify all Challenge participants of the outcome on or before Wednesday, September 10, 2008.

17. Is a winner guaranteed?
 We anticipate awarding a winner or winners within 12 weeks after the deadline. There is however a possibility that no entries meet our judging criteria. If that happens, we may consider extending the Challenge.

18. I don’t write code, how can I enter?
 There are three ways to enter to this Challenge. Use whichever best suits your talents:
1. Software application prototype
2. Business plan
3. Both

19. What if someone submits the same idea that I submitted?
 As the judging criteria indicates, the idea alone does not dictate the winner. It is the idea in combination of the execution of the application prototype and/or business plan that will be in consideration.

20. How will I know if I won?
 We will notify you as to the outcome of the Challenge by email.

National Lampoon Selects Pixsy for Search

May 6th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News, Updates | No Comments »

Pixsy, a search platform that powers private label video and image search engines, today announced a distribution partnership with National Lampoon, Inc., a dominant force in the U.S. comedy world for almost 40 years. Under the terms of the agreement, National Lampoon will utilize Pixsy’s advanced media search platform to offer custom branded video and image search to over five million unique users across their network of entertainment sites.

Pixsy’s award-winning media search technology enables National Lampoon to offer the most unique and advanced multimedia search product on the market, by custom tailoring the search index to comedy and entertainment. Pixsy technology makes it easy for any site to run a branded multimedia search engine with content customized to that specific audience, thereby creating new search activity and targeted advertising inventory.

“We chose Pixsy for their unique multimedia search product,” said Daniel Laikin, CEO of National Lampoon. “Pixsy is particularly strong in the comedy and entertainment category.” “We’re excited to be working with such a strong brand as National Lampoon in the area of multimedia search,” said Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy Corp.

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